ARM Club 1/ARM_CLUB_CD.iso/contents/books/progs/shakespear/muchado/MuchAdo_1

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        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


        DRAMATIS PERSONAE


DON PEDRO       prince of Arragon.

DON JOHN        his bastard brother.

CLAUDIO a young lord of Florence.

BENEDICK        a young lord of Padua.

LEONATO governor of Messina.

ANTONIO his brother.

BALTHASAR       attendant on Don Pedro.


CONRADE |
        |  followers of Don John.
BORACHIO        |


FRIAR FRANCIS:

DOGBERRY        a constable.

VERGES  a headborough.
        A Sexton.
        A Boy.

HERO    daughter to Leonato.

BEATRICE        niece to Leonato.


MARGARET        |
        |  gentlewomen attending on Hero.
URSULA  |


        Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c. (Lord:)
        (Messenger:)
        (Watchman:)
        (First Watchman:)
        (Second Watchman:)


SCENE   Messina.




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT I



SCENE I Before LEONATO'S house.


        [Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a
        Messenger]

LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon
        comes this night to Messina.

Messenger       He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off
        when I left him.

LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

Messenger       But few of any sort, and none of name.

LEONATO A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings
        home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath
        bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

Messenger       Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by
        Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the
        promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb,
        the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better
        bettered expectation than you must expect of me to
        tell you how.

LEONATO He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much
        glad of it.

Messenger       I have already delivered him letters, and there
        appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could
        not show itself modest enough without a badge of
        bitterness.

LEONATO Did he break out into tears?

Messenger       In great measure.

LEONATO A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces
        truer than those that are so washed. How much
        better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

BEATRICE        I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the
        wars or no?

Messenger       I know none of that name, lady: there was none such
        in the army of any sort.

LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece?

HERO    My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

Messenger       O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE        He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged
        Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading
        the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged
        him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he
        killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath
        he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much;
        but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

Messenger       He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

BEATRICE        You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it:
        he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an
        excellent stomach.

Messenger       And a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICE        And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord?

Messenger       A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all
        honourable virtues.

BEATRICE        It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man:
        but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal.

LEONATO You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a
        kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her:
        they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit
        between them.

BEATRICE        Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last
        conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and
        now is the whole man governed with one: so that if
        he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him
        bear it for a difference between himself and his
        horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left,
        to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
        companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

Messenger       Is't possible?

BEATRICE        Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as
        the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the
        next block.

Messenger       I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

BEATRICE        No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray
        you, who is his companion? Is there no young
        squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Messenger       He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

BEATRICE        O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he
        is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker
        runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if
        he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a
        thousand pound ere a' be cured.

Messenger       I will hold friends with you, lady.

BEATRICE        Do, good friend.

LEONATO You will never run mad, niece.

BEATRICE        No, not till a hot January.

Messenger       Don Pedro is approached.

        [Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK,
        and BALTHASAR]

DON PEDRO       Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your
        trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid
        cost, and you encounter it.

LEONATO Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of
        your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should
        remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides
        and happiness takes his leave.

DON PEDRO       You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this
        is your daughter.

LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICK        Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

LEONATO Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

DON PEDRO       You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this
        what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers
        herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an
        honourable father.

BENEDICK        If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not
        have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as
        like him as she is.

BEATRICE        I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
        Benedick: nobody marks you.

BENEDICK        What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

BEATRICE        Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
        such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
        Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
        in her presence.

BENEDICK        Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I
        am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I
        would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard
        heart; for, truly, I love none.

BEATRICE        A dear happiness to women: they would else have
        been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God
        and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I
        had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man
        swear he loves me.

BENEDICK        God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some
        gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate
        scratched face.

BEATRICE        Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such
        a face as yours were.

BENEDICK        Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

BEATRICE        A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

BENEDICK        I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and
        so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's
        name; I have done.

BEATRICE        You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

DON PEDRO       That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio
        and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath
        invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at
        the least a month; and he heartily prays some
        occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no
        hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEONATO If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.

        [To DON JOHN]

        Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to
        the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

DON JOHN        I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank
        you.

LEONATO Please it your grace lead on?

DON PEDRO       Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

        [Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO]

CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK        I noted her not; but I looked on her.

CLAUDIO Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK        Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for
        my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak
        after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIO No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

BENEDICK        Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
        praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
        for a great praise: only this commendation I can
        afford her, that were she other than she is, she
        were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I
        do not like her.

CLAUDIO Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me
        truly how thou likest her.

BENEDICK        Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

CLAUDIO Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICK        Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this
        with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack,
        to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a
        rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take
        you, to go in the song?

CLAUDIO In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
        looked on.

BENEDICK        I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such
        matter: there's her cousin, an she were not
        possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty
        as the first of May doth the last of December. But I
        hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

CLAUDIO I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the
        contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENEDICK        Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world
        one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?
        Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?
        Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck
        into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away
        Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

        [Re-enter DON PEDRO]

DON PEDRO       What secret hath held you here, that you followed
        not to Leonato's?

BENEDICK        I would your grace would constrain me to tell.

DON PEDRO       I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICK        You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb
        man; I would have you think so; but, on my
        allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is
        in love. With who? now that is your grace's part.
        Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's
        short daughter.

CLAUDIO If this were so, so were it uttered.

BENEDICK        Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor
        'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be
        so.'

CLAUDIO If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it
        should be otherwise.

DON PEDRO       Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUDIO You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

DON PEDRO       By my troth, I speak my thought.

CLAUDIO And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

BENEDICK        And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

CLAUDIO That I love her, I feel.

DON PEDRO       That she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICK        That I neither feel how she should be loved nor
        know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that
        fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.

DON PEDRO       Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite
        of beauty.

CLAUDIO And never could maintain his part but in the force
        of his will.

BENEDICK        That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
        brought me up, I likewise give her most humble
        thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my
        forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,
        all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do
        them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the
        right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
        I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

DON PEDRO       I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENEDICK        With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,
        not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood
        with love than I will get again with drinking, pick
        out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me
        up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
        blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO       Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
        wilt prove a notable argument.

BENEDICK        If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot
        at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on
        the shoulder, and called Adam.

DON PEDRO       Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull
        doth bear the yoke.'

BENEDICK        The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible
        Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set
        them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,
        and in such great letters as they write 'Here is
        good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign
        'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'

CLAUDIO If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

DON PEDRO       Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in
        Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENEDICK        I look for an earthquake too, then.

DON PEDRO       Well, you temporize with the hours. In the
        meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to
        Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will
        not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made
        great preparation.

BENEDICK        I have almost matter enough in me for such an
        embassage; and so I commit you--

CLAUDIO To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,--

DON PEDRO       The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK        Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
        discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
        the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
        you flout old ends any further, examine your
        conscience: and so I leave you.

        [Exit]

CLAUDIO My liege, your highness now may do me good.

DON PEDRO       My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
        And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
        Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUDIO Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

DON PEDRO       No child but Hero; she's his only heir.
        Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

CLAUDIO O, my lord,
        When you went onward on this ended action,
        I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
        That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
        Than to drive liking to the name of love:
        But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts
        Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
        Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
        All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
        Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.

DON PEDRO       Thou wilt be like a lover presently
        And tire the hearer with a book of words.
        If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
        And I will break with her and with her father,
        And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end
        That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?

CLAUDIO How sweetly you do minister to love,
        That know love's grief by his complexion!
        But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
        I would have salved it with a longer treatise.

DON PEDRO       What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
        The fairest grant is the necessity.
        Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest,
        And I will fit thee with the remedy.
        I know we shall have revelling to-night:
        I will assume thy part in some disguise
        And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
        And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
        And take her hearing prisoner with the force
        And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
        Then after to her father will I break;
        And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
        In practise let us put it presently.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT I



SCENE II        A room in LEONATO's house.


        [Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting]

LEONATO How now, brother! Where is my cousin, your son?
        hath he provided this music?

ANTONIO He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell
        you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.

LEONATO Are they good?

ANTONIO As the event stamps them: but they have a good
        cover; they show well outward. The prince and Count
        Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine
        orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine:
        the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my
        niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it
        this night in a dance: and if he found her
        accordant, he meant to take the present time by the
        top and instantly break with you of it.

LEONATO Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?

ANTONIO A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and
        question him yourself.

LEONATO No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear
        itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal,
        that she may be the better prepared for an answer,
        if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it.

        [Enter Attendants]

        Cousins, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you
        mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your
        skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT I



SCENE III       The same.


        [Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE]

CONRADE What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out
        of measure sad?

DON JOHN        There is no measure in the occasion that breeds;
        therefore the sadness is without limit.

CONRADE You should hear reason.

DON JOHN        And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it?

CONRADE If not a present remedy, at least a patient
        sufferance.

DON JOHN        I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest thou art,
        born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral
        medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide
        what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile
        at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait
        for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and
        tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and
        claw no man in his humour.

CONRADE Yea, but you must not make the full show of this
        till you may do it without controlment. You have of
        late stood out against your brother, and he hath
        ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is
        impossible you should take true root but by the
        fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful
        that you frame the season for your own harvest.

DON JOHN        I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in
        his grace, and it better fits my blood to be
        disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob
        love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to
        be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied
        but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with
        a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I
        have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my
        mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do
        my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and
        seek not to alter me.

CONRADE Can you make no use of your discontent?

DON JOHN        I make all use of it, for I use it only.
        Who comes here?

        [Enter BORACHIO]

        What news, Borachio?

