William Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

ACT 5. 2. Scene II. LEONATO'S Garden. (continued)

BEATRICE.
Yea, signior; and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK.
O, stay but till then!

BEATRICE.
'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with
that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you
and Claudio.

BENEDICK.
Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICE.
Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and
foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

BENEDICK.
Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is
thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge,
and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a
coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which of my bad parts didst
thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICE.
For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil
that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them.
But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK.
'Suffer love,' a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love
thee against my will.

BEATRICE.
In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite it
for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that
which my friend hates.

BENEDICK.
Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE.
It appears not in this confession: there's not one wise man among
twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICK.
An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good
neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he
dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and
the widow weeps.

BEATRICE.
And how long is that think you?