Act 4, Scene 1

The Inside of a Church.

[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, &c.]
Leonato
1324 Come, Friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of marriage,
1325 and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.
Friar Francis
1326 You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?
Claudio
1327 No.
Leonato
1328 To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her.
Friar Francis
1329 Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?
Hero
1330 I do.
Friar Francis
1331 If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not be
1332 conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.
Claudio
1333 Know you any, Hero?
Hero
1334 None, my lord.
Friar Francis
1335 Know you any, count?
Leonato
1336 I dare make his answer; none.
Claudio
1337 O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not
1338 knowing what they do!
Benedick
1339 How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha!
1340 he!
Claudio
1341 Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave: Will you with free and
1342 unconstrained soul Give me this maid, your daughter?
Leonato
1343 As freely, son, as God did give her me.
Claudio
1344 And what have I to give you back whose worth
1345 May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?
Don Pedro
1346 Nothing, unless you render her again.
Claudio
1347 Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
1348 There, Leonato, take her back again:
1349 Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
1350 She's but the sign and semblance of her honour.
1351 Behold! how like a maid she blushes here.
1352 O! what authority and show of truth
1353 Can cunning sin cover itself withal.
1354 Comes not that blood as modest evidence
1355 To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
1356 All you that see her, that she were a maid,
1357 By these exterior shows? But she is none:
1358 She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
1359 Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.
Leonato
1360 What do you mean, my lord?
Claudio
1361 Not to be married,
1362 Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.
Leonato
1363 Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
1364 Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth,
1365 And made defeat of her virginity,—
Claudio
1366 I know what you would say: if I have known her,
1367 You'll say she did embrace me as a husband,
1368 And so extenuate theforehand sin: No, Leonato,
1369 I never tempted her with word too large;
1370 But, as a brother to his sister, show'd
1371 Bashful sincerity and comely love.
Hero
1372 And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?
Claudio
1373 Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
1374 You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
1375 As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
1376 But you are more intemperate in your blood
1377 Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals
1378 That rage in savage sensuality.
Hero
1379 Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?
Leonato
1380 Sweet prince, why speak not you?
Don Pedro
1381 What should I speak?
1382 I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about
1383 To link my dear friend to a common stale.
Leonato
1384 Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?
Don John
1385 Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.
Benedick
1386 This looks not like a nuptial.
Hero
1387 True! O God!
Claudio
1388 Leonato, stand I here? Is this the prince?
1389 Is this the prince's brother?
1390 Is this face Hero's? Are our eyes our own?
Leonato
1391 All this is so; but what of this, my lord?
Claudio
1392 Let me but move one question to your daughter,
1393 And by that fatherly and kindly power
1394 That you have in her, bid her answer truly.
Leonato
1395 I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.
Hero
1396 O, God defend me! how am I beset!
1397 What kind of catechizing call you this?
Claudio
1398 To make you answer truly to your name.
Hero
1399 Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
1400 With any just reproach?
Claudio
1401 Marry, that can Hero:
1402 Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue.
1403 hat man was he talk'd with you yesternight
1404 Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?
1405 Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.
Hero
1406 I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord.
Don Pedro
1407 Why, then are you no maiden.
1408 Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my honour,
1409 Myself, my brother, and this grieved count,
1410 Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
1411 Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window;
1412 Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
1413 Confess'd the vile encounters they have had
1414 A thousand times in secret.
Don John
1415 Fie, fie! they are not to be nam'd, my lord,
1416 Not to be spoke of;
1417 There is not chastity enough in language
1418 Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
1419 I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
Claudio
1420 O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,
1421 If half thy outward graces had been plac'd
1422 About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
1423 But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
1424 Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!
1425 For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,
1426 And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
1427 To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
1428 And never shall it more be gracious.
Leonato
1429 Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?
[HERO swoons.]
Beatrice
1430 Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?
Don John
1431 Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
1432 Smother her spirits up.
[Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN and CLAUDIO.]