BORACHIO        I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your
        brother is royally entertained by Leonato: and I
        can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

DON JOHN        Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?
        What is he for a fool that betroths himself to
        unquietness?

BORACHIO        Marry, it is your brother's right hand.

DON JOHN        Who? the most exquisite Claudio?

BORACHIO        Even he.

DON JOHN        A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks
        he?

BORACHIO        Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

DON JOHN        A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?

BORACHIO        Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a
        musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand
        in hand in sad conference: I whipt me behind the
        arras; and there heard it agreed upon that the
        prince should woo Hero for himself, and having
        obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

DON JOHN        Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to
        my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the
        glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I
        bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me?

CONRADE To the death, my lord.

DON JOHN        Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the
        greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of
        my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done?

BORACHIO        We'll wait upon your lordship.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT II



SCENE I A hall in LEONATO'S house.


        [Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others]


LEONATO Was not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIO I saw him not.

BEATRICE        How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see
        him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

HERO    He is of a very melancholy disposition.

BEATRICE        He were an excellent man that were made just in the
        midway between him and Benedick: the one is too
        like an image and says nothing, and the other too
        like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATO Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's
        mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior
        Benedick's face,--

BEATRICE        With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money
        enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman
        in the world, if a' could get her good-will.

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

ANTONIO In faith, she's too curst.

BEATRICE        Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's
        sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst
        cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none.

LEONATO So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

BEATRICE        Just, if he send me no husband; for the which
        blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and
        evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a
        beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

LEONATO You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE        What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel
        and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a
        beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no
        beard is less than a man: and he that is more than
        a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a
        man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take
        sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his
        apes into hell.

LEONATO Well, then, go you into hell?

BEATRICE        No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet
        me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and
        say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to
        heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver
        I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the
        heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and
        there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANTONIO [To HERO]  Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled
        by your father.

BEATRICE        Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy
        and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all
        that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else
        make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please
        me.'

LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

BEATRICE        Not till God make men of some other metal than
        earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be
        overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make
        an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
        No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren;
        and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

LEONATO Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince
        do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

BEATRICE        The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be
        not wooed in good time: if the prince be too
        important, tell him there is measure in every thing
        and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero:
        wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,
        a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot
        and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
        fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a
        measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
        repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the
        cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

LEONATO Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

BEATRICE        I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.

        [All put on their masks]

        [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR,
        DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA and others, masked]

DON PEDRO       Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

HERO    So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing,
        I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.

DON PEDRO       With me in your company?

HERO    I may say so, when I please.

DON PEDRO       And when please you to say so?

HERO    When I like your favour; for God defend the lute
        should be like the case!

DON PEDRO       My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.

HERO    Why, then, your visor should be thatched.

DON PEDRO       Speak low, if you speak love.

        [Drawing her aside]

BALTHASAR       Well, I would you did like me.

MARGARET        So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many
        ill-qualities.

BALTHASAR       Which is one?

MARGARET        I say my prayers aloud.

BALTHASAR       I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.

MARGARET        God match me with a good dancer!

BALTHASAR       Amen.

MARGARET        And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is
        done! Answer, clerk.

BALTHASAR       No more words: the clerk is answered.

URSULA  I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.

ANTONIO At a word, I am not.

URSULA  I know you by the waggling of your head.

ANTONIO To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

URSULA  You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were
        the very man. Here's his dry hand up and down: you
        are he, you are he.

ANTONIO At a word, I am not.

URSULA  Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your
        excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to,
        mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there's an
        end.

BEATRICE        Will you not tell me who told you so?

BENEDICK        No, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICE        Nor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICK        Not now.

BEATRICE        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.

BENEDICK        What's he?

BEATRICE        I am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICK        Not I, believe me.

BEATRICE        Did he never make you laugh?

BENEDICK        I pray you, what is he?

BEATRICE        Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool;
        only his gift is in devising impossible slanders:
        none but libertines delight in him; and the
        commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany;
        for he both pleases men and angers them, and then
        they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in
        the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

BENEDICK        When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

BEATRICE        Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me;
        which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at,
        strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a
        partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no
        supper that night.

        [Music]

        We must follow the leaders.

BENEDICK        In every good thing.

BEATRICE        Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at
        the next turning.

        [Dance. Then exeunt all except DON JOHN, BORACHIO,
        and CLAUDIO]

DON JOHN        Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath
        withdrawn her father to break with him about it.
        The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.

BORACHIO        And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

DON JOHN        Are not you Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO You know me well; I am he.

DON JOHN        Signior, you are very near my brother in his love:
        he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him
        from her: she is no equal for his birth: you may
        do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUDIO How know you he loves her?

DON JOHN        I heard him swear his affection.

BORACHIO        So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

DON JOHN        Come, let us to the banquet.

        [Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO]

CLAUDIO Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
        But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
        'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
        Friendship is constant in all other things
        Save in the office and affairs of love:
        Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
        Let every eye negotiate for itself
        And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
        Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
        This is an accident of hourly proof,
        Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

        [Re-enter BENEDICK]

BENEDICK        Count Claudio?

CLAUDIO Yea, the same.

BENEDICK        Come, will you go with me?

CLAUDIO Whither?

BENEDICK        Even to the next willow, about your own business,
        county. What fashion will you wear the garland of?
        about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under
        your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear
        it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

CLAUDIO I wish him joy of her.

BENEDICK        Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier: so they
        sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would
        have served you thus?

CLAUDIO I pray you, leave me.

BENEDICK        Ho! now you strike like the blind man: 'twas the
        boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

CLAUDIO If it will not be, I'll leave you.

        [Exit]

BENEDICK        Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges.
        But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not
        know me! The prince's fool! Ha? It may be I go
        under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I
        am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it
        is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice
        that puts the world into her person and so gives me
        out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

        [Re-enter DON PEDRO]

DON PEDRO       Now, signior, where's the count? did you see him?

BENEDICK        Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.
        I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a
        warren: I told him, and I think I told him true,
        that your grace had got the good will of this young
        lady; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree,
        either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or
        to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

DON PEDRO       To be whipped! What's his fault?

BENEDICK        The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being
        overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his
        companion, and he steals it.

DON PEDRO       Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The
        transgression is in the stealer.

BENEDICK        Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made,
        and the garland too; for the garland he might have
        worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on
        you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' nest.

DON PEDRO       I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to
        the owner.

BENEDICK        If their singing answer your saying, by my faith,
        you say honestly.

DON PEDRO       The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the
        gentleman that danced with her told her she is much
        wronged by you.

BENEDICK        O, she misused me past the endurance of a block!
        an oak but with one green leaf on it would have
        answered her; my very visor began to assume life and
        scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
        myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was
        duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest
        with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood
        like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at
        me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs:
        if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
        there were no living near her; she would infect to
        the north star. I would not marry her, though she
        were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before
        he transgressed: 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. I would to God
        some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while
        she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a
        sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they
        would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror
        and perturbation follows her.

DON PEDRO       Look, here she comes.

        [Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO]

BENEDICK        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 tooth-picker 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 Pigmies,
        rather than hold three words' conference with this
        harpy. You have no employment for me?

DON PEDRO       None, but to desire your good company.

BENEDICK        O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot
        endure my Lady Tongue.

        [Exit]

DON PEDRO       Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
        Signior Benedick.

BEATRICE        Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave
        him use for it, a double heart for his single one:
        marry, once before he won it of me with false dice,
        therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

DON PEDRO       You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

BEATRICE        So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I
        should prove the mother of fools. I have brought
        Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

DON PEDRO       Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?

CLAUDIO Not sad, my lord.

DON PEDRO       How then? sick?

CLAUDIO Neither, my lord.

BEATRICE        The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor
        well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and
        something of that jealous complexion.

DON PEDRO       I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true;
        though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is
        false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and
        fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father,
        and his good will obtained: name the day of
        marriage, and God give thee joy!

LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my
        fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an
        grace say Amen to it.

BEATRICE        Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUDIO Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
        but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as
        you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for
        you and dote upon the exchange.

BEATRICE        Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth
        with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

DON PEDRO       In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEATRICE        Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on
        the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his
        ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIO And so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICE        Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the
        world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a
        corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!

DON PEDRO       Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEATRICE        I would rather have one of your father's getting.
        Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your
        father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

DON PEDRO       Will you have me, lady?

BEATRICE        No, my lord, unless I might have another for
        working-days: your grace is too costly to wear
        every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
        was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

DON PEDRO       Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
        becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
        a merry hour.

BEATRICE        No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there
        was a star danced, and under that was I born.
        Cousins, God give you joy!

LEONATO Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEATRICE        I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon.

        [Exit]

DON PEDRO       By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

LEONATO There's little of the melancholy element in her, my
        lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
        not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
        she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
        herself with laughing.

DON PEDRO       She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATO O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

DON PEDRO       She were an excellent wife for Benedict.

LEONATO O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,
        they would talk themselves mad.

DON PEDRO       County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUDIO To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love
        have all his rites.

LEONATO Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just
        seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all
        things answer my mind.

DON PEDRO       Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing:
        but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go
        dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of
        Hercules' labours; which is, to bring Signior
        Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of
        affection the one with the other. I would fain have
        it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if
        you three will but minister such assistance as I
        shall give you direction.

LEONATO My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten
        nights' watchings.

CLAUDIO And I, my lord.

DON PEDRO       And you too, gentle Hero?

HERO    I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
        cousin to a good husband.

DON PEDRO       And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that
        I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble
        strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I
        will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she
        shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your
        two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in
        despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he
        shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this,
        Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be
        ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me,
        and I will tell you my drift.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT II



SCENE II        The same.


