Passage: Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1.226-49

BENEDICK: O, she misused me past the endurance of a

block! an oak but with one green leaf on it would have     [230]

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     [240]

all that Adam bad left him before he transgressed. She

would have made Hercules 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 ap-

parel. 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 follows her.

Send queries to Michael Best, English Department, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. V8W 3W1, Canada.