A 505375
822.8
653
M8
D3

ARTES
1817
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
TUEBOR
SI-QUÆRIS PENINSULAM-AMŒNAM
CIRCUMSPICE
F
SHAKESPEARE.
William
١١
IUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
:
WITH
AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
K. DEIGHTON, B.A.,
LATE PRINCIPAL OF THE AGRA COLLEGE.
London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.,
AND NEW YORK.
1888.
[All rights reserved.]
1
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, BY
ROBERT MAcleHose, 153 WEST NILE street, glASGOW
[
Langer to
Gen het
4.6-43
PREFATORY NOTICE,
INTRODUCTION,
CONTENTS.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING,
NOTES,
INDEX,
•
•
PAGE.
vii
xi
1
79
167
•
PREFATORY NOTICE.
WITH SO many school editions of Shakespeare already in
existence, it may seem that an addition to their number
is scarcely needed. For English-speaking schoolboys the
select plays in the Clarendon Press and the Rugby Series,
and the complete edition by Mr. Rolfe, are so thoroughly
what is wanted, that it would be presumptuous to try to
improve upon them. It is different in the case of those
for whom this Series is specially intended, the students of
our Indian Universities. In their case, over and above
the ordinary difficulties that have to do with archaic lan-
guage, classical and historical allusions, obsolete customs,
etymology, and the numerous other points upon which a
commentator must touch-over and above these is the
difficulty of interpreting ideas to those cast in a mould
of thought and living in an atmosphere of life so remote
from anything English. To them the explanation of
things that to an English boy would be plain enough, of
things that no one who had not had experience of teaching
Indian students would suppose possible to be misunder-
stood, is vitally necessary. Of this every teacher in India
vii
viii
PREFATORY NOTICE.
is no doubt well aware. He is also no doubt fully capable
of meeting the difficulty, so far as it can be met, by oral in-
struction given in a language which to the student is a foreign
one. But to all who have had to give such instruction,
perhaps nothing is so disappointing as the ingenuity with
which their words are tortured into nonsense. Even if
the student goes away with something like the real gist
of the passage, he will very rarely retain for any time an
accurate idea of what he has been told, unless in a written
note he is able to pore over an explanation which at first
hearing was scarcely more easy of comprehension than
the obscurity which it sought to clear up. The main
object, therefore, which will be kept in view in editing
this Series is that of explaining as simply and as clearly
as possible everything that in point of thought or idiom
is likely to prove a difficulty to a foreigner, and that
foreigner a native of India. In saying this, no sneer is
intended at the intellect of Indian students. They are
acute enough, and often thoughtful. But it is their
own confession often made, no less than the experience
of those who have to teach them, that no edition of
Shakespeare within their means is exactly what they
need. Our endeavour to meet their want may be imper-
fect and unsatisfactory, but that it is an endeavour in
the right direction we feel no doubt.
In regard to æsthetic and psychological criticism, the
danger is not in giving too little help, but of giving too
PREFATORY NOTICE.
ix
much. To an Indian student nothing is so tempting as
to commit to memory whole pages of criticism, the mean-
ing of which in the majority of cases is but dimly under-
stood by him, and which in his examination is repro-
duced with irrelevant facility. If, however, the student
is capable of really assimilating sound criticism, his col-
lege library will afford him ample help. Coleridge,
Lamb, Hazlitt, Schlegel, Gervinus, Dowden, Hudson,
Mrs. Jameson, and a variety of other critics are always.
at hand; and from his teacher he will receive the guid-
ance necessary for the right use of such material. In
this matter, therefore, our object is to give a plain, lucid
outline of the action of the play as it affects the principal
characters, avoiding anything like an exhaustive analysis
of their motives and the significance of their conduct.
K. D.
INTRODUCTION.
THE play of Much Ado About Nothing was first printed in
1600, in quarto form, with the words "as it hath been
sundrie times publikely acted" in the title-page, and was