        [Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO]

DON JOHN        It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the
        daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIO        Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

DON JOHN        Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be
        medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him,
        and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges
        evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORACHIO        Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no
        dishonesty shall appear in me.

DON JOHN        Show me briefly how.

BORACHIO        I think I told your lordship a year since, how much
        I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting
        gentlewoman to Hero.

DON JOHN        I remember.

BORACHIO        I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night,
        appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window.

DON JOHN        What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIO        The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to
        the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that
        he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned
        Claudio--whose estimation do you mightily hold
        up--to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.

DON JOHN        What proof shall I make of that?

BORACHIO        Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio,
        to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any
        other issue?

DON JOHN        Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.

BORACHIO        Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and
        the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know
        that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the
        prince and Claudio, as,--in love of your brother's
        honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's
        reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the
        semblance of a maid,--that you have discovered
        thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial:
        offer them instances; which shall bear no less
        likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window,
        hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me
        Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night
        before the intended wedding,--for in the meantime I
        will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be
        absent,--and there shall appear such seeming truth
        of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be called
        assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

DON JOHN        Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put
        it in practise. Be cunning in the working this, and
        thy fee is a thousand ducats.

BORACHIO        Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning
        shall not shame me.

DON JOHN        I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT II



SCENE III       LEONATO'S orchard.


        [Enter BENEDICK]

BENEDICK        Boy!

        [Enter Boy]

Boy     Signior?

BENEDICK        In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither
        to me in the orchard.

Boy     I am here already, sir.

BENEDICK        I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.

        [Exit Boy]

        I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
        another man is a fool when he dedicates his
        behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at
        such shallow follies in others, become the argument
        of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man
        is Claudio. I have known when there was no music
        with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he
        rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known
        when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a
        good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake,
        carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to
        speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man
        and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his
        words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many
        strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with
        these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not
        be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but
        I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster
        of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman
        is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
        well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
        graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in
        my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise,
        or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her;
        fair, or I'll   never look on her; mild, or come not
        near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
        discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
        be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and
        Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.

        [Withdraws]

        [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]

DON PEDRO       Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
        As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!

DON PEDRO       See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIO O, very well, my lord: the music ended,
        We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

        [Enter BALTHASAR with Music]

DON PEDRO       Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again.

BALTHASAR       O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
        To slander music any more than once.

DON PEDRO       It is the witness still of excellency
        To put a strange face on his own perfection.
        I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

BALTHASAR       Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;
        Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
        To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes,
        Yet will he swear he loves.

DON PEDRO       Now, pray thee, come;
        Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,
        Do it in notes.

BALTHASAR                         Note this before my notes;
        There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

DON PEDRO       Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks;
        Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing.
        [Air]

BENEDICK        Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it
        not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out
        of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when
        all's done.

        [The Song]

BALTHASAR            Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
        Men were deceivers ever,
        One foot in sea and one on shore,
        To one thing constant never:
        Then sigh not so, but let them go,
        And be you blithe and bonny,
        Converting all your sounds of woe
        Into Hey nonny, nonny.

        Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
        Of dumps so dull and heavy;
        The fraud of men was ever so,
        Since summer first was leafy:
        Then sigh not so, &c.

DON PEDRO       By my troth, a good song.

BALTHASAR       And an ill singer, my lord.

DON PEDRO       Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

BENEDICK        An he had been a dog that should have howled thus,
        they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad
        voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the
        night-raven, come what plague could have come after
        it.

DON PEDRO       Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee,
        get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we
        would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window.

BALTHASAR       The best I can, my lord.

DON PEDRO       Do so: farewell.

        [Exit BALTHASAR]

        Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of
        to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with
        Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did
        never think that lady would have loved any man.

LEONATO No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she
        should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in
        all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor.

BENEDICK        Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

LEONATO By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think
        of it but that she loves him with an enraged
        affection: it is past the infinite of thought.

DON PEDRO       May be she doth but counterfeit.

CLAUDIO Faith, like enough.

LEONATO O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of
        passion came so near the life of passion as she
        discovers it.

DON PEDRO       Why, what effects of passion shows she?

CLAUDIO Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

LEONATO What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard
        my daughter tell you how.

CLAUDIO She did, indeed.

DON PEDRO       How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I
        thought her spirit had been invincible against all
        assaults of affection.

LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially
        against Benedick.

BENEDICK        I should think this a gull, but that the
        white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot,
        sure, hide himself in such reverence.

CLAUDIO He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up.

DON PEDRO       Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

LEONATO No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.

CLAUDIO 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: 'Shall
        I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him
        with scorn, write to him that I love him?'

LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to write to
        him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and
        there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a
        sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.

CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a
        pretty jest your daughter told us of.

LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she
        found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?

CLAUDIO That.

LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence;
        railed at herself, that she should be so immodest
        to write to one that she knew would flout her; 'I
        measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I
        should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I
        love him, I should.'

CLAUDIO Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs,
        beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O
        sweet Benedick! God give me patience!'

LEONATO She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the
        ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter
        is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage
        to herself: it is very true.

DON PEDRO       It were good that Benedick knew of it by some
        other, if she will not discover it.

CLAUDIO To what end? He would make but a sport of it and
        torment the poor lady worse.

DON PEDRO       An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She's an
        excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion,
        she is virtuous.

CLAUDIO And she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDRO       In every thing but in loving Benedick.

LEONATO O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender
        a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath
        the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just
        cause, being her uncle and her guardian.

DON PEDRO       I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would
        have daffed all other respects and made her half
        myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear
        what a' will say.

LEONATO Were it good, think you?

CLAUDIO Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she
        will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere
        she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo
        her, rather than she will bate one breath of her
        accustomed crossness.

DON PEDRO       She doth well: if she should make tender of her
        love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the
        man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit.

CLAUDIO He is a very proper man.

DON PEDRO       He hath indeed a good outward happiness.

CLAUDIO Before God! and, in my mind, very wise.

DON PEDRO       He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

CLAUDIO And I take him to be valiant.

DON PEDRO       As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of
        quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he
        avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes
        them with a most Christian-like fear.

LEONATO If he do fear God, a' must necessarily keep peace:
        if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a
        quarrel with fear and trembling.

DON PEDRO       And so will he do; for the man doth fear God,
        howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests
        he will make. Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall
        we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love?

CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with
        good counsel.

LEONATO Nay, that's impossible: she may wear her heart out first.

DON PEDRO       Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter:
        let it cool the while. I love Benedick well; and I
        could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see
        how much he is unworthy so good a lady.

LEONATO My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.

CLAUDIO If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never
        trust my expectation.

DON PEDRO       Let there be the same net spread for her; and that
        must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The
        sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of
        another's dotage, and no such matter: that's the
        scene that I would see, which will be merely a
        dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.

        [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]

BENEDICK        [Coming forward]  This can be no trick: the
        conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of
        this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it
        seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!
        why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:
        they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
        the love come from her; they say too that she will
        rather die than give any sign of affection. I did
        never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy
        are they that hear their detractions and can put
        them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a
        truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis
        so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving
        me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor
        no great argument of her folly, for I will be
        horribly in love with her. I may chance have some
        odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,
        because I have railed so long against marriage: but
        doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat
        in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
        Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of
        the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?
        No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would
        die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I
        were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day!
        she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in
        her.

        [Enter BEATRICE]

BEATRICE        Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

BENEDICK        Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE        I took no more pains for those thanks than you take
        pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would
        not have come.

BENEDICK        You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE        Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's
        point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach,
        signior: fare you well.

        [Exit]

BENEDICK        Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in
        to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that 'I took
        no more pains for those thanks than you took pains
        to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains
        that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do
        not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not
        love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.

        [Exit]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT III



SCENE I LEONATO'S garden.


        [Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA]

HERO    Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor;
        There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
        Proposing with the prince and Claudio:
        Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursula
        Walk in the orchard and our whole discourse
        Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us;
        And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
        Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
        Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites,
        Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
        Against that power that bred it: there will she hide her,
        To listen our purpose.  This is thy office;
        Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

MARGARET        I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

        [Exit]

HERO    Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
        As we do trace this alley up and down,
        Our talk must only be of Benedick.
        When I do name him, let it be thy part
        To praise him more than ever man did merit:
        My talk to thee must be how Benedick
        Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter
        Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,
        That only wounds by hearsay.

        [Enter BEATRICE, behind]

                       Now begin;
        For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
        Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

URSULA  The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
        Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
        And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
        So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
        Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
        Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

HERO    Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
        Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

        [Approaching the bower]

        No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
        I know her spirits are as coy and wild
        As haggerds of the rock.

URSULA  But are you sure
        That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

HERO    So says the prince and my new-trothed lord.

URSULA  And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

HERO    They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
        But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick,
        To wish him wrestle with affection,
        And never to let Beatrice know of it.

URSULA  Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman
        Deserve as full as fortunate a bed
        As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

HERO    O god of love! I know he doth deserve
        As much as may be yielded to a man:
        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, and her wit
        Values itself so highly that to her
        All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
        Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
        She is so self-endeared.

URSULA  Sure, I think so;
        And therefore certainly it were not good
        She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

HERO    Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
        How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
        But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,
        She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
        If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique,
        Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
        If low, an agate very vilely cut;
        If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
        If silent, why, a block moved with none.
        So turns she every man the wrong side out
        And never gives to truth and virtue that
        Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

URSULA  Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

HERO    No, not to be so odd and from all fashions
        As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable:
        But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,
        She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me
        Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
        Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire,
        Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:
        It were a better death than die with mocks,
        Which is as bad as die with tickling.

