Much Ado About Nothing

1 Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice and
2 others.
3 LEONATO.
4 Was not Count John here at supper?
5 ANTONIO.
6 I saw him not.
7 BEATRICE.
8 How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am
9 heart-burned an hour after.
10 HERO.
11 He is of a very melancholy disposition.
12 BEATRICE.
13 He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way
14 between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing;
15 and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.
16 LEONATO.
17 Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s
18 mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s
19 face—
20 BEATRICE.
21 With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his
22 purse, such a man would win any woman in the world if a’ could get
23 her good will.
24 LEONATO.
25 By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou
26 be so shrewd of thy tongue.
27 ANTONIO.
28 In faith, she’s too curst.
29 BEATRICE.
30 Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending
31 that way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’
32 but to a cow too curst he sends none.
33 LEONATO.
34 So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?
35 BEATRICE.
36 Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at
37 him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a
38 husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.
39 LEONATO.
40 You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
41 BEATRICE.
42 What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him
43 my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he
44 that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is
45 not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I
46 will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes
47 into hell.
48 LEONATO.
49 Well then, go you into hell?
50 BEATRICE.
51 No; but to the gate; and there will the Devil meet me, like an
52 old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, ‘Get you to heaven,
53 Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.’ So
54 deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens: he shows me
55 where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.
56 ANTONIO.
57 [To Hero.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.
58 BEATRICE.
59 Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy,
60 and say, ‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all
61 that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another
62 curtsy, and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’
63 LEONATO.
64 Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
65 BEATRICE.
66 Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it
67 not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to
68 make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll
69 none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to
70 match in my kindred.
71 LEONATO.
72 Daughter, remember what I told you: if the Prince do solicit you
73 in that kind, you know your answer.
74 BEATRICE.
75 The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in
76 good time: if the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in
77 everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing,
78 wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace:
79 the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
80 fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and
81 ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into
82 the cinquepace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
83 LEONATO.
84 Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
85 BEATRICE.
86 I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.
87 LEONATO.
88 The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.
89 Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don
90 John, Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and Others, masked.
91 DON PEDRO.
92 Lady, will you walk about with your friend?
93 HERO.
94 So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for
95 the walk; and especially when I walk away.
96 DON PEDRO.
97 With me in your company?
98 HERO.
99 I may say so, when I please.
100 DON PEDRO.
101 And when please you to say so?
102 HERO.
103 When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!
104 DON PEDRO.
105 My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.
106 HERO.
107 Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.
108 DON PEDRO.
109 Speak low, if you speak love.
110 [Takes her aside.]
111 BALTHASAR.
112 Well, I would you did like me.
113 MARGARET.
114 So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.
115 BALTHASAR.
116 Which is one?
117 MARGARET.
118 I say my prayers aloud.
119 BALTHASAR.
120 I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.
121 MARGARET.
122 God match me with a good dancer!
123 BALTHASAR.
124 Amen.
125 MARGARET.
126 And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.
127 BALTHASAR.
128 No more words: the clerk is answered.
129 URSULA.
130 I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.
131 ANTONIO.
132 At a word, I am not.
133 URSULA.
134 I know you by the waggling of your head.
135 ANTONIO.
136 To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
137 URSULA.
138 You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very
139 man. Here’s his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.
140 ANTONIO.
141 At a word, I am not.
142 URSULA.
143 Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent
144 wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will
145 appear, and there’s an end.
146 BEATRICE.
147 Will you not tell me who told you so?
148 BENEDICK.
149 No, you shall pardon me.
150 BEATRICE.
151 Nor will you not tell me who you are?
152 BENEDICK.
153 Not now.
154 BEATRICE.
155 That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of
156 the ‘Hundred Merry Tales.’ Well, this was Signior
157 Benedick that said so.
158 BENEDICK.
159 What’s he?
160 BEATRICE.
161 I am sure you know him well enough.
162 BENEDICK.
163 Not I, believe me.
164 BEATRICE.
165 Did he never make you laugh?
166 BENEDICK.
167 I pray you, what is he?
168 BEATRICE.
169 Why, he is the Prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his
170 gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in
171 him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy; for he
172 both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him.
173 I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me!
174 BENEDICK.
175 When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.
176 BEATRICE.
177 Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which,
178 peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy;
179 and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no
180 supper that night. [Music within.] We must follow the leaders.
181 BENEDICK.
182 In every good thing.
183 BEATRICE.
184 Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.
185 [Dance. Then exeunt all but Don John, Borachio
186 and Claudio.]
187 DON JOHN.
188 Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her
189 father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor
190 remains.
191 BORACHIO.
192 And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.
193 DON JOHN.
194 Are you not Signior Benedick?
195 CLAUDIO.
196 You know me well; I am he.
197 DON JOHN.
198 Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is
199 enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her; she is no equal for
200 his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.
201 CLAUDIO.
202 How know you he loves her?
203 DON JOHN.
204 I heard him swear his affection.
205 BORACHIO.
206 So did I too; and he swore he would marry her tonight.
207 DON JOHN.
208 Come, let us to the banquet.
209 [Exeunt Don John and Borachio.]
210 CLAUDIO.
211 Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
212 But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
213 ’Tis certain so; the Prince wooss for himself.
