Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a
child.
Leonato
Much Ado About Nothing Act I, Scene i, Line xxx
I can’t believe
it took me so long to figure this line out. Here’s the setup: Don Pedro asks Leonato
if the young woman with him is his daughter. Leonato replies, Her mother
hath many times told me so. Wise-ass Benedick chimes in, Were
you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? That's when Leonato replies with Today’s Line,
no; for then you were a child.
How did I not
get that? In case you’re as dull witted as myself, Leonato is saying that he
wasn’t in doubt because Benedick was too young then to have fathered her. In
other words, Leonato is saying that Benedick is a lady’s man, to put it nicely, and since he was just a
child when this girl was born, he (Leonato), does not have to worry about his
wife having cheated on him with Benedick. How hard is that? How did I not get
that right away?
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