URSULA  Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.

HERO    No; rather I will go to Benedick
        And counsel him to fight against his passion.
        And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders
        To stain my cousin with: one doth not know
        How much an ill word may empoison liking.

URSULA  O, do not do your cousin such a wrong.
        She cannot be so much without true judgment--
        Having so swift and excellent a wit
        As she is prized to have--as to refuse
        So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.

HERO    He is the only man of Italy.
        Always excepted my dear Claudio.

URSULA  I pray you, be not angry with me, madam,
        Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,
        For shape, for bearing, argument and valour,
        Goes foremost in report through Italy.

HERO    Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.

URSULA  His excellence did earn it, ere he had it.
        When are you married, madam?

HERO    Why, every day, to-morrow. Come, go in:
        I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel
        Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.

URSULA  She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.

HERO    If it proves so, then loving goes by haps:
        Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

        [Exeunt HERO and URSULA]

BEATRICE        [Coming forward]
        What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
        Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?
        Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
        No glory lives behind the back of such.
        And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
        Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
        If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
        To bind our loves up in a holy band;
        For others say thou dost deserve, and I
        Believe it better than reportingly.

        [Exit]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT III



SCENE II        A room in LEONATO'S house


        [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO]

DON PEDRO       I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and
        then go I toward Arragon.

CLAUDIO I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll
        vouchsafe me.

DON PEDRO       Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss
        of your marriage as to show a child his new coat
        and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold
        with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown
        of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all
        mirth: he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's
        bow-string and the little hangman dare not shoot at
        him; he hath a heart as sound as a bell and his
        tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks his
        tongue speaks.

BENEDICK        Gallants, I am not as I have been.

LEONATO So say I        methinks you are sadder.

CLAUDIO I hope he be in love.

DON PEDRO       Hang him, truant! there's no true drop of blood in
        him, to be truly touched with love: if he be sad,
        he wants money.

BENEDICK        I have the toothache.

DON PEDRO       Draw it.

BENEDICK        Hang it!

CLAUDIO You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

DON PEDRO       What! sigh for the toothache?

LEONATO Where is but a humour or a worm.

BENEDICK        Well, every one can master a grief but he that has
        it.

CLAUDIO Yet say I, he is in love.

DON PEDRO       There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be
        a fancy that he hath to strange disguises; as, to be
        a Dutchman today, a Frenchman to-morrow, or in the
        shape of two countries at once, as, a German from
        the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from
        the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy
        to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no
        fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.

CLAUDIO If he be not in love with some woman, there is no
        believing old signs: a' brushes his hat o'
        mornings; what should that bode?

DON PEDRO       Hath any man seen him at the barber's?

CLAUDIO No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him,
        and the old ornament of his cheek hath already
        stuffed tennis-balls.

LEONATO Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.

DON PEDRO       Nay, a' rubs himself with civet: can you smell him
        out by that?

CLAUDIO That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in love.

DON PEDRO       The greatest note of it is his melancholy.

CLAUDIO And when was he wont to wash his face?

DON PEDRO       Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear
        what they say of him.

CLAUDIO Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into
        a lute-string and now governed by stops.

DON PEDRO       Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him: conclude,
        conclude he is in love.

CLAUDIO Nay, but I know who loves him.

DON PEDRO       That would I know too: I warrant, one that knows him not.

CLAUDIO Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of
        all, dies for him.

DON PEDRO       She shall be buried with her face upwards.

BENEDICK        Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old
        signior, walk aside with me: I have studied eight
        or nine wise words to speak to you, which these
        hobby-horses must not hear.

        [Exeunt BENEDICK and LEONATO]

DON PEDRO       For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.

CLAUDIO 'Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this
        played their parts with Beatrice; and then the two
        bears will not bite one another when they meet.

        [Enter DON JOHN]

DON JOHN        My lord and brother, God save you!

DON PEDRO       Good den, brother.

DON JOHN        If your leisure served, I would speak with you.

DON PEDRO       In private?

DON JOHN        If it please you: yet Count Claudio may hear; for
        what I would speak of concerns him.

DON PEDRO       What's the matter?

DON JOHN        [To CLAUDIO]  Means your lordship to be married
        to-morrow?

DON PEDRO       You know he does.

DON JOHN        I know not that, when he knows what I know.

CLAUDIO If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.

DON JOHN        You may think I love you not: let that appear
        hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will
        manifest. For my brother, I think he holds you
        well, and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect
        your ensuing marriage;--surely suit ill spent and
        labour ill bestowed.

DON PEDRO       Why, what's the matter?

DON JOHN        I came hither to tell you; and, circumstances
        shortened, for she has been too long a talking of,
        the lady is disloyal.

CLAUDIO Who, Hero?

DON PEDRO       Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero:

CLAUDIO Disloyal?

DON JOHN        The word is too good to paint out her wickedness; I
        could say she were worse: think you of a worse
        title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not till
        further warrant: go but with me to-night, you shall
        see her chamber-window entered, even the night
        before her wedding-day: if you love her then,
        to-morrow wed her; but it would better fit your honour
        to change your mind.

CLAUDIO May this be so?

DON PEDRO       I will not think it.

DON JOHN        If you dare not trust that you see, confess not
        that you know: if you will follow me, I will show
        you enough; and when you have seen more and heard
        more, proceed accordingly.

CLAUDIO If I see any thing to-night why I should not marry
        her to-morrow in the congregation, where I should
        wed, there will I shame her.

DON PEDRO       And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join
        with thee to disgrace her.

DON JOHN        I will disparage her no farther till you are my
        witnesses: bear it coldly but till midnight, and
        let the issue show itself.

DON PEDRO       O day untowardly turned!

CLAUDIO O mischief strangely thwarting!

DON JOHN        O plague right well prevented! so will you say when
        you have seen the sequel.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT III



SCENE III       A street.


        [Enter DOGBERRY and VERGES with the Watch]

DOGBERRY        Are you good men and true?

VERGES  Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer
        salvation, body and soul.

DOGBERRY        Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if
        they should have any allegiance in them, being
        chosen for the prince's watch.

VERGES  Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.

DOGBERRY        First, who think you the most desertless man to be
        constable?

First Watchman  Hugh Otecake, sir, or George Seacole; for they can
        write and read.

DOGBERRY        Come hither, neighbour Seacole. God hath blessed
        you with a good name: to be a well-favoured man is
        the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.

Second Watchman Both which, master constable,--

DOGBERRY        You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well,
        for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks, and make
        no boast of it; and for your writing and reading,
        let that appear when there is no need of such
        vanity. You are thought here to be the most
        senseless and fit man for the constable of the
        watch; therefore bear you the lantern. This is your
        charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are
        to bid any man stand, in the prince's name.

Second Watchman How if a' will not stand?

DOGBERRY        Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and
        presently call the rest of the watch together and
        thank God you are rid of a knave.

VERGES  If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none
        of the prince's subjects.

DOGBERRY        True, and they are to meddle with none but the
        prince's subjects. You shall also make no noise in
        the streets; for, for the watch to babble and to
        talk is most tolerable and not to be endured.

Watchman        We will rather sleep than talk: we know what
        belongs to a watch.

DOGBERRY        Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet
        watchman; for I cannot see how sleeping should
        offend: only, have a care that your bills be not
        stolen. Well, you are to call at all the
        ale-houses, and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.

Watchman        How if they will not?

DOGBERRY        Why, then, let them alone till they are sober: if
        they make you not then the better answer, you may
        say they are not the men you took them for.

Watchman        Well, sir.

DOGBERRY        If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue
        of your office, to be no true man; and, for such
        kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them,
        why the more is for your honesty.

Watchman        If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay
        hands on him?

DOGBERRY        Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they
        that touch pitch will be defiled: the most peaceable
        way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him
        show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

VERGES  You have been always called a merciful man, partner.

DOGBERRY        Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more
        a man who hath any honesty in him.

VERGES  If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call
        to the nurse and bid her still it.

Watchman        How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?

DOGBERRY        Why, then, depart in peace, and let the child wake
        her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her
        lamb when it baes will never answer a calf when he bleats.

VERGES  'Tis very true.

DOGBERRY        This is the end of the charge:--you, constable, are
        to present the prince's own person: if you meet the
        prince in the night, you may stay him.

VERGES  Nay, by'r our lady, that I think a' cannot.

DOGBERRY        Five shillings to one on't, with any man that knows
        the statutes, he may stay him: marry, not without
        the prince be willing; for, indeed, the watch ought
        to offend no man; and it is an offence to stay a
        man against his will.

VERGES  By'r lady, I think it be so.

DOGBERRY        Ha, ha, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be
        any matter of weight chances, call up me: keep your
        fellows' counsels and your own; and good night.
        Come, neighbour.

Watchman        Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here
        upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed.

DOGBERRY        One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch
        about Signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being
        there to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night.
        Adieu: be vigitant, I beseech you.

        [Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES]

        [Enter BORACHIO and CONRADE]

BORACHIO        What Conrade!

Watchman        [Aside]  Peace! stir not.

BORACHIO        Conrade, I say!

CONRADE Here, man; I am at thy elbow.

BORACHIO        Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a
        scab follow.

CONRADE I will owe thee an answer for that: and now forward
        with thy tale.

BORACHIO        Stand thee close, then, under this pent-house, for
        it drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard,
        utter all to thee.

Watchman        [Aside]  Some treason, masters: yet stand close.

BORACHIO        Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.

CONRADE Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?

BORACHIO        Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any
        villany should be so rich; for when rich villains
        have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what
        price they will.