probably written in the latter part of 1599. As in so
many of Shakespeare's plays, the plot was partly origi-
nal, partly borrowed. Several of the incidents closely
resemble those of the tale of Ariodante and Ginevra in
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso; and still closer in regard to
names as well as incidents is the resemblance to one of
Bandello's novels. But Benedick and Beatrice, Dogberry
and Verges, are Shakespeare's own creations; while in
the case of all the other more important personages to
him also belongs the development of individual character.
As regards the title of the play, Mr. Hudson (Shake-
speare's Life, Art, and Characters, p. 319) remarks:
"The play indeed is rightly named: we have several
nothings, each in its turn occasioning a deal of stir and
perturbation; yet there is so much of real flavour and
spirit stirred out into effect, that the littleness of the
occasions is scarcely felt or observed, the thoughts being
far more drawn to the persons who make the much ado
than to the nothing about which the much ado is made."
And again (p. 329): "The general view of life which it
presents answers well to the title. The persons do
xi
xii
INTRODUCTION.
indeed make or have much ado; but all the while to us
who are in the secret, and ultimately to them also, all
this much ado is plainly about nothing."
The characters most fully drawn are those of Benedick
and Beatrice, Claudio and Hero, Dogberry and Verges;
and the play mainly turns upon the villainous scheme of
Don John, whereby Claudio, who has become affianced to
Hero, is convinced of her unchastity, and refuses, when
the marriage ceremony has already commenced, to take
her as his wife. In a kind of underplot, Benedick and
Beatrice, who avow themselves rebels to love, and who
by their wordy warfare when together, and by their
mutual disparagement when apart, would have the world.
suppose them utterly antagonistic, are by a stratagem
led to believe that each is deeply in love with the other.
These Benedick-Beatrice scenes serve, as Gervinus has
remarked, "to produce a merry counterbalance to the
more serious and primary element of the play," while the
blundering exposure of Don John's plot by the fantasti-
cal watchmen, Dogberry and Verges, introduces a comic
element into what appears about to end as a tragedy.
To read into the story any deliberate moral purpose, or
to regard it " as setting forth the contrast between life.
as it is in itself and as it seems to those engaged in its
struggle," is probably to ascribe to the poet an intention
he never had. The contrast is, of course, present; and a
moral, or many morals, may be deduced. But Shake-
speare is concerned with the characterization of certain
men and women under certain circumstances rather than
with any special didactic object. Of those men and
women, the two pairs of lovers absorb our chief interest,
more especially the pair of lovers whom, as we have said,
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
DRAMATIS PERSONE.
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,
BORACHIO,
followers of Don John.
FRIAR FRANCIS.
DOGBERRY, a constable.
VERGES, a headborough.
A Sexton.
A Boy.
HERO, daughter to Leonato.
BEATRICE, niece to Leonato.
MARGARET,
URSULA, } gentlewomen attending on Hero.
Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c.
SCENE: Messina.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
ACT I.
SCENE I. Before LEONATO's house.
Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger.
Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon
comes this night to Messina.
Mess. He is very near by this: he was not three leagues
f when I left him.
Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?
Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name.
Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings
home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath be-
stowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.
Mess. Much deserved on his part and equally remembered
y 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
xpect of me to tell you how.
Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very
much glad of it.
Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there
ppears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not
how itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.
Leon. Did he break out into tears?