Benedick
1433 How doth the lady?
Beatrice
1434 Dead, I think! help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior
1435 Benedick! Friar!
Leonato
1436 O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:
1437 Death is the fairest cover for her shame
1438 That may be wish'd for.
Beatrice
1439 How now, cousin Hero?
Friar Francis
1440 Have comfort, lady.
Leonato
1441 Dost thou look up?
Friar Francis
1442 Yea; wherefore should she not?
Leonato
1443 Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
1444 Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
1445 The story that is printed in her blood?
1446 Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;
1447 For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
1448 Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
1449 Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
1450 Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?
1451 Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?
1452 O! one too much by thee. Why had I one?
1453 Why ever wast thou lovely in mine eyes?
1454 Why had I not with charitable hand
1455 Took up a beggar's issue at my gates,
1456 Who smirched thus, and mir'd with infamy,
1457 I might have said, 'No part of it is mine;
1458 This shame derives itself from unknown loins?'
1459 But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,
1460 And mine that I was proud on, mine so much
1461 That I myself was to myself not mine,
1462 Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallen
1463 Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
1464 Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
1465 And salt too little which may season give
1466 To her foul-tainted flesh.
Benedick
1467 Sir, sir, be patient.
1468 For my part, I am so attir'd in wonder,
1469 I know not what to say.
Beatrice
1470 O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!
Benedick
1471 Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?
Beatrice
1472 No, truly, not; although, until last night I have this
1473 twelvemonth been her bedfellow.
Leonato
1474 Confirm'd, confirm'd! O! that is stronger made,
1475 Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron.
1476 Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,
1477 Who lov'd her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
1478 Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.
Friar Francis
1479 Hear me a little;
1480 For I have only been silent so long,
1481 And given way unto this course of fortune,
1482 By noting of the lady: I have mark'd
1483 A thousand blushing apparitions
1484 To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames
1485 In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
1486 And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire,
1487 To burn the errors that these princes hold
1488 Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;
1489 Trust not my reading nor my observations,
1490 Which with experimental seal doth warrant
1491 The tenure of my book; trust not my age,
1492 My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
1493 If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
1494 Under some biting error.
Leonato
1495 Friar, it cannot be.
1496 Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left
1497 Is that she will not add to her damnation
1498 A sin of perjury: she not denies it.
1499 Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse
1500 That which appears in proper nakedness?
Friar Francis
1501 Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of?
Hero
1502 They know that do accuse me, I know none;
1503 If I know more of any man alive
1504 Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
1505 Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!
1506 Prove you that any man with me convers'd
1507 At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight
1508 Maintain'd the change of words with any creature,
1509 Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.
Friar Francis
1510 There is some strange misprision in the princes.
Benedick
1511 Two of them have the very bent of honour;
1512 And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
1513 The practice of it lives in John the bastard,
1514 Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.