CONRADE I wonder at it.

BORACHIO        That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that
        the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is
        nothing to a man.

CONRADE Yes, it is apparel.

BORACHIO        I mean, the fashion.

CONRADE Yes, the fashion is the fashion.

BORACHIO        Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But
        seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion
        is?

Watchman        [Aside]  I know that Deformed; a' has been a vile
        thief this seven year; a' goes up and down like a
        gentleman: I remember his name.

BORACHIO        Didst thou not hear somebody?

CONRADE No; 'twas the vane on the house.

BORACHIO        Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this
        fashion is? how giddily a' turns about all the hot
        bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty?
        sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers
        in the reeky painting, sometime like god Bel's
        priests in the old church-window, sometime like the
        shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry,
        where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

CONRADE All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears
        out more apparel than the man. But art not thou
        thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast
        shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion?

BORACHIO        Not so, neither: but know that I have to-night
        wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the
        name of Hero: she leans me out at her mistress'
        chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good
        night,--I tell this tale vilely:--I should first
        tell thee how the prince, Claudio and my master,
        planted and placed and possessed by my master Don
        John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.

CONRADE And thought they Margaret was Hero?

BORACHIO        Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the
        devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly
        by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by
        the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly
        by my villany, which did confirm any slander that
        Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore
        he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning
        at the temple, and there, before the whole
        congregation, shame her with what he saw o'er night
        and send her home again without a husband.

First Watchman  We charge you, in the prince's name, stand!

Second Watchman Call up the right master constable. We have here
        recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that
        ever was known in the commonwealth.

First Watchman  And one Deformed is one of them: I know him; a'
        wears a lock.

CONRADE Masters, masters,--

Second Watchman You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.

CONRADE Masters,--

First Watchman  Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us.

BORACHIO        We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken
        up of these men's bills.

CONRADE A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we'll obey you.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT III



SCENE IV        HERO's apartment.


        [Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA]

HERO    Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire
        her to rise.

URSULA  I will, lady.

HERO    And bid her come hither.

URSULA  Well.

        [Exit]

MARGARET        Troth, I think your other rabato were better.

HERO    No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this.

MARGARET        By my troth, 's not so good; and I warrant your
        cousin will say so.

HERO    My cousin's a fool, and thou art another: I'll wear
        none but this.

MARGARET        I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair
        were a thought browner; and your gown's a most rare
        fashion, i' faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan's
        gown that they praise so.

HERO    O, that exceeds, they say.

MARGARET        By my troth, 's but a night-gown in respect of
        yours: cloth o' gold, and cuts, and laced with
        silver, set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves,
        and skirts, round underborne with a bluish tinsel:
        but for a fine, quaint, graceful and excellent
        fashion, yours is worth ten on 't.

HERO    God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is
        exceeding heavy.

MARGARET        'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

HERO    Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?

MARGARET        Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not
        marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord
        honourable without marriage? I think you would have
        me say, 'saving your reverence, a husband:' and bad
        thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll offend
        nobody: is there any harm in 'the heavier for a
        husband'? None, I think, and it be the right husband
        and the right wife; otherwise 'tis light, and not
        heavy: ask my Lady Beatrice else; here she comes.

        [Enter BEATRICE]

HERO    Good morrow, coz.

BEATRICE        Good morrow, sweet Hero.

HERO    Why how now? do you speak in the sick tune?

BEATRICE        I am out of all other tune, methinks.

MARGARET        Clap's into 'Light o' love;' that goes without a
        burden: do you sing it, and I'll dance it.

BEATRICE        Ye light o' love, with your heels! then, if your
        husband have stables enough, you'll see he shall
        lack no barns.

MARGARET        O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.

BEATRICE        'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; tis time you were
        ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill: heigh-ho!

MARGARET        For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

BEATRICE        For the letter that begins them all, H.

MARGARET        Well, and you be not turned Turk, there's no more
        sailing by the star.

BEATRICE        What means the fool, trow?

MARGARET        Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire!

HERO    These gloves the count sent me; they are an
        excellent perfume.

BEATRICE        I am stuffed, cousin; I cannot smell.

MARGARET        A maid, and stuffed! there's goodly catching of cold.

BEATRICE        O, God help me! God help me! how long have you
        professed apprehension?

MARGARET        Even since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?

BEATRICE        It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your
        cap. By my troth, I am sick.

MARGARET        Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus,
        and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.

HERO    There thou prickest her with a thistle.

BEATRICE        Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in
        this Benedictus.

MARGARET        Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I
        meant, plain holy-thistle. You may think perchance
        that I think you are in love: nay, by'r lady, I am
        not such a fool to think what I list, nor I list
        not to think what I can, nor indeed I cannot think,
        if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you
        are in love or that you will be in love or that you
        can be in love. Yet Benedick was such another, and
        now is he become a man: he swore he would never
        marry, and yet now, in despite of his heart, he eats
        his meat without grudging: and how you may be
        converted I know not, but methinks you look with
        your eyes as other women do.

BEATRICE        What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?

MARGARET        Not a false gallop.

        [Re-enter URSULA]

URSULA  Madam, withdraw: the prince, the count, Signior
        Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the
        town, are come to fetch you to church.

HERO    Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT III



SCENE V Another room in LEONATO'S house.


        [Enter LEONATO, with DOGBERRY and VERGES]

LEONATO What would you with me, honest neighbour?

DOGBERRY        Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you
        that decerns you nearly.

LEONATO Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.

DOGBERRY        Marry, this it is, sir.

VERGES  Yes, in truth it is, sir.

LEONATO What is it, my good friends?

DOGBERRY        Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the
        matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so
        blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but,
        in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.

VERGES  Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living
        that is an old man and no honester than I.

DOGBERRY        Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges.

LEONATO Neighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRY        It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the
        poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part,
        if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in
        my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

LEONATO All thy tediousness on me, ah?

DOGBERRY        Yea, an 'twere a thousand pound more than 'tis; for
        I hear as good exclamation on your worship as of any
        man in the city; and though I be but a poor man, I
        am glad to hear it.

VERGES  And so am I.

LEONATO I would fain know what you have to say.

VERGES  Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your
        worship's presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant
        knaves as any in Messina.

DOGBERRY        A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they
        say, when the age is in, the wit is out: God help
        us! it is a world to see. Well said, i' faith,
        neighbour Verges: well, God's a good man; an two men
        ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest
        soul, i' faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever
        broke bread; but God is to be worshipped; all men
        are not alike; alas, good neighbour!

LEONATO Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.

DOGBERRY        Gifts that God gives.

LEONATO I must leave you.

DOGBERRY        One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed
        comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would
        have them this morning examined before your worship.

LEONATO Take their examination yourself and bring it me: I
        am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you.

DOGBERRY        It shall be suffigance.

LEONATO Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well.

        [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger       My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to
        her husband.

LEONATO I'll wait upon them: I am ready.

        [Exeunt LEONATO and Messenger]

DOGBERRY        Go, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacole;
        bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we
        are now to examination these men.

VERGES  And we must do it wisely.

DOGBERRY        We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here's
        that shall drive some of them to a non-come: only
        get the learned writer to set down our
        excommunication and meet me at the gaol.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT IV



SCENE I A church.


        [Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS,
        CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, and Attendants]

LEONATO Come, Friar Francis, be brief; only to the plain
        form of marriage, and you shall recount their
        particular duties afterwards.

FRIAR FRANCIS   You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady.

CLAUDIO No.

LEONATO To be married to her: friar, you come to marry her.

FRIAR FRANCIS   Lady, you come hither to be married to this count.

HERO    I do.

FRIAR FRANCIS   If either of you know any inward impediment why you
        should not be conjoined, charge you, on your souls,
        to utter it.

CLAUDIO Know you any, Hero?

HERO    None, my lord.

FRIAR FRANCIS   Know you any, count?

LEONATO I dare make his answer, none.

CLAUDIO O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily
        do, not knowing what they do!

BENEDICK        How now! interjections? Why, then, some be of
        laughing, as, ah, ha, he!

CLAUDIO Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave:
        Will you with free and unconstrained soul
        Give me this maid, your daughter?

LEONATO As freely, son, as God did give her me.

CLAUDIO And what have I to give you back, whose worth
        May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

DON PEDRO       Nothing, unless you render her again.

CLAUDIO Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
        There, Leonato, take her 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!
        O, what authority and show of truth
        Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
        Comes not that blood as modest evidence
        To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
        All you that see her, that she were a maid,
        By these exterior shows? But she is none:
        She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
        Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

LEONATO What do you mean, my lord?

CLAUDIO Not to be married,
        Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

LEONATO Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
        Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth,
        And made defeat of her virginity,--

CLAUDIO I know what you would say: if I have known her,
        You will say she did embrace me as a husband,
        And so extenuate the 'forehand sin:
        No, Leonato,
        I never tempted her with word too large;
        But, as a brother to his sister, show'd
        Bashful sincerity and comely love.

HERO    And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?

CLAUDIO Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
        You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
        As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
        But you are more intemperate in your blood
        Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals
        That rage in savage sensuality.

HERO    Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

LEONATO Sweet prince, why speak not you?

DON PEDRO       What should I speak?
        I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about
        To link my dear friend to a common stale.

LEONATO Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

DON JOHN        Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

BENEDICK        This looks not like a nuptial.

HERO    True! O God!

CLAUDIO Leonato, stand I here?
        Is this the prince? is this the prince's brother?
        Is this face Hero's? are our eyes our own?

