Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/230

224 happy hour; I was about to protest I loved you.

Bene. And do it with all thy heart.

Beat. I love you with so much of my heart, that none is left to protest."

And now that their mutual confessions have been so wittily and earnestly given, Beatrice recurs to what she has never for a moment forgotten, – the wrongs of her cousin, the outraged honour of the house of which she is herself a scion, the stain on its escutcheon. These must be avenged, and, if Benedick indeed loves her, it must be he who shall stand forth as the avenger, – for, as her accepted lover, that will be his "office." So when he says, "Come, bid me do anything for thee!" in a breath she exclaims, "Kill Claudio!" This demand, spoken with an intensity which leaves no room to doubt that she is thoroughly in earnest, staggers Benedick. Claudio is his chosen friend, they have just gone through the perils of war together, and he replies, "Ha! not for the wide world!" "You kill me to deny; farewell," says Beatrice, and is about to leave him. In vain he importunes her to remain; and now he is made to see indeed the strength and earnestness of her nature. All the pent-up passion that has shaken her during the previous scene, breaks out: –

"Beat. In faith, I will go.

Bene. We'll be friends first.

Beat. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

Bene. Is Claudio thine enemy?

Beat. Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? Oh, that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands; and then with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour, – O Heaven, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place!

Bene. Hear me, Beatrice; ––

Beat. Talk with a man out of a window! A proper saying!

Bene. Nay, but Beatrice; ––

Beat. Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

Bene. Beat––

Beat. Princes and Counties! Surely a princely testimony, a good Count-Confect, a sweet gallant surely! Oh, that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongues, and trim ones too. He is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it! I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving."

In her anger and distress Beatrice will not, cannot listen to what Benedick would say. At last he has a chance, when her tears are streaming, and her invectives are exhausted. "By this hand, I love thee!" he says, and he has been loving her more and more all through her burst of generous and eloquent indignation. "Use it for my love," she replies, still quivering with emotion, "some other way than swearing by it!" Then with all seriousness he asks her, "Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?" As serious and solemn is her answer, "Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul!" His rejoinder is all she could desire –

"Enough, I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead. And so, farewell."

And so they part, each with a much higher respect for the other than before. Thanks to the poet's skill, the trouble that has fallen on Leonato's house has served to bind them to each other by the strongest tie, and to make their mutual re-