Mess. In great measure.
CO
3
20

4
[ACT
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. A kind overflow of kindness: there are no face
truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it
to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!
Beat. I pray you, is Signior Montanto returned from the
wars or no?
Mess. I know none of that name, lady: there was none
such in the army of any sort.
Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece? ·
30
Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua,
Mess. O, he's returned; and as pleasant as he ever was.
Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged
Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the chal-
lenge, 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.
Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much
but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.
Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.
Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it
he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellen
stomach.
Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.
Beat. And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a
lord?
Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with al
honourable virtues.
Beat. It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man
but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.
50
Leon. 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.
Beat. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflic
four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whol
man governed with one so that if he have wit enough t
keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference betwee
SC. I.]
5
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath
left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his com-
panion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
Mess. Is't possible?
61
Beat. Very easily possible; he wears his faith but as the
fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
Beat. 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?
Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble
Claudio.
:
69
Beat. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease he is
sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs pre-
sently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught
the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a' be
cured.
Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.
Beat. Do, good friend.
Leon. You will never run mad, niece.
Beat. No, not till a hot January.
Mess. Don Pedro is approached.
79
Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK,
and BALTHASAR.
D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet
your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and
you encounter it.
Leon. 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.
D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I
think this is your daughter.
Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so.
Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?
90


6
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.
D. 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.
Bene. If Siguior Leonato be her father, she would not
have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as
she is.
Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
Benedick nobody marks you.
100
Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Beat. 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.
But it is certain I am
and I would I could
Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat.
loved of all ladies, only you excepted
find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I
love none.

108
Beat. A dear happiness to women: they would else have
been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God an
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.
Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some
gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.
Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a
face as yours were.
Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
Bene. 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.
121
Beat. You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of
old.
D. 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

SC. I.]
7
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
-]
month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us
longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his
heart.
129
Leon. 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.
D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I
thank you.
Leon. Please it your grace lead on ?
D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.
[Exeunt all except Benedick and Claudio.
Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior
Leonato ?
Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her.
Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?

140
Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for
udgement; or would you have me speak
y simple t
er my
s being a professed tyrant to their sex?
ay thee speak in sober judgement.
lith, methinks she is 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.
Cland. Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me
truly how thou likest her.
Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?
Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel ?
151
Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this
h a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us
id is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter?
he, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?
land. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
ked on.
159
Bene. I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such
hatter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with


8
00
[ACT J.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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?
Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn
the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
Bene. 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 threescore 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.
172

Re-enter DON PEDRO.
D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you fol-
lowed not to Leonato's?
Bene. I would your grace would constrain me to tell.
D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiand
Bene. You hear, Count Claudio: I can l
du
man; I would have you think so; but,
mark you this, on my allegiance. He is in
now that is your grace's part. Mark how short
is ;-With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.
Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.
"
.1
181
Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, nor 'twas
not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.'
Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid i
should be otherwise.
D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very
worthy.
Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.
D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.
Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I si
mine.
Claud. That I love her, I feel.
D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

SC. 1.]
9
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved nor
know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire can-
not melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.
D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the
200
despite of beauty.
Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force
of his will.
Bene. 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.
210
D. Pedro. shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.
Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,
hot with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love
han I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with
ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-
house for the sign of blind Cupid.
D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
wilt prove a notable argument.
Bene. 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.
D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try :
221
'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'
Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Bene-
dick 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.'
Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-
mad.
231
10
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in
Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.
Bene. I look for an earthquake too, then.
D. Pedro. Well, you will 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.
Bene. I have almost matter enough in ine for such an
embassage; and so I commit you—
240
Claud. To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had
it,—
D. Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Bene-
dick.
Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your dis-
course 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.
[Er
Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good.
D. 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.
Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
D. Pedro. No child but Hero; she's his only heir.
Dost thou affect her, Claudio ?

Claud.
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.
D. Pedro. Thou wilt he like a lover presently
251
260

SC. II.]
11
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
f thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her and with her father
nd thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end
hat thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
Claud. How sweetly you do minister to love,
hat know love's grief by his complexion !
ut lest my liking might too sudden seem,
would have salved it with a longer treatise.
270
D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the
flood?
e fairest grant is the necessity.
Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest,
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
know we shall have revelling to-night :
will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
1
ad in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
1
l take her hearing prisoner with the force
strong encounter of my amorous tale;
'n after to her father will I break;
nd the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
280