LEONATO All this is so: but what of this, my lord?

CLAUDIO Let me but move one question to your daughter;
        And, by that fatherly and kindly power
        That you have in her, bid her answer truly.

LEONATO I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.

HERO    O, God defend me! how am I beset!
        What kind of catechising call you this?

CLAUDIO To make you answer truly to your name.

HERO    Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
        With any just reproach?

CLAUDIO Marry, that can Hero;
        Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue.
        What man was he talk'd with you yesternight
        Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?
        Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

HERO    I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord.

DON PEDRO       Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato,
        I am sorry you must hear: upon mine honour,
        Myself, my brother and this grieved count
        Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night
        Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window
        Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
        Confess'd the vile encounters they have had
        A thousand times in secret.

DON JOHN        Fie, fie! they are not to be named, my lord,
        Not to be spoke of;
        There is not chastity enough in language
        Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
        I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

CLAUDIO O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been,
        If half thy outward graces had been placed
        About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
        But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
        Thou pure impiety and impious purity!
        For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,
        And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
        To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
        And never shall it more be gracious.

LEONATO Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?

        [HERO swoons]

BEATRICE        Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?

DON JOHN        Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
        Smother her spirits up.

        [Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, and CLAUDIO]

BENEDICK        How doth the lady?

BEATRICE                          Dead, I think. Help, uncle!
        Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!

LEONATO O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand.
        Death is the fairest cover for her shame
        That may be wish'd for.

BEATRICE        How now, cousin Hero!

FRIAR FRANCIS   Have comfort, lady.

LEONATO Dost thou look up?

FRIAR FRANCIS   Yea, wherefore should she not?

LEONATO Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
        Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
        The story that is printed in her blood?
        Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes:
        For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
        Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
        Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
        Strike at thy life. Grieved I, I had but one?
        Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?
        O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?
        Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?
        Why had I not with charitable hand
        Took up a beggar's issue at my gates,
        Who smirch'd thus and mired with infamy,
        I might have said 'No part of it is mine;
        This shame derives itself from unknown loins'?
        But mine and mine I loved and mine I praised
        And mine that I was proud on, mine so much
        That I myself was to myself not mine,
        Valuing of her,--why, she, O, she is fallen
        Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
        Hath drops too few to wash her clean again
        And salt too little which may season give
        To her foul-tainted flesh!

BENEDICK        Sir, sir, be patient.
        For my part, I am so attired in wonder,
        I know not what to say.

BEATRICE        O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!

BENEDICK        Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?

BEATRICE        No, truly not; although, until last night,
        I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.

LEONATO Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made
        Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron!
        Would the two princes lie, and Claudio lie,
        Who loved her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
        Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.

FRIAR FRANCIS   Hear me a little; for I have only been
        Silent so long and given way unto
        This course of fortune [           ]
        By noting of the lady I have mark'd
        A thousand blushing apparitions
        To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
        In angel whiteness beat away those blushes;
        And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire,
        To burn the errors that these princes hold
        Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;
        Trust not my reading nor my observations,
        Which with experimental seal doth warrant
        The tenor of my book; trust not my age,
        My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
        If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
        Under some biting error.

LEONATO Friar, it cannot be.
        Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left
        Is that she will not add to her damnation
        A sin of perjury; she not denies it:
        Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse
        That which appears in proper nakedness?

FRIAR FRANCIS   Lady, what man is he you are accused of?

HERO    They know that do accuse me; I know none:
        If I know more of any man alive
        Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
        Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,
        Prove you that any man with me conversed
        At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight
        Maintain'd the change of words with any creature,
        Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death!

FRIAR FRANCIS   There is some strange misprision in the princes.

BENEDICK        Two of them have the very bent of honour;
        And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
        The practise of it lives in John the bastard,
        Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.

LEONATO I know not. If they speak but truth of her,
        These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
        The proudest of them shall well hear of it.
        Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
        Nor age so eat up my invention,
        Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
        Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
        But they shall find, awaked in such a kind,
        Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
        Ability in means and choice of friends,
        To quit me of them throughly.

FRIAR FRANCIS   Pause awhile,
        And let my counsel sway you in this case.
        Your daughter here the princes left for dead:
        Let her awhile be secretly kept in,
        And publish it that she is dead indeed;
        Maintain a mourning ostentation
        And on your family's old monument
        Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
        That appertain unto a burial.

LEONATO What shall become of this? what will this do?

FRIAR FRANCIS   Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
        Change slander to remorse; that is some good:
        But not for that dream I on this strange course,
        But on this travail look for greater birth.
        She dying, as it must so be maintain'd,
        Upon the instant that she was accused,
        Shall be lamented, pitied and excused
        Of every hearer: for it so falls out
        That what we have we prize not to the worth
        Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
        Why, then we rack the value, then we find
        The virtue that possession would not show us
        Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
        When he shall hear she died upon his words,
        The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
        Into his study of imagination,
        And every lovely organ of her life
        Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,
        More moving-delicate and full of life,
        Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
        Than when she lived indeed; then shall he mourn,
        If ever love had interest in his liver,
        And wish he had not so accused her,
        No, though he thought his accusation true.
        Let this be so, and doubt not but success
        Will fashion the event in better shape
        Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
        But if all aim but this be levell'd false,
        The supposition of the lady's death
        Will quench the wonder of her infamy:
        And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,
        As best befits her wounded reputation,
        In some reclusive and religious life,
        Out of all eyes, tongues, minds and injuries.

BENEDICK        Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:
        And though you know my inwardness and love
        Is very much unto the prince and Claudio,
        Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
        As secretly and justly as your soul
        Should with your body.

LEONATO Being that I flow in grief,
        The smallest twine may lead me.

FRIAR FRANCIS   'Tis well consented: presently away;
        For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.
        Come, lady, die to live: this wedding-day
        Perhaps is but prolong'd: have patience and endure.

        [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and BEATRICE]

BENEDICK        Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICE        Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICK        I will not desire that.

BEATRICE        You have no reason; I do it freely.

BENEDICK        Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

BEATRICE        Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

BENEDICK        Is there any way to show such friendship?

BEATRICE        A very even way, but no such friend.

BENEDICK        May a man do it?

BEATRICE        It is a man's office, but not yours.

BENEDICK        I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is
        not that strange?

BEATRICE        As strange as the thing I know not. It were as
        possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as
        you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I
        confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

BENEDICK        By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEATRICE        Do not swear, and eat it.

BENEDICK        I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make
        him eat it that says I love not you.

BEATRICE        Will you not eat your word?

BENEDICK        With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest
        I love thee.

BEATRICE        Why, then, God forgive me!

BENEDICK        What offence, sweet Beatrice?

BEATRICE        You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to
        protest I loved you.

BENEDICK        And do it with all thy heart.

BEATRICE        I love you with so much of my heart that none is
        left to protest.

BENEDICK        Come, bid me do any thing for thee.

BEATRICE        Kill Claudio.

BENEDICK        Ha! not for the wide world.

BEATRICE        You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

BENEDICK        Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEATRICE        I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in
        you: nay, I pray you, let me go.

BENEDICK        Beatrice,--

BEATRICE        In faith, I will go.

BENEDICK        We'll be friends first.

BEATRICE        You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

BENEDICK        Is Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICE        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.

BENEDICK        Hear me, Beatrice,--

BEATRICE        Talk with a man out at a window! A proper saying!

BENEDICK        Nay, but, Beatrice,--

BEATRICE        Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

BENEDICK        Beat--

BEATRICE        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.

BENEDICK        Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

BEATRICE        Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICK        Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

BEATRICE        Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.

BENEDICK        Enough, I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will
        kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand,
        Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you
        hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your
        cousin: I must say she is dead: and so, farewell.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT IV



SCENE II        A prison.


        [Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Sexton, in gowns; and
        the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO]

DOGBERRY        Is our whole dissembly appeared?

VERGES  O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.

Sexton  Which be the malefactors?

DOGBERRY        Marry, that am I and my partner.

VERGES  Nay, that's certain; we have the exhibition to examine.

Sexton  But which are the offenders that are to be
        examined? let them come before master constable.

DOGBERRY        Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your
        name, friend?

BORACHIO        Borachio.

DOGBERRY        Pray, write down, Borachio. Yours, sirrah?

CONRADE I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.

DOGBERRY        Write down, master gentleman Conrade. Masters, do
        you serve God?


CONRADE |
        |  Yea, sir, we hope.
BORACHIO        |


DOGBERRY        Write down, that they hope they serve God: and
        write God first; for God defend but God should go
        before such villains! Masters, it is proved already
        that you are little better than false knaves; and it
        will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer
        you for yourselves?

CONRADE Marry, sir, we say we are none.

DOGBERRY        A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you: but I
        will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah; a
        word in your ear: sir, I say to you, it is thought
        you are false knaves.

BORACHIO        Sir, I say to you we are none.

DOGBERRY        Well, stand aside. 'Fore God, they are both in a
        tale. Have you writ down, that they are none?

Sexton  Master constable, you go not the way to examine:
        you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.

DOGBERRY        Yea, marry, that's the eftest way. Let the watch
        come forth. Masters, I charge you, in the prince's
        name, accuse these men.

First Watchman  This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince's
        brother, was a villain.

DOGBERRY        Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat
        perjury, to call a prince's brother villain.

BORACHIO        Master constable,--

DOGBERRY        Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look,
        I promise thee.

Sexton  What heard you him say else?

Second Watchman Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of
        Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.

DOGBERRY        Flat burglary as ever was committed.

VERGES  Yea, by mass, that it is.

Sexton  What else, fellow?

First Watchman  And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to
        disgrace Hero before the whole assembly. and not marry her.

