her rattle-brain as Beatrice, yet he was not pleased
at this free salutation: he thought it did not become a well-bred lady
to be so flippant with her tongue; and he remembered, when he was last
at Messina, that Beatrice used to select him to make her merry jests
upon. And as there is no one who so little likes to be made a jest of
as those who are apt to take the same liberty themselves, so it was
with Benedick and Beatrice; these two sharp wits never met in former
times but a perfect war of raillery was kept up between them, and they
always parted mutually displeased with each other. Therefore when
Beatrice stopped him in the middle of his discourse with telling him
nobody marked what he was saying, Benedick, affecting not to have
observed before that she was present, said, "What, my dear lady
Disdain, are you yet living?" And now war broke out afresh between
them, and a long jangling argument ensued, during which Beatrice,
although she knew he had so well approved his valour in the late war,
said that she would eat all he had killed there: and observing the
prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the
prince's jester." This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick
than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a
coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard,
knowing himself to be a brave man: but there is nothing that great
wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, because the charge
comes sometimes a little too near the truth; therefore Benedick
perfectly hated Beatrice, when she called him "the prince's jester."

The modest lady Hero was silent before the noble guests; and while
Claudio was attentively observing the improvement which time had made
in her beauty, and was contemplating the exquisite graces of her fine
figure (for she was an admirable young lady), the prince was highly
amused with listening to the humorous dialogue between Benedick
and Beatrice; and he said in a whisper to Leonato, "This is a
pleasant-spirited young lady. She were an excellent wife for
Benedick." Leonato replied to this suggestion, "O my lord, my lord,
if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad." But
though Leonato thought they would make a discordant pair, the prince
did not give up the idea of matching these two keen wits together.

When the prince returned with Claudio from the palace, he found that
the marriage he had devised b