·
I practice let us put it presently.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. A room in LEONATO's house.
Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting.
Leon. How now, brother! Where is my cousin, your son?
th he provided this music?
Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell
u strange news that you yet dreamt not of.
Leon. Are they good?
Ant. As the event stamps them but they have a good
over; they show well outward. The prince and Count
audio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard,
re thus much overheard by a man of mine the prince
B

12
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
}
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.
1
Leon. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?
Ant. A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and
question him yourself.
Leon. No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appeal
itself but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may
be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this b
true. Go you and tell her of it. [Enter attendants.] Cousin,
you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy, friend ;
Good cousin,
go you with me, and I will use your skill.
have a care this busy time.
SCENE III. The same.
Enter Dox JOHN and Conrade.
[Exeunt.
Con. What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out
of measure sad?
D. John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds ;
therefore the sadness is without limit.
Con. You should hear reason.
D. John. And when I have heard it, what blessing brings
it?
Con. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance
D. John. I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest tho
art, born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral med
cine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am :
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 wher
I am merry and claw no man in his humour.
Con. 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 in
III.]
13
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
21
D. 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; there-
fore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my
outh, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my
king in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to
lter me.
:
Con. Can you make no use of your discontent?
D. John. I make all use of it, for I use it only.
Who comes here?
31
Enter BORACHIO.
What news, Borachio?
Bora. 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.
D. John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?
What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?
Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand.
D. John. Who? the most exquisite Claudio?

Bora. Even he.
41
D. John. A proper squire! And who, and who? which
ay looks he?
Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.
D. John. A very forward March-chick! How came you
this?
48
Bora. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking
musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in
ad, in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and
re heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero
14
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count
Claudio.
D. 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?
Con. To the death, my lord.
59
D. 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?
Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship.
[Exeunt
ACT II.
SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO's house.
Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE,
and others.
Leon. Was not Count John here at supper?
Ant. I saw him not.
Beat. 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.
Beat. 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.
Leon. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John
mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Ben
dick's face,-
Beat. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and mone
enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in th
world, if a' could get her good-will.
Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a hy
band, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