DOGBERRY        O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting
        redemption for this.

Sexton  What else?

Watchman        This is all.

Sexton  And this is more, masters, than you can deny.
        Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away;
        Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner
        refused, and upon the grief of this suddenly died.
        Master constable, let these men be bound, and
        brought to Leonato's: I will go before and show
        him their examination.

        [Exit]

DOGBERRY        Come, let them be opinioned.

VERGES  Let them be in the hands--

CONRADE Off, coxcomb!

DOGBERRY        God's my life, where's the sexton? let him write
        down the prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them.
        Thou naughty varlet!

CONRADE Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.

DOGBERRY        Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not
        suspect my years? O that he were here to write me
        down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an
        ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
        that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of
        piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness.
        I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer,
        and, which is more, a householder, and, which is
        more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in
        Messina, and one that knows the law, go to; and a
        rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath
        had losses, and one that hath two gowns and every
        thing handsome about him. Bring him away. O that
        I had been writ down an ass!

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT V



SCENE I Before LEONATO'S house.


        [Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO]

ANTONIO If you go on thus, you will kill yourself:
        And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief
        Against yourself.

LEONATO                   I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
        Which falls into mine ears as profitless
        As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;
        Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
        But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
        Bring me a father that so loved his child,
        Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,
        And bid him speak of patience;
        Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine
        And let it answer every strain for strain,
        As thus for thus and such a grief for such,
        In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:
        If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,
        Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem!' when he should groan,
        Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk
        With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
        And I of him will gather patience.
        But there is no such man: for, brother, men
        Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
        Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
        Their counsel turns to passion, which before
        Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
        Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
        Charm ache with air and agony with words:
        No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
        To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
        But no man's virtue nor sufficiency
        To be so moral when he shall endure
        The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:
        My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

ANTONIO Therein do men from children nothing differ.

LEONATO I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood;
        For there was never yet philosopher
        That could endure the toothache patiently,
        However they have writ the style of gods
        And made a push at chance and sufferance.

ANTONIO Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
        Make those that do offend you suffer too.

LEONATO There thou speak'st reason: nay, I will do so.
        My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
        And that shall Claudio know; so shall the prince
        And all of them that thus dishonour her.

ANTONIO Here comes the prince and Claudio hastily.

        [Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO]

DON PEDRO       Good den, good den.

CLAUDIO Good day to both of you.

LEONATO Hear you. my lords,--

DON PEDRO       We have some haste, Leonato.

LEONATO Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:
        Are you so hasty now? well, all is one.

DON PEDRO       Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.

ANTONIO If he could right himself with quarreling,
        Some of us would lie low.

CLAUDIO Who wrongs him?

LEONATO Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou:--
        Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
        I fear thee not.

CLAUDIO                   Marry, beshrew my hand,
        If it should give your age such cause of fear:
        In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.

LEONATO Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me:
        I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
        As under privilege of age to brag
        What I have done being young, or what would do
        Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
        Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me
        That I am forced to lay my reverence by
        And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
        Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
        I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;
        Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
        And she lies buried with her ancestors;
        O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,
        Save this of hers, framed by thy villany!

CLAUDIO My villany?

LEONATO           Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.

DON PEDRO       You say not right, old man.

LEONATO My lord, my lord,
        I'll prove it on his body, if he dare,
        Despite his nice fence and his active practise,
        His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.

CLAUDIO Away! I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child:
        If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIO He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
        But that's no matter; let him kill one first;
        Win me and wear me; let him answer me.
        Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me:
        Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence;
        Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO Brother,--

ANTONIO Content yourself. God knows I loved my niece;
        And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains,
        That dare as well answer a man indeed
        As I dare take a serpent by the tongue:
        Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!

LEONATO Brother Antony,--

ANTONIO Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
        And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,--
        Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,
        That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,
        Go anticly, show outward hideousness,
        And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
        How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;
        And this is all.

LEONATO But, brother Antony,--

ANTONIO Come, 'tis no matter:
        Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO       Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
        My heart is sorry for your daughter's death:
        But, on my honour, she was charged with nothing
        But what was true and very full of proof.

LEONATO My lord, my lord,--

DON PEDRO       I will not hear you.

LEONATO No? Come, brother; away! I will be heard.

ANTONIO And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

        [Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO]

DON PEDRO       See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.

        [Enter BENEDICK]

CLAUDIO Now, signior, what news?

BENEDICK        Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO       Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part
        almost a fray.

CLAUDIO We had like to have had our two noses snapped off
        with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO       Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou? Had
        we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICK        In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came
        to seek you both.

CLAUDIO We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are
        high-proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten
        away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICK        It is in my scabbard: shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO       Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO Never any did so, though very many have been beside
        their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the
        minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.

DON PEDRO       As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou
        sick, or angry?

CLAUDIO What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat,
        thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICK        Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you
        charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIO Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was
        broke cross.

DON PEDRO       By this light, he changes more and more: I think
        he be angry indeed.

CLAUDIO If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

BENEDICK        Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO God bless me from a challenge!

BENEDICK        [Aside to CLAUDIO]  You are a villain; I jest not:
        I will make it good how you dare, with what you
        dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will
        protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet
        lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me
        hear from you.

CLAUDIO Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

DON PEDRO       What, a feast, a feast?

CLAUDIO I' faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf's
        head and a capon; the which if I do not carve most
        curiously, say my knife's naught. Shall I not find
        a woodcock too?

BENEDICK        Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.

DON PEDRO       I'll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the
        other day. I said, thou hadst a fine wit: 'True,'
        said she, 'a fine little one.' 'No,' said I, 'a
        great wit:' 'Right,' says she, 'a great gross one.'
        'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit:' 'Just,' said she, 'it
        hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman
        is wise:' 'Certain,' said she, 'a wise gentleman.'
        'Nay,' said I, 'he hath the tongues:' 'That I
        believe,' said she, 'for he swore a thing to me on
        Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning;
        there's a double tongue; there's two tongues.' Thus
        did she, an hour together, transshape thy particular
        virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou
        wast the properest man in Italy.

CLAUDIO For the which she wept heartily and said she cared
        not.

DON PEDRO       Yea, that she did: but yet, for all that, an if she
        did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly:
        the old man's daughter told us all.

CLAUDIO All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was
        hid in the garden.

DON PEDRO       But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on
        the sensible Benedick's head?

CLAUDIO Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick the
        married man'?

BENEDICK        Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave
        you now to your gossip-like humour: you break jests
        as braggarts do their blades, which God be thanked,
        hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank
        you: I must discontinue your company: your brother
        the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among
        you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord
        Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet: and, till
        then, peace be with him.

        [Exit]

DON PEDRO       He is in earnest.

CLAUDIO In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you, for
        the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDRO       And hath challenged thee.

CLAUDIO Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO       What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his
        doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

CLAUDIO He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a
        doctor to such a man.

DON PEDRO       But, soft you, let me be: pluck up, my heart, and
        be sad. Did he not say, my brother was fled?

        [Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE
        and BORACHIO]

DOGBERRY        Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she
        shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance: nay,
        an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.

DON PEDRO       How now? two of my brother's men bound! Borachio
        one!

CLAUDIO Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO       Officers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRY        Marry, sir, they have committed false report;
        moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily,
        they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have
        belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust
        things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

DON PEDRO       First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I
        ask thee what's their offence; sixth and lastly, why
        they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay
        to their charge.

CLAUDIO Rightly reasoned, and in his own division: and, by
        my troth, there's one meaning well suited.

DON PEDRO       Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus
        bound to your answer? this learned constable is
        too cunning to be understood: what's your offence?

BORACHIO        Sweet prince, let me go no farther to mine answer:
        do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have
        deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms
        could not discover, these shallow fools have brought
        to light: who in the night overheard me confessing
        to this man how Don John your brother incensed me
        to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into
        the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero's
        garments, how you disgraced her, when you should
        marry her: my villany they have upon record; which
        I had rather seal with my death than repeat over
        to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my
        master's false accusation; and, briefly, I desire
        nothing but the reward of a villain.

DON PEDRO       Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it.

DON PEDRO       But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO        Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it.

DON PEDRO       He is composed and framed of treachery:
        And fled he is upon this villany.

CLAUDIO Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
        In the rare semblance that I loved it first.

DOGBERRY        Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our
        sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter:
        and, masters, do not forget to specify, when time
        and place shall serve, that I am an ass.

VERGES  Here, here comes master Signior Leonato, and the
        Sexton too.

        [Re-enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, with the Sexton]

LEONATO Which is the villain? let me see his eyes,
        That, when I note another man like him,
        I may avoid him: which of these is he?

BORACHIO        If you would know your wronger, look on me.

LEONATO Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd
        Mine innocent child?

BORACHIO        Yea, even I alone.

LEONATO No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
        Here stand a pair of honourable men;
        A third is fled, that had a hand in it.
        I thank you, princes, for my daughter's death:
        Record it with your high and worthy deeds:
        'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

CLAUDIO I know not how to pray your patience;
        Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
        Impose me to what penance your invention
        Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn'd I not
        But in mistaking.

DON PEDRO                         By my soul, nor I:
        And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
        I would bend under any heavy weight
        That he'll enjoin me to.

LEONATO I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
        That were impossible: but, I pray you both,
        Possess the people in Messina here
        How innocent she died; and if your love
        Can labour ought in sad invention,
        Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
        And sing it to her bones, sing it to-night:
        To-morrow morning come you to my house,
        And since you could not be my son-in-law,
        Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter,
        Almost the copy of my child that's dead,
        And she alone is heir to both of us:
        Give her the right you should have given her cousin,
        And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIO O noble sir,
        Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
        I do embrace your offer; and dispose
        For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATO To-morrow then I will expect your coming;
        To-night I take my leave. This naughty man
        Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
        Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,
        Hired to it by your brother.

BORACHIO        No, by my soul, she was not,
        Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me,
        But always hath been just and virtuous
        In any thing that I do know by her.

DOGBERRY        Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and
        black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call
        me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his
        punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of
        one Deformed: they say be wears a key in his ear and
        a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God's
        name, the which he hath used so long and never paid
        that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing
        for God's sake: pray you, examine him upon that point.

LEONATO I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

DOGBERRY        Your worship speaks like a most thankful and
        reverend youth; and I praise God for you.

LEONATO There's for thy pains.

DOGBERRY        God save the foundation!

LEONATO Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

DOGBERRY        I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I
        beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the
        example of others. God keep your worship! I wish
        your worship well; God restore you to health! I
        humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry
        meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.

        [Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES]

LEONATO Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.

ANTONIO Farewell, my lords: we look for you to-morrow.

DON PEDRO       We will not fail.

CLAUDIO                   To-night I'll mourn with Hero.

LEONATO [To the Watch]  Bring you these fellows on. We'll
        talk with Margaret,
        How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

        [Exeunt, severally]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT V



SCENE II        LEONATO'S garden.


        [Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting]

BENEDICK        Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at
        my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

MARGARET        Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

BENEDICK        In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living
        shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou
        deservest it.

MARGARET        To have no man come over me! why, shall I always
        keep below stairs?

BENEDICK        Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.

MARGARET        And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit,
        but hurt not.

BENEDICK        A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a
        woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give
        thee the bucklers.

MARGARET        Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.

BENEDICK        If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the
        pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

MARGARET        Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

BENEDICK        And therefore will come.

        [Exit MARGARET]

        [Sings]

        The god of love,
        That sits above,
        And knows me, and knows me,
        How pitiful I deserve,--

        I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good
        swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and
        a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers,
        whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a
        blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned
        over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I
        cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find
        out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent
        rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for,
        'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous
        endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet,
        nor I cannot woo in festival terms.

        [Enter BEATRICE]

        Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

BEATRICE        Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK        O, stay but till then!

BEATRICE        'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere
        I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with
        knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

BENEDICK        Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICE        Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but
        foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I
        will depart unkissed.

BENEDICK        Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense,
        so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee
        plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either
        I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe
        him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for
        which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICE        For them all together; which maintained so politic
        a state of evil that they will not admit any good
        part to intermingle with them. But for which of my
        good parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK        Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love
        indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICE        In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart!
        If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for
        yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.

BENEDICK        Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE        It appears not in this confession: there's not one
        wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICK        An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in
        the lime of good neighbours. If a man do not erect
        in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live
        no longer in monument than the bell rings and the
        widow weeps.

BEATRICE        And how long is that, think you?

BENEDICK        Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in
        rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the
        wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no
        impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his
        own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for
        praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is
        praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE        Very ill.

BENEDICK        And how do you?

BEATRICE        Very ill too.

BENEDICK        Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave
        you too, for here comes one in haste.

        [Enter URSULA]

URSULA  Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old
        coil at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been
        falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily
        abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is
        fed and gone. Will you come presently?

BEATRICE        Will you go hear this news, signior?

BENEDICK        I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be
        buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with
        thee to thy uncle's.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT V



SCENE III       A church.


        [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and three or four
        with tapers]

CLAUDIO Is this the monument of Leonato?

Lord    It is, my lord.

CLAUDIO [Reading out of a scroll]
        Done to death by slanderous tongues
        Was the Hero that here lies:
        Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
        Gives her fame which never dies.
        So the life that died with shame
        Lives in death with glorious fame.
        Hang thou there upon the tomb,
        Praising her when I am dumb.

        Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.
        SONG.

        Pardon, goddess of the night,
        Those that slew thy virgin knight;
        For the which, with songs of woe,
        Round about her tomb they go.
        Midnight, assist our moan;
        Help us to sigh and groan,
        Heavily, heavily:
        Graves, yawn and yield your dead,
        Till death be uttered,
        Heavily, heavily.

CLAUDIO      Now, unto thy bones good night!
        Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDRO       Good morrow, masters; put your torches out:
        The wolves have prey'd; and look, the gentle day,
        Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
        Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
        Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well.

CLAUDIO      Good morrow, masters: each his several way.

DON PEDRO       Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
        And then to Leonato's we will go.

CLAUDIO And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's
        Than this for whom we render'd up this woe.

        [Exeunt]




        MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


ACT V



SCENE IV        A room in LEONATO'S house.


        [Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE,
        MARGARET, URSULA, FRIAR FRANCIS, and HERO]

FRIAR FRANCIS   Did I not tell you she was innocent?

LEONATO So are the prince and Claudio, who accused her
        Upon the error that you heard debated:
        But Margaret was in some fault for this,
        Although against her will, as it appears
        In the true course of all the question.

ANTONIO Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.

BENEDICK        And so am I, being else by faith enforced
        To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.

LEONATO Well, daughter, and you gentle-women all,
        Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
        And when I send for you, come hither mask'd.

        [Exeunt Ladies]

        The prince and Claudio promised by this hour
        To visit me. You know your office, brother:
        You must be father to your brother's daughter
        And give her to young Claudio.

ANTONIO Which I will do with confirm'd countenance.

BENEDICK        Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.

FRIAR FRANCIS   To do what, signior?

BENEDICK        To bind me, or undo me; one of them.
        Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,
        Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.

LEONATO That eye my daughter lent her: 'tis most true.

BENEDICK        And I do with an eye of love requite her.

LEONATO The sight whereof I think you had from me,
        From Claudio and the prince: but what's your will?

BENEDICK        Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:
        But, for my will, my will is your good will
        May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd
        In the state of honourable marriage:
        In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

LEONATO My heart is with your liking.

FRIAR FRANCIS   And my help.
        Here comes the prince and Claudio.

        [Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, and two or
        three others]

DON PEDRO       Good morrow to this fair assembly.

LEONATO Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio:
        We here attend you. Are you yet determined
        To-day to marry with my brother's daughter?

CLAUDIO I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.

LEONATO Call her forth, brother; here's the friar ready.

        [Exit ANTONIO]

DON PEDRO       Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what's the matter,
        That you have such a February face,
        So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

CLAUDIO I think he thinks upon the savage bull.
        Tush, fear not, man; we'll tip thy horns with gold
        And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,
        As once Europa did at lusty Jove,
        When he would play the noble beast in love.

BENEDICK        Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low;
        And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow,
        And got a calf in that same noble feat
        Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.

CLAUDIO For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.

        [Re-enter ANTONIO, with the Ladies masked]

        Which is the lady I must seize upon?

ANTONIO This same is she, and I do give you her.

CLAUDIO Why, then she's mine. Sweet, let me see your face.

LEONATO No, that you shall not, till you take her hand
        Before this friar and swear to marry her.

CLAUDIO Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
        I am your husband, if you like of me.

HERO    And when I lived, I was your other wife:

        [Unmasking]

        And when you loved, you were my other husband.

CLAUDIO Another Hero!

HERO                      Nothing certainer:
        One Hero died defiled, but I do live,
        And surely as I live, I am a maid.

DON PEDRO       The former Hero! Hero that is dead!

LEONATO She died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived.

FRIAR FRANCIS   All this amazement can I qualify:
        When after that the holy rites are ended,
        I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death:
        Meantime let wonder seem familiar,
        And to the chapel let us presently.

BENEDICK        Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?

BEATRICE        [Unmasking]  I answer to that name. What is your will?

BENEDICK        Do not you love me?

BEATRICE        Why, no; no more than reason.

BENEDICK        Why, then your uncle and the prince and Claudio
        Have been deceived; they swore you did.

BEATRICE        Do not you love me?

BENEDICK        Troth, no; no more than reason.

BEATRICE        Why, then my cousin Margaret and Ursula
        Are much deceived; for they did swear you did.

BENEDICK        They swore that you were almost sick for me.

BEATRICE        They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.

BENEDICK        'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?

BEATRICE        No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

LEONATO Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.

CLAUDIO And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her;
        For here's a paper written in his hand,
        A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
        Fashion'd to Beatrice.

HERO    And here's another
        Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket,
        Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICK        A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts.
        Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take
        thee for pity.

BEATRICE        I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield
        upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life,
        for I was told you were in a consumption.

BENEDICK        Peace! I will stop your mouth.

        [Kissing her]

DON PEDRO       How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?

BENEDICK        I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of
        wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost
        thou think I  care for a satire or an epigram? No:
        if a man will be beaten with brains, a' shall wear
        nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do
        purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any
        purpose that the world can say against it; and
        therefore never flout at me for what I have said
        against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my
        conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to
        have beaten thee, but in that thou art like to be my
        kinsman, live unbruised and love my cousin.

CLAUDIO I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice,
        that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single
        life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of
        question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look
        exceedingly narrowly to thee.

BENEDICK        Come, come, we are friends: let's have a dance ere
        we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts
        and our wives' heels.

LEONATO We'll have dancing afterward.

BENEDICK        First, of my word; therefore play, music. Prince,
        thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife:
        there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.

        [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger       My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight,
        And brought with armed men back to Messina.

BENEDICK        Think not on him till to-morrow:
        I'll devise thee brave punishments for him.
        Strike up, pipers.

        [Dance]

        [Exeunt]