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Enter Beatrice.

Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.

Bene. You take pleasure then in the message?

Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knive’s point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior, fare you well.

Exit.

Bene. Ha! “Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner”—there’s a double meaning in that. “I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me”—that’s as much as to say, “Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.” If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.

Exit.

¶

Enter Hero and two gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursley.

Hero.

Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor,

There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice

Proposing with the Prince and Claudio.