From Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, scene
i, this is an example of clever wordplay by Benedick. Using an analogy, Benedick compares
Beatrice to a dish of food, which he does not care for. He goes on to make a pun, using the
epithet "Lady Tongue" not only to stand for Beatrice (as a metonym), but also the type of meat
she is (tongue, a commonly eaten food in those days--not human, of course, but cow's). In other
words, Benedick is saying that all Beatrice does is talk.
Benedick's
joke would have gotten many laughs on stage in Shakespeare's day, for women were often
stereotyped as being gossipers and loose-lipped. Ironically, it is Benedick who talks as much,
or more, than Beatrice, so his words are used as verbal irony by Shakespeare to show the sexist
double standard.
It is important to note that men judged women's
talk as they did their promiscuity, meaning that the more a woman talked, the more she went to
bed. So, there is a bit of innuendo in Benedick's statement as well.
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