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Much Ado About Nothing


 	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]
 

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