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
velour 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 trim ' 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