SC. I.]
15
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Ant. In faith, she's too curst.
Beat. Too curse 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.
21
Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.
Beat. 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.
Leon. You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
Beat. 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.
Leon. Well, then, go you into hell?
34
Beat. 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.
42
Ant. [To Hero] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by
your father.
Beat. 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.'
Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a
husband.
50
Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than
rth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered
th a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life
16
[ACT IL
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince
do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.
58
Beat. 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 everything 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.
Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by
daylight..
71
Leon. 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.
D. 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.
D. Pedro. With me in your company?
Hero. I may say so, when I please.
D. Pedro. And when please you to say so?
Hero. When I like your favour; for God defend the lut
should be like the case!
&
D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the hous
is Jove.
Hero. Why, then, your visor should be thatched.
SC. I.]
17
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
D. Pedro. Speak low, if you speak love.
Balth. Well, I would you did like me.
[Drawing her aside.
Marg. So would not I, for your own sake; for I have
many ill qualities.
Balth. Which is one?
Marg. I say my prayers aloud.
90
Balth. I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.
Marg. God match me with a good dancer!
Balth. Amen.
Marg. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance
is done! Answer, clerk.
Balth. No more words: the clerk is answered.
Urs. I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.
Ant. At a word, I am not.
Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head.
Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
100
Urs. 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.
Ant. At a word, I am not.
Urs. 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.
Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so?
Bene. No, you shall pardon me.
Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are?
Bene. Not now.
110
Beat. 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.
Bene. What's he?
Beat. I am sure you know him well enough.
Bene. Not I, believe me.
Beat. Did he never make you laugh?
Bene. I pray you, what is he?
119
18
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Beat. 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.
Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you
say.
Beat. 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.
Bene. In every good thing.
132
Beat. 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.
D. 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.
Bora. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.
D. John. Are not you Signior Benedick?
Claud. You know me well; I am he.
140
D. 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.
Claud. How know you he loves her?
D. John. I heard him swear his affection.
Bora. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her
to-night.
D. John. Come, let us to the banquet.
150
[Exeunt Don John and Borachio.
Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
SC. I.]
19
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
'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.
160
Bene. Count Claudio ?
Claud. Yea, the same.
Bene. Come, will you go with me?
Claud. Whither?
Bene. 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 arn, like a
lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the
prince hath got your Hero.
Claud. I wish him joy of her.
170
Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier: so they
sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have
served you thus ?
Claud. I pray you, leave me.
Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man : 'twas the
boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.
Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you.
[Exit.
Bene. 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.
20
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Re-enter DON PEDRO.
D. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the count? did you see
him?
188
Bene. 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.
D. Pedro. To be whipped! What's his fault ?
Bene. The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being
overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion,
and he steals it.
D. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The
transgression is in the stealer.
201
Bene. 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 bird's nest.
D. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them
to the owner.
Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith,
you say honestly.
209
D. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the
gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged
by you.
Bene. 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
SC. I. ]
21
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would
not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam
had 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.
D. Pedro. Look, here she comes.
Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO.
231
Bene. 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 toothpicker now from the farthest 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?
240
D. Pedro. None, but to desire your good company.
Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot
endure my Lady Tongue.
[Exit.
D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
Signior Benedick.
and I gave
Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile;
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.
D. Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put
him down.
251
Beat. 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.
D. Pedro. Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad
22
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Claud. Not sad, my lord.
D. Pedro. How then? sick?
Claud. Neither, my lord.
Beat. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor
well; but civil, count, civil as an orange, and something of
that jealous complexion.
261
D. 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!
Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my
fortunes his grace hath made the match, and all grace say
Amen to it.
Beat. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.
270
Claud. 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.
Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth
with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.
D. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
Beat. 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.
Claud. And so she doth, cousin.
280
Beat. 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!
D. Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
Beat. 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.
D. Pedro. Will you have me, lady ?
289
Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for work-
ing-days your grace is too costly to wear every day. But,
SC. I.]
23
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
I beseech your grace, pardon me: I was born to speak all
mirth and no matter.
D. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry
best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a
merry hour.
Beat. 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 !
299
Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?
Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon.
X[Exit.
D. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.
Leon. 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.
D. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.
Leon. O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of
suit.
310
D. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.
Leon. O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,
they would talk themselves mad.
D. Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to
church?
Claud. To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till
love have all his rites.