214 Friendship is constant in all other things
215 Save in the office and affairs of love:
216 Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
217 Let every eye negotiate for itself
218 And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
219 Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
220 This is an accident of hourly proof,
221 Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!
222 Re-enter Benedick.
223 BENEDICK.
224 Count Claudio?
225 CLAUDIO.
226 Yea, the same.
227 BENEDICK.
228 Come, will you go with me?
229 CLAUDIO.
230 Whither?
231 BENEDICK.
232 Even to the next willow, about your own business, Count. What
233 fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like a usurer’s
234 chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear
235 it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.
236 CLAUDIO.
237 I wish him joy of her.
238 BENEDICK.
239 Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks.
240 But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?
241 CLAUDIO.
242 I pray you, leave me.
243 BENEDICK.
244 Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that
245 stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.
246 CLAUDIO.
247 If it will not be, I’ll leave you.
248 [Exit.]
249 BENEDICK.
250 Alas! poor hurt fowl. Now will he creep into sedges. But, that
251 my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool!
252 Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am
253 apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it is the base though bitter
254 disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person, and so gives
255 me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may.
256 Re-enter Don Pedro.
257 DON PEDRO.
258 Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?
259 BENEDICK.
260 Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him
261 here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told
262 him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I
263 offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as
264 being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.
265 DON PEDRO.
266 To be whipped! What’s his fault?
267 BENEDICK.
268 The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoy’d
269 with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals
270 it.
271 DON PEDRO.
272 Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.
273 BENEDICK.
274 Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland
275 too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have
276 bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest.
277 DON PEDRO.
278 I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.
279 BENEDICK.
280 If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.
281 DON PEDRO.
282 The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that
283 danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.
284 BENEDICK.
285 O! she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak but with
286 one green leaf on it would have answered her: my very visor began to
287 assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
288 myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was duller than a
289 great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon
290 me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me.
291 She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible
292 as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to
293 the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all
294 that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made
295 Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire
296 too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Ate in good
297 apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly,
298 while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and
299 people sin upon purpose because they would go thither; so indeed, all
300 disquiet, horror and perturbation follow her.
301 Re-enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero and Leonato.
302 DON PEDRO.
303 Look! here she comes.
304 BENEDICK.
305 Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end?
306 I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise
307 to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch
308 of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a
309 hair off the Great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the
310 Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy.
311 You have no employment for me?
312 DON PEDRO.
313 None, but to desire your good company.
314 BENEDICK.
315 O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
316 [Exit.]
317 DON PEDRO.
318 Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
319 BEATRICE.
320 Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for
321 it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me
322 with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.
323 DON PEDRO.
324 You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
325 BEATRICE.
326 So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the
327 mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
328 DON PEDRO.
329 Why, how now, Count! wherefore are you sad?
330 CLAUDIO.
331 Not sad, my lord.
332 DON PEDRO.
333 How then? Sick?
334 CLAUDIO.
335 Neither, my lord.
336 BEATRICE.
337 The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but
338 civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.
339 DON PEDRO.
340 I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I’ll
341 be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed
342 in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and, his
343 good will obtained; name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!
344 LEONATO.
345 Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his
346 Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!
347 BEATRICE.
348 Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.
349 CLAUDIO.
350 Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy,
351 if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away
352 myself for you and dote upon the exchange.
353 BEATRICE.
354 Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss,
355 and let not him speak neither.
356 DON PEDRO.
357 In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
358 BEATRICE.
359 Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy
360 side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.
361 CLAUDIO.
362 And so she doth, cousin.
363 BEATRICE.
364 Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I,
365 and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
366 DON PEDRO.
367 Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
368 BEATRICE.
369 I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath
370 your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent
371 husbands, if a maid could come by them.
372 DON PEDRO.
373 Will you have me, lady?
374 BEATRICE.
375 No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days:
376 your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your
377 Grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
378 DON PEDRO.
379 Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you;
380 for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.
381 BEATRICE.
382 No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star
383 danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!
384 LEONATO.
385 Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?
386 BEATRICE.
387 I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.
388 [Exit.]
389 DON PEDRO.
390 By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.
391 LEONATO.
392 There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord:
393 she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then, for I have
394 heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
395 herself with laughing.
396 DON PEDRO.
397 She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.
398 LEONATO.
399 O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.
400 DON PEDRO.
401 She were an excellent wife for Benedick.
402 LEONATO.
403 O Lord! my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk
404 themselves mad.
405 DON PEDRO.
406 Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?
407 CLAUDIO.
408 Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.
409 LEONATO.
410 Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night;
411 and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.
412 DON PEDRO.
413 Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant
414 thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim
415 undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring Signior
416 Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with
417 the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion
418 it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you
419 direction.
420 LEONATO.
421 My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’
422 watchings.
423 CLAUDIO.
424 And I, my lord.
425 DON PEDRO.
426 And you too, gentle Hero?
427 HERO.
428 I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good
429 husband.
430 DON PEDRO.
431 And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus
432 far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and
433 confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she
434 shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your two helps, will so
435 practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy
436 stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is
437 no longer an archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only
438 love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.
439 [Exeunt.]