Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare

Act 2 - Scene 1

A hall in LEONATO’S house.

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

Beatrice : Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth [p]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 [p]the windy side of
care. My cousin tells him in his [p]ear that he is in her heart.

Claudio : And so she doth, cousin.

Beatrice : Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the [p]world but I,
and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a [p]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. [p]Hath your grace
ne'er a brother like you? Your [p]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 [p]working-days: your
grace is too costly to wear [p]every day. But, I beseech your grace,
pardon me: I [p]was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

Don Pedro : Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best [p]becomes you;
for, out of question, you were born in [p]a merry hour.

Beatrice : No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there [p]was a star
danced, and under that was I born. [p]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.

Don Pedro : By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

Leonato : There's little of the melancholy element in her, my [p]lord: she is
never sad but when she sleeps, and [p]not ever sad then; for I have
heard my daughter say, [p]she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and
waked [p]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, [p]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 [p]have all his
rites.

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

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

Leonato : My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten [p]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 [p]cousin to a good
husband.

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

Leonato : Was not Count John here at supper?

Antonio : I saw him not.

Beatrice : How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see [p]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 [p]midway between
him and Benedick: the one is too [p]like an image and says nothing,
and the other too [p]like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Leonato : Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's [p]mouth, and half
Count John's melancholy in Signior [p]Benedick's face,--

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

Leonato : By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a [p]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 [p]sending that
way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst [p]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 [p]blessing I am at him
upon my knees every morning and [p]evening. Lord, I could not endure a
husband with a [p]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 [p]and make him my
waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a [p]beard is more than a youth, and
he that hath no [p]beard is less than a man: and he that is more
than [p]a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a [p]man, I am
not for him: therefore, I will even take [p]sixpence in earnest of the
bear-ward, and lead his [p]apes into hell.

Leonato : Well, then, go you into hell?

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

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

Beatrice : Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy [p]and say 'Father,
as it please you.' But yet for all [p]that, cousin, let him be a
handsome fellow, or else [p]make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it
please [p]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 [p]earth. Would it not
grieve a woman to be [p]overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to
make [p]an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? [p]No,
uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; [p]and, truly, I hold
it a sin to match in my kindred.

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

Beatrice : The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be [p]not wooed in good
time: if the prince be too [p]important, tell him there is measure in
every thing [p]and so dance out the answer. For, hear me,
Hero: [p]wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, [p]a
measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot [p]and hasty, like a
Scotch jig, and full as [p]fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest,
as a [p]measure, full of state and ancientry; and then
comes [p]repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the [p]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. [p][All put on
their masks] [p][Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK,
BALTHASAR,] [p]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, [p]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 [p]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.

Balthasar : Well, I would you did like me.

Margaret : So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many [p]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 [p]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 [p]the very man.
Here's his dry hand up and down: you [p]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 [p]excellent wit?
can virtue hide itself? Go to, [p]mum, you are he: graces will appear,
and there's an [p]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 [p]out of the
'Hundred Merry Tales:'--well this was [p]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; [p]only his gift is
in devising impossible slanders: [p]none but libertines delight in
him; and the [p]commendation is not in his wit, but in his
villany; [p]for he both pleases men and angers them, and then [p]they
laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in [p]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; [p]which,
peradventure not marked or not laughed at, [p]strikes him into
melancholy; and then there's a [p]partridge wing saved, for the fool
will eat no [p]supper that night. [p][Music] [p]We must follow the
leaders.

Benedick : In every good thing.

Beatrice : Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at [p]the next
turning.

Don John : Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath [p]withdrawn her father to
break with him about it. [p]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: [p]he is enamoured
on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him [p]from her: she is no equal for his
birth: you may [p]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.

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

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, [p]county. What
fashion will you wear the garland of? [p]about your neck, like an
usurer's chain? or under [p]your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You
must wear [p]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 [p]sell bullocks.
But did you think the prince would [p]have served you thus?

Claudio : I pray you, leave me.

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

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

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

Don Pedro : Now, signior, where's the count? did you see him?

Benedick : Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. [p]I found him
here as melancholy as a lodge in a [p]warren: I told him, and I think
I told him true, [p]that your grace had got the good will of this
young [p]lady; and I offered him my company to a
willow-tree, [p]either to make him a garland, as being forsaken,
or [p]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 [p]overjoyed with
finding a birds' nest, shows it his [p]companion, and he steals it.

Don Pedro : Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The [p]transgression is in the
stealer.

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

Don Pedro : I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to [p]the owner.

Benedick : If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, [p]you say
honestly.

Don Pedro : The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the [p]gentleman that danced
with her told her she is much [p]wronged by you.

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

Don Pedro : Look, here she comes.

Benedick : Will your grace command me any service to the [p]world's end? I will
go on the slightest errand now [p]to the Antipodes that you can devise
to send me on; [p]I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from
the [p]furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of [p]Prester
John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great [p]Cham's beard, do you
any embassage to the Pigmies, [p]rather than hold three words'
conference with this [p]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 [p]endure my Lady
Tongue.

Don Pedro : Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of [p]Signior Benedick.

Beatrice : Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave [p]him use for it, a
double heart for his single one: [p]marry, once before he won it of me
with false dice, [p]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 [p]should prove the
mother of fools. I have brought [p]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 [p]well; but civil
count, civil as an orange, and [p]something of that jealous
complexion.

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

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

Beatrice : Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

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Next: Act 2 - Scene 2

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