William Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

ACT 2. 1. Scene I. A hall in LEONATO'S house. (continued)

BENEDICK.
O! she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak but with one
green leaf on it, would have answered her: my very visor began to
assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was duller than a great
thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me,
that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me.
She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as
terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would
infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were
endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she
would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club
to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the
infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure
her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell
as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose because they would go
thither; so indeed, all disquiet, horror and perturbation follow her.

[Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO.]

DON PEDRO.
Look! here she comes.

BENEDICK.
Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go
on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to
send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch
of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair
off the Great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies,
rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no
employment for me?

DON PEDRO.
None, but to desire your good company.

BENEDICK.
O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.

[Exit.]

DON PEDRO.
Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.