Leon. 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.
319
D. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breath-
ing; 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
24
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall
give you direction.
Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights'
watching.
Claud. And I, my lord.
D. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero?
330
Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
cousin to a good husband.
D. 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.
SCENE II.
The same.
Enter DON JOHN and ВORACHIO.
D. John. It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the
daughter of Leonato.
Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.
D. 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?
Bora. Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no
dishonesty shall appear in me.
D. John. Show me briefly how.
10
Bora. I think I told your lordship a year since, how much
I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman
to Hero.
D. John. I remember.
неоч
گاه
SC. II.]
25
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Bora. I can, at any seasonable instant of the night, appoint
her to look out at her lady's chamber window.
D. John. What life is in that, to be the death of this
marriage.
18
Bora. 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.
D. John. What proof shall I make of that ?
Bora. Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio,
to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other
issue?
27
D. John. Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.
Bora. 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 with-
out trial offer them instances; which shall bear no less like-
lihood 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.
43
D. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put
it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee
is a thousand ducats.
Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning
shall not shame me.
D. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage.
[Exeunt.
26
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Bene. Boy!
SCENE III. LEONATO's orchard.
Boy. Signior?
Enter BENEDICK.
Enter Boy.
Bene. In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither
to me in the orchard.
Boy. I am here already, sir.
Bene. 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 be-
haviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow
follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by
falling 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 tabor 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,
SC. III.]
27
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO.
D. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music?
Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!
D. Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself?
Claud. O, very well, my lord: the music ended,
We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.
Enter BALTHASAR with Music.
D. Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again.
Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
To slander music any more than once.
D. 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.
Balth. 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.
D. Pedro.
Now, pray thee, come;
Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,
Do it in notes.
Balth.
Note this before my notes;
40
50
There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.
D. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks;
Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing.
[dir.
Bene. 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.
Balth. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
୯
60
28
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blythe 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 leavy:
Then sigh not so, etc.
D. Pedro. By my troth, a good song.
Balth. And an ill singer, my lord.
710
D. Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for
a shift.
Bene. 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.
D. 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.
Balth. The best I can, my lord.
80
D. 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?
Claud. O, ay: stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never
think that lady would have loved any man.
Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she
should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all
outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.
90
Bene. Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?
Leon. 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.
D. Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit.
Claud. Faith, like enough.
SC. III.
29
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. O God, counterfeit ! There was never counterféit
of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.
D. Pedro. Why what effects of passion shows she?
Claud. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.
Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard
my daughter tell you how.
Claud. She did, indeed.
101
D. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I
would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all
assaults of affection.
Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially
against Benedick.
Bene. I should think this a gull, but that the white-
bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself
in such reverence.
Claud. He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up.
110
D. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Bene-
dick?
Leon. No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.
Claud. '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?'
Leon. 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.
120
Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a
pretty jest your daughter told us of.
Leon. O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she
found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet.
Claud. That.
Leon. 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.'
130
30
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs,
beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O sweet
Benedick! God give me patience!'
Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so and the
ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is
sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself:
it is very true.
D. Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some
other, if she will not discover it.
Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it
and torment the poor lady worse.
141
D. 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.
Claud. And she is exceeding wise.
D. Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick.
Leon. 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.
150
D. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I
would have daffed all other respects and made her half my-
self. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what a' will say.
Leon. Were it good, think you?
Claud. 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.
159
D. 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.
Claud. He is a very proper man.
D. Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness.
Claud. Before God! and, in my mind, very wise.
D. Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like
wit.
SC. III31
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
]
.
.IIIClaud. And I take him to be valiant.
D. 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.
172
Leon. 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.
D. 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?
Claud. Never tell him, my lord; let her wear it out with
good counsel.
181
Leon. Nay, that's impossible: she may wear her heart out
first.
D. 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.
Leon. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.
Claud. If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never
trust my expectation.
190
D. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for ber; and
that must your daughter and her gentlewoman 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.
Bene. [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the con-
ference 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
:
:
32
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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 mend-
ing. 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.
Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to
dinner.
Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
221
Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take
