Gender and misogyny

Quote

Character

Act/Scene

“In our last conflict, four of [Benedick’s] five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one”

Beatrice

Act 1 Scene 1

“He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid way between [Don John] and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.”

Beatrice

Act 2 Scene 1

“By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.”

Leonato

Act 2 Scene 1

“It is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and say, father, as it please you: and yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say, father, as it please me.”

Beatrice

Act 2 Scene 1

“Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes”

Leonato

Act 2 Scene 1

“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / Men were deceivers ever, / One foot in sea and one on shore, / To one thing constant never.”

Balthasar

Act 2 Scene 3

“But nature never framed a woman’s heart, / Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice: / Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, / Misprising what they look on”

Hero

Act 3 Scene 1

“if you love [Hero], then tomorrow wed her, but it would better fit your honour to change your mind.”

Don John

Act 3 Scene 2

“God give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding heavy.”

Hero

Act 3 Scene 4

“’Twill be heavier soon for the weight of a husband.”

Margaret

Act 3 Scene 4

“There, Leonato, take [Hero] back again, / Give not this rotten orange to your friend, / She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour, / Behold how like a maid she blushes here!”

Claudio

Act 4 Scene 4

“Oh fate! Take not away thy heavy hand, / Death is the fairest cover for [Hero’s] shame, / That may be wished for.”

Leonato

Act 4 Scene 1

“Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands; and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour, O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.”

Beatrice

Act 4 Scene 1

“Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count, Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”

Beatrice