Don Pedro, in referring to himself as Jove, may be tempted at the moment to speak for himself rather than for Claudio. Indeed, Don John, for sheer mischief, will take the occasion soon to get the news to Claudio that Don Pedro had indeed spoken for himself (though, in the end, he did not).
... the "Hundred Merry Tales"...
Benedick dances with Beatrice at the ball and, under the cover of anonymity, tells her of certain anonymous slanders he has heard concerning her. She repeats the information and guesses the informer, saying:
That I was disdainful,
and that I had my good wit
out of the "Hundred Merry Tales."
Well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.
- Act II, scene i, lines 128-30
The "Hundred Merry Tales" was a popular, and therefore well-worn, collection of funny stories, most of them coarse. It would be equivalent, in modern terms, to saying that she had gotten her witty sayings out of Joe Miller's joke book.
It was a deadly thing to say to Beatrice and in vengeance (she probably knew very well with whom she was dancing) she floods Benedick with cruel remarks which he cannot counter.
... the infernal Ate.. .
Benedick has so much the worse of it on this occasion that after the dance he boils over with frustration, and says to Don Pedro concerning Beatrice:
She would have made Hercules have turned spit,
yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too.
Come, talk not of her.
You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel.
- Act II, scene i, lines 250-54
She is such a shrew, in other words, that even Hercules would bow before her in fear.
As a matter of fact, the image is not too far removed from one of the legends concerning Hercules. As a punishment for some crime, Hercules was condemned to serve Omphale, Queen of Libya, for three years. She chose to have him do the woman's work about the house, spinning, cleaning, making beds, while she wore his lion's skin and carried his club.
As for Ate, she is the Greek goddess of vengeance and mischief, who created so much trouble even among the gods that she was cast out of heaven and condemned to live on earth, where, Benedick implies, she has taken on the likeness of Beatrice.
... the great Cham's beard...
And when Beatrice enters, Benedick bounds to his feet at once and demands to be sent away. He says to Don Pedro melodramatically:
Will your Grace command me any service
to the world's end? I will go on
the slightest errand now to the Antipodes
that you can devise to send me on;
I will fetch you a toothpicker now
from the furthest inch of Asia;
bring you the length of Prester John's foot;
fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard;
do you any embassage to the Pygmies-rather
than hold three words' conference with this harpy.
- Act II, scene i, lines 261-69
The Antipodes ("with the feet pointed opposite") is a term invented by the Greeks. When their philosophers worked out the fact that the earth was spherical, there appeared at once the odd and paradoxical situation that people might live on the other side of the earth, with their feet pointed upward (from the standpoint of the Greeks).
Since the temperature rose as one went south, some Greek philosophers suggested there was a burning zone about the equator that men could not pass and that the world of the Antipodes (the Southern Hemisphere) could never be reached.
(By Shakespeare's time this was shown to be false, but the Antipodes remained as a symbol of the distant and unattainable.)
Prester John ("John the Priest") was a mythical monarch whose existence was widely accepted in the later Middle Ages. He was supposed to be a Christian king of immense power, with wide dominions in Asia, a king who had conquered the pagan regions and converted them to Christianity (hence his title).
There were indeed Christians in the Far East. These were the Nestorian Christians, a heretical sect that had been driven out of the East Roman Empire in the fifth century and had found haven in Persia and beyond. They penetrated to central Asia and China and, for a while in the twelfth century, were influential among the Mongol tribes who were gaining power.
In 1145 a Syrian bishop, Hugh of Gebal, brought the tale to the papal court. He spoke of a great Christian monarch in the East, thus combining a Mongol conqueror (who was not a Christian) with the Nestorians (who were not kings). In 1177 Pope Alexander III wrote a letter