'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 between Benedick and Beatrice was not the
only one projected in that good company, for Claudio spoke in such
terms of Hero, as made the prince guess at what was passing in his
heart; and he liked it well, and he said to Claudio: 'Do you affect
Hero?' To this question Claudio replied: 'O my lord, when I was last at
Messina, I looked upon her with a soldier's eye, that liked, but had no
leisure for loving; but now, in this happy time of peace, thoughts of
war have left their places vacant in my mind, and in their room come
thronging soft and delicate thoughts, all prompting me how fair young
Hero is, reminding me that I liked her before I went to the wars.'
Claudio's confession of his love for Hero so wrought upon the prince,
that he lost no time in soliciting the consent of Leonato to accept of
Claudio for a son-in-law. Leonato agreed to this proposal, and the
prince found no great difficulty in persuading the gentle Hero herself
to listen to the suit of the noble Claudio, who was a lord of rare
endowments, and highly accomplished, and Claudio, assisted by his kind
prince, soon prevailed upon Leonato to fix an early day for