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Enter Beatrice.

BEATRICE:

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

BENEDICK:

Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.(225)

BEATRICE:

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.

BENEDICK:

You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE:

Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point,(230)
and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior?
Fare you well.

Exit.

BENEDICK:

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.’(235)
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.

• bird related to the crow

1. Strategies for Understanding Shakespeare's Language
2. Reading Pointers for Sharper Insight
3. Dramatis Personae
4. Act I
   1. Scene I
   2. Scene II
   3. Scene III
5. Act II
   1. Scene I
   2. Scene II
   3. Scene III
6. Act III
   1. Scene I
   2. Scene II
   3. Scene III
   4. Scene IV
   5. Scene V
7. Act IV
   1. Scene I
   2. Scene II
8. Act V
   1. Scene I
   2. Scene II
   3. Scene III
   4. Scene IV
9. Copyright