Leonato
1515 I know not. If they speak but truth of her,
1516 These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
1517 The proudest of them shall well hear of it.
1518 Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
1519 Nor age so eat up my invention,
1520 Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
1521 Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
1522 But they shall find, awak'd in such a kind,
1523 Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
1524 Ability in means and choice of friends,
1525 To quit me of them throughly.
Friar Francis
1526 Pause awhile, And let my counsel sway you in this case.
1527 Your daughter here the princes left for dead;
1528 Let her awhile be secretly kept in,
1529 And publish it that she is dead indeed:
1530 Maintain a mourning ostentation;
1531 nd on your family's old monument
1532 Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
1533 That appertain unto a burial.
Leonato
1534 What shall become of this? What will this do?
Friar Francis
1535 Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
1536 Change slander to remorse; that is some good.
1537 But not for that dream I on this strange course,
1538 But on this travail look for greater birth.
1539 She dying, as it must be so maintain'd,
1540 Upon the instant that she was accus'd,
1541 Shall be lamented, pitied and excus'd
1542 Of every hearer; for it so falls out
1543 That what we have we prize not to the worth
1544 Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
1545 Why, then we rack the value, then we find
1546 The virtue that possession would not show us
1547 Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
1548 When he shall hear she died upon his words,
1549 The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
1550 Into his study of imagination,
1551 And every lovely organ of her life
1552 Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,
1553 More moving-delicate, and full of life
1554 Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
1555 Than when she liv'd indeed: then shall he mourn,—
1556 If ever love had interest in his liver,—
1557 And wish he had not so accused her,
1558 No, though be thought his accusation true.
1559 Let this be so, and doubt not but success
1560 Will fashion the event in better shape
1561 Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
1562 But if all aim but this be levell'd false,
1563 The supposition of the lady's death
1564 Will quench the wonder of her infamy:
1565 And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,—
1566 As best befits her wounded reputation,—
1567 In some reclusive and religious life,
1568 Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.
Benedick
1569 Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:
1570 And though you know my inwardness and love
1571 Is very much unto the prince and Claudio,
1572 Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
1573 As secretly and justly as your soul
1574 Should with your body.
Leonato
1575 Being that I flow in grief, The smallest twine may lead me.
Friar Francis
1576 'Tis well consented: presently away;
1577 For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.
1578 Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day
1579 Perhaps is but prolong'd: have patience and endure.
[Exeunt FRIAR, HERO, and LEONATO.]
Benedick
1580 Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
Beatrice
1581 Yea, and I will weep a while longer.
Benedick
1582 I will not desire that.
Beatrice
1583 You have no reason; I do it freely.
Benedick
1584 Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.
Beatrice
1585 Ah! how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.
Benedick
1586 Is there any way to show such friendship?
Beatrice
1587 A very even way, but no such friend.
Benedick
1588 May a man do it?
Beatrice
1589 It is a man's office, but not yours.
Benedick
1590 I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that
1591 strange?
Beatrice
1592 As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say
1593 I loved nothing so well as you; but believe me not, and yet I lie not;
1594 I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.
Benedick
1595 By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
Beatrice
1596 Do not swear by it, and eat it.
Benedick
1597 I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that
1598 says I love not you.
Beatrice
1599 Will you not eat your word?
Benedick
1600 With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.
Beatrice
1601 Why then, God forgive me!
Benedick
1602 What offence, sweet Beatrice?
Beatrice
1603 You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved
1604 you.
Benedick
1605 And do it with all thy heart.
Beatrice
1606 I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
Benedick
1607 Come, bid me do anything for thee.
Beatrice
1608 Kill Claudio.
Benedick
1609 Ha! not for the wide world.
Beatrice
1610 You kill me to deny it. Farewell.
Benedick
1611 Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
Beatrice
1612 I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray
1613 you, let me go.
Benedick
1614 Beatrice,—
Beatrice
1615 In faith, I will go.
Benedick
1616 We'll be friends first.
Beatrice
1617 You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.
Benedick
1618 Is Claudio thine enemy?
Beatrice
1619 Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered,
1620 scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear
1621 her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public
1622 accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God, that I
1623 were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.
Benedick
1624 Hear me, Beatrice,—
Beatrice
1625 Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!
Benedick
1626 Nay, but Beatrice,—
Beatrice
1627 Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.
Benedick
1628 Beat—
Beatrice
1629 Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count
1630 Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for his sake,
1631 or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is
1632 melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned
1633 into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that
1634 only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing,
1635 therefore I will die a woman with grieving.
Benedick
1636 Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.
Beatrice
1637 Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.
Benedick
1638 Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?
Beatrice
1639 Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.
Benedick
1640 Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand,
1641 and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account.
1642 As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must
1643 say she is dead; and so, farewell.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1327stage direction note
“No.”
Claudio answers the friar's question 'You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?' with a flat 'No.' His grammatical evasion -- he refuses to be the active subject of the wedding -- announces his intention to refuse Hero publicly, but let the ceremony proceed far enough to shame her before witnesses.
TLN 1339rhetorical device
“Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing”
Benedick responds to Claudio's exclamatory outburst ('O! what men dare do!') by applying a grammar-school lesson: Latin grammars classified interjections (wordless cries of emotion) as a part of speech, with 'ha, he!' as examples of laughing ones. He is mocking Claudio's theatrical groaning as empty noise -- too bookish and detached to catch that something is seriously wrong.
TLN 1350archaic vocab
“sign and semblance of her honour”
'Semblance' means outward appearance, the look of a thing without the substance. 'Sign and semblance' together mean Hero has only the external marks of honour -- the looks, the blush, the display of modesty -- while Claudio claims her actual honour (chastity) is gone. The doubling of near-synonyms is a rhetorical figure called 'doublet,' a common way of emphasizing a point.
TLN 1358archaic vocab
“heat of a luxurious bed”
'Luxurious' in Shakespeare's English means lustful or lecherous, not comfortable or indulgent. Claudio is charging Hero with knowing the physical heat of illicit sex, not merely of sleeping in fine bedding.
TLN 1362archaic vocab
“knit my soul to an approved wanton”
'Approved' means proven, confirmed by evidence. 'Wanton' means a sexually promiscuous woman. Claudio says he will not marry someone whose loose conduct has been demonstrated -- 'proved' -- by what he claims to have witnessed.
TLN 1368archaic vocab
“extenuate theforehand sin”
'Extenuate' means to lessen or excuse the seriousness of. 'Theforehand sin' (printed as one word in some texts, or 'the forehand sin') means the sin committed beforehand -- sex before marriage. Claudio is pre-empting Leonato's natural defence: that if Claudio himself slept with Hero before the wedding, the pre-marital sex would be partly his fault and she would have reason to think herself his wife. Claudio denies he ever gave her that opportunity.
TLN 1374classical allusion
“Dian in her orb, As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown”
Diana (Latin Dian) was the Roman goddess of the moon and the hunt, sworn to perpetual virginity and the protector of female chastity. Her 'orb' is the moon itself, a disc of cold white light. To compare Hero to 'Dian in her orb' is to call her the very embodiment of chastity -- and the line that follows ('but you are more intemperate in your blood / Than Venus') drives the contrast home: Hero appeared as Diana but has acted as the goddess of sexual love.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 1376classical allusion
“more intemperate in your blood Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals”
Venus was the Roman goddess of sexual desire; 'intemperate in your blood' means ungoverned in sexual appetite, the blood being the Elizabethan seat of passion. 'Pampered animals that rage in savage sensuality' means animals kept well-fed and in heat, unrestrained by any discipline. Claudio piles up three terms -- Venus, pampered animals, savage sensuality -- to say Hero's lust exceeds even the goddess of love herself.
TLN 1383archaic vocab
“link my dear friend to a common stale”
'Stale' here means a prostitute -- a woman openly available to all ('common'). Don Pedro is saying his honour is damaged because he arranged the match that was supposed to join his dear friend Claudio to a respectable bride, but instead (he believes) bound him to a woman who is sexually available to any man.
TLN 1419archaic vocab
“sorry for thy much misgovernment”
'Misgovernment' means misconduct, especially sexual misconduct, the failure to govern one's own desires. Don John feigns regret that Hero has behaved so badly. The word makes female sexuality a matter of self-governance (or its lack), which was the standard Elizabethan framing: an unchaste woman had failed to rule herself.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1423rhetorical device
“most foul, most fair! farewell, Thou pure impiety, and impious purity”
Claudio's speech ends in a pair of oxymorons -- contradictions packed into single phrases. 'Most foul, most fair' sets the ultimate ugliness against the ultimate beauty in the same woman; 'pure impiety and impious purity' says Hero is both sinlessly religious in appearance and sacrilegiously corrupt in fact. Oxymoron was the standard rhetorical device for expressing impossible contradictions, and its use here is deliberate high rhetoric, meant to sound like devastating eloquence.
TLN 1445archaic vocab
“The story that is printed in her blood”
Leonato claims that Hero's blush writes her guilt visibly on her face: the story of her sin is 'printed' (legibly inscribed) in her 'blood' (the flush of colour in her cheeks, which Elizabethan physiology traced to the blood rising). In the same speech he asks 'Could she here deny / The story that is printed in her blood?' -- he is reading her blush as a text that cannot lie.
historical 'Nothing': noting, eavesdropping, and the bawdy pun
TLN 1454cultural context
“with charitable hand Took up a beggar's issue at my gates”
Leonato says he wishes he had picked up an abandoned beggar's child at his gate rather than cherished his own daughter, because then he could deny responsibility for her shame ('No part of it is mine; / This shame derives itself from unknown loins'). 'Issue' means offspring or child. Abandoning infants on doorsteps or at church gates was a known reality in early modern Europe; wealthy households sometimes adopted or raised such foundlings.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1462rhetorical device
“fallen Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again”
Leonato imagines Hero's honour as a body fallen into a pit of ink so deep that the whole ocean could not wash it clean. The image escalates from 'pit' (a single stain) to 'the wide sea' (unlimited water) to make dishonour feel permanent and absolute. The secondary image in the next line -- that the sea has 'salt too little' to season (preserve, or cleanse) 'her foul-tainted flesh' -- extends the metaphor into salting meat, as if Hero were carrion.
TLN 1490archaic vocab
“experimental seal doth warrant The tenure of my book”
'Experimental seal' means the confirmation stamp of long experience (not a scientific experiment). A 'seal' was the wax impression that authenticated a legal document; Friar Francis says his years of observation ('experimental') have given him a seal of authority that vouches for what he reads in Hero's face. 'The tenure of my book' means the substance or meaning of his whole learning and study (his personal record of experience).
TLN 1510archaic vocab
“strange misprision in the princes”
'Misprision' means a mistake or misunderstanding -- literally a mis-taking, a failure to grasp correctly. It was also a legal term for a crime, especially the concealment of a crime. Friar Francis uses it in the neutral sense: the princes have simply made a serious error of judgment, not a malicious lie. Benedick's reply takes the point further: he suspects the error was engineered by Don John.
TLN 1513cultural context
“The practice of it lives in John the bastard, Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies”
'Practice' here means scheming, plotting -- a deliberate plan of action, not mere accident. 'Frame of villanies' means the architecture or construction of wicked plots. Benedick is the first to say aloud what the audience has known: Don John has engineered the whole slander. The word 'bastard' (Don John's title, based on his illegitimate birth) was freighted with Elizabethan prejudice linking illegitimacy to duplicity and malice.
historical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 1524archaic vocab
“choice of friends, To quit me of them throughly”
'Quit me of them' means to be revenged on them, to make them pay -- literally, to get quits (even) with them. 'Throughly' is an older form of 'thoroughly.' Leonato is rallying himself: however diminished by age, grief, or loss of means, he will find the strength to make the accusers answer fully for what they have done.
TLN 1529cultural context
“publish it that she is dead indeed: Maintain a mourning ostentation”
'Ostentation' means a public display or show. 'Mourning ostentation' is the formal public performance of grief: wearing black, hanging funeral hatchments (heraldic panels) on the house, closing shutters, tolling the church bell. In Elizabethan England death involved an elaborate ceremony of visible mourning that had legal and social dimensions -- announcing a death publicly was a community act.
TLN 1538archaic vocab
“on this travail look for greater birth”
'Travail' means both labour (hard work) and the pains of childbirth -- both senses are active here. The Friar says he does not just hope for a modest result ('Change slander to remorse') but expects this plan to produce something greater: the metaphor is of a difficult labour that will deliver something remarkable. The pun on 'travail'/'travel' (journeying) was also current, implying that this difficult course will reach a better destination.