pains to thank me if it had been painful, I would not have
conie.
Bene. You take pleasure then in the message?
Beat. 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.
Bene. 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.
SC. I.]
33
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
ACT III.
SCENE I. LEONATO's garden.
Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA.
Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
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.
10
Marg. 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.
Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait :
20
34
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
30
[Approaching the bower.
No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock.
Urs.
But are you sure
That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?
Hero. So says the prince and my new-trothed lord.
Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madamı ?
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.
Urs. 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 :
40
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.
Urs.
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,
50
60
SC. I.]
35
MUCH ADÓ ABOUT NOTHING.
She'd 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.
Urs. 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.
Urs. 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.
Urs. 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.
Urs. 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.
70
80
90
36
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Hero. Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.
Urs. 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.
100
Urs. 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.
Beat. [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.
SCENE II. A room in LEONATO's house.
110
[Exit.
Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO.
D. Pedro. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate,
and then go I toward Arragon.
Claud. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouch-
safe me.
D. 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
SC. II.]
37
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
him; he hath a heart as sound as a bell and his tongue is the
clapper, for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks.
Bene. Gallants, I am not as I have been.
Leon. So say I methinks you are sadder.
Claud. I hope he be in love.
12
D. 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.
Bene. I have the toothache.
D. Pedro. Draw it.
Bene. Hang it !
Claud. You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.
D. Pedro. What! sigh for the toothache?
Leon. Where is but a humour or a worm.
20
Bene. Well, every one can master a grief but he that
has it.
Claud. Yet say I, he is in love.
D. 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 to-day, a Frenchman to-morrow, or in the shape
of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist down-
wards, 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.
35
Claud. 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?
D. Pedro. Hath any man seen him at the barber's?
Claud. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him,
and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed
tennis-balls.
42
Leon. Indeed, he looks younger than he did by the loss of
a beard.
D. Pedro. Nay, a' rubs himself with civet: can you smell
him out by that?
38
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Claud. That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in
love.
D. Pedro. The greatest note of it is his melancholy.
Claud. And when was he wont to wash his face ?
50
D. Pedro. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear
what they say of him.
Claud. Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into
a lute-string and now governed by stops.
D. Pedro. Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him: conclude,
conclude he is in love.
Claud. Nay, but I know who loves him.
D. Pedro. That would I know too: I warrant, one that
knows him not.
Claud. Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of all,
dies for him.
61
D. Pedro. She shall be buried with her face upwards.
Bene. 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.
D. Pedro. For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.
Claud. '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.
D. John. My lord and brother, God save you!
D. Pedro. Good den, brother.
D. John. If your leisure served, I would speak with you.
D. Pedro. In private ?
70
D. John. If it please you: yet Count Claudio may hear;
for what I would speak of concerns him.
D. Pedro. What's the matter?
D. John. [To Claudio] Means your lordship to be married
to-morrow?
D. Pedro. You know he does.
80
SC. II.]
39
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
D. John. I know not that, when he knows what I know.
Claud. If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.
D. 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.
D. Pedro. Why, what's the matter?
D. John. I came hither to tell you; and, circumstances
shortened, for she has been too long a talking of, the lady
is disloyal.
Claud. Who, Hero?
91
D. John. Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every
man's Hero.
Claud. Disloyal?
D. John. The word is too good to paint out her wicked-
ness; 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.
Claud. May this be so?
D. Pedro. I will not think it.
102
D. 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.
Claud. If I see anything to-night why I should not marry
her to-morrow, in the congregation, where I should wed,
there will I shame her.
111
D. Pedro. And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will
join with thee to disgrace her.
D. John. I will disparage her no farther till you are my
witnesses: bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue
show itself.
40
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
D. Pedro. O day untowardly turned!
Claud. O mischief strangely thwarting!
118
D. John. O plague right well prevented! so will you say
when you have seen the sequel.
[Exeunt.
da.
SCENE III. A street.
Enter DOGBERRY and VERGES with the Watch.
Dog. Are you good men and true?
Verg. Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer
salvation, body and soul.
"Dog. Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if
they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen for
the prince's watch.
Verg. Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.
Dog. First, who think you the most desartless man to be
constable ?
First Watch. Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacole; for
they can write and read.
11
Dog. 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.
Sec. Watch. Both which, master constable,--
Dog. 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 w
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.
Sec. Watch. How if a' will not stand?
23
Dog. 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.
SC. III.]
41
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Verg. If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of
the prince's subjects.
Dog. True, and they are to meddle with none but the
prince's subjects. You shall also make no noise in the
streets; for the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable
and not to be endured.
33
Watch. We will rather sleep than talk: we know what
belongs to a watch.
Dog. 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.
Watch. How if they will not?
40
Dog. 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.
Watch. Well, sir.
Dog. 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.
Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay
hands on him?
51
Dog. 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.
Verg. You have been always called a merciful man,
partner.
Dog. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much
more a man who hath any honesty in him.
Verg. If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call
to the nurse and bid her still it.
61
Watch. How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?
Dog. Why, then, depart in peace, and let the child wake
42
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING,
her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb
when it baes will never answer a calf when he bleats.
Verg. 'Tis very true.
Dog. 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.
Verg. Nay, by'r lady, that I think a' cannot.
70
Dog. Five shillings to one on't, with any man that knows
the statues, 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.
Verg. By'r lady, I think it be so.
Dog. Ha, ah, