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- William Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, Act I
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Act IScene IBefore Leonato’s houseEnter Leonato, Hero, and Beatrice, with a MessengerLeonatoI learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina.MessengerHe is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him.LeonatoHow many gentlemen have you lost in this action?MessengerBut few of any sort, and none of name.LeonatoA 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.MessengerMuch 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.LeonatoHe hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.MessengerI 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.LeonatoDid he break out into tears?MessengerIn great measure.LeonatoA 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!BeatriceI pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?MessengerI know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort.LeonatoWhat is he that you ask for, niece?HeroMy cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.MessengerO, he’s returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.BeatriceHe 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.LeonatoFaith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.MessengerHe hath done good service, lady, in these wars.BeatriceYou had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.MessengerAnd a good soldier too, lady.BeatriceAnd a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord?MessengerA lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.BeatriceIt is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.LeonatoYou 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.BeatriceAlas! 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.MessengerIs’t possible?BeatriceVery easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.MessengerI see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.BeatriceNo; 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?MessengerHe is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.BeatriceO 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.MessengerI will hold friends with you, lady.BeatriceDo, good friend.LeonatoYou will never run mad, niece.BeatriceNo, not till a hot January.MessengerDon Pedro is approached.Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Benedick, and BalthasarDon PedroGood Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.LeonatoNever 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 PedroYou embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.LeonatoHer mother hath many times told me so.BenedickWere you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?LeonatoSignior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.Don PedroYou 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.BenedickIf Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.BeatriceI wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.BenedickWhat, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?BeatriceIs 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.BenedickThen 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.BeatriceA 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.BenedickGod keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall ‘scape a predestinate scratched face.BeatriceScratching could not make it worse, an ’twere such a face as yours were.BenedickWell, you are a rare parrot-teacher.BeatriceA bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.BenedickI 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.BeatriceYou always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.Don PedroThat 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.LeonatoIf you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.To Don JohnLet me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.Don JohnI thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.LeonatoPlease it your grace lead on?Don PedroYour hand, Leonato; we will go together.Exeunt all except Benedick and ClaudioClaudioBenedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?BenedickI noted her not; but I looked on her.ClaudioIs she not a modest young lady?BenedickDo 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?ClaudioNo; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.BenedickWhy, 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.ClaudioThou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.BenedickWould you buy her, that you inquire after her?ClaudioCan the world buy such a jewel?BenedickYea, 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?ClaudioIn mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.BenedickI 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?ClaudioI would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.BenedickIs’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 PedroDon PedroWhat secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato’s?BenedickI would your grace would constrain me to tell.Don PedroI charge thee on thy allegiance.BenedickYou 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.ClaudioIf this were so, so were it uttered.BenedickLike the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.‘ClaudioIf my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.Don PedroAmen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.ClaudioYou speak this to fetch me in, my lord.Don PedroBy my troth, I speak my thought.ClaudioAnd, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.BenedickAnd, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.ClaudioThat I love her, I feel.Don PedroThat she is worthy, I know.BenedickThat 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 PedroThou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.ClaudioAnd never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.BenedickThat 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 PedroI shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.BenedickWith 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 PedroWell, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.BenedickIf 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 PedroWell, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.‘BenedickThe 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.‘ClaudioIf this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.Don PedroNay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.BenedickI look for an earthquake too, then.Don PedroWell, 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.BenedickI have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you—ClaudioTo the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,—Don PedroThe sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.BenedickNay, 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.ExitClaudioMy liege, your highness now may do me good.Don PedroMy 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.ClaudioHath Leonato any son, my lord?Don PedroNo child but Hero; she’s his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio?ClaudioO, 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 PedroThou 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?ClaudioHow 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 PedroWhat 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
Tales from Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
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William Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, Act II, Scene III
- William Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, Act II, Scene III
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
- Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
- The Twelve Dancing Princesses
- Current Events This Week: January 2023
- African Americans by the Numbers
- Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
- The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