TLN 1544archaic vocab
“being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value”
'Rack the value' means to stretch or inflate the worth of something -- as on a rack (a device that stretched the body under torture), meaning to raise it to an extreme. The Friar is quoting a commonplace: people do not appreciate what they have until they lose it, at which point they overvalue it to the point of pain.
TLN 1556archaic vocab
“If ever love had interest in his liver”
Elizabethan physiology placed the seat of love and passion in the liver, not the heart. 'If ever love had interest in his liver' means: if Claudio ever truly loved Hero at all. 'Interest' means a claim or stake in something -- the liver as the body's treasury of emotion. The conditional is pointed: the Friar is not certain Claudio's feeling was real.
TLN 1595cultural context
“By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me”
Swearing by one's sword was a soldier's oath, invoking not just the weapon but the honour and identity bound up in it. Benedick, a professional soldier, swears by his principal tool of his trade. Beatrice immediately deflates it: 'Do not swear by it, and eat it' -- if the sword cannot be used for her cousin's cause (killing Claudio), Benedick should eat his oath rather than utter it. The exchange pivots the scene toward the 'Kill Claudio' demand.
TLN 1608cultural context
“Kill Claudio.”
Beatrice's two-word demand is the scene's pivot and the play's most famous line. It is not theatrical excess: a gentleman who publicly shamed a woman in a church, ruined her marriage, and left her for dead had given her kinsmen legitimate grounds for a duel or vendetta in both Italian custom and English honour culture. The problem for Beatrice is that she is a woman and cannot issue a challenge or fight it herself -- hence 'O God that I were a man!' The demand tests whether Benedick's declared love is more than words.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1619archaic vocab
“approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman”
'Approved in the height' means proven to the fullest degree -- confirmed as thoroughly as possible. Beatrice builds a tricolon of charges against Claudio: he has slandered Hero (lied about her publicly), scorned her (treated her with contempt), and dishonoured her (destroyed her social standing and reputation). The three terms escalate: a slander is a false word; scorn adds contempt; dishonour extends to her whole family.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1629wordplay
“a goodly Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely”
A 'comfect' (also 'comfit') is a sugar-coated confection -- a sweet made of sugar encasing a seed or spice. Beatrice calls Claudio 'Count Comfect' as a contemptuous pun on 'Count Claudio': he is all sweet coating with nothing inside, mere confection, a man of surface manners with no substance of courage or justice. 'A sweet gallant, surely!' -- the word 'sweet' repeats the insult -- drips with sarcasm.
TLN 1631rhetorical device
“manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue”
Beatrice builds a threefold parallel structure: manhood/melted into curtsies; valour/melted into compliment; men/turned into tongue. Each pairing replaces a virtue (manhood, valour) with its courtly shadow (bowing, polished speech). 'Cursies' means curtsies -- the formal bow of court etiquette. 'Compliment' means polished, formulaic courtesy, as opposed to genuine feeling or action. She is arguing that the aristocratic men around her have swapped substance for performance.
TLN 1633classical allusion
“as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it”
Hercules (Greek Herakles) was the greatest strongman-hero of classical myth, the byword for irresistible physical courage. Beatrice uses him sarcastically: the 'valour' displayed by Count Claudio and his kind amounts to telling a lie and insisting on it under oath -- the exact opposite of Hercules' legendary feats of arms. A man who 'swears' a falsehood is also a man who breaks his oath, which was the deepest dishonour in the military code.
classical Hercules and his labours
TLN 1640cultural context
“I am engaged, I will challenge him”
'Engaged' means pledged, bound by honour. Benedick has committed himself -- not just to Beatrice but to a code that requires a gentleman to back his word with action. 'I will challenge him' means he will send Claudio a formal written challenge to a duel: a document naming the offence and demanding satisfaction by combat. This was the specific mechanism of honour culture, and making it work required Benedick to act against his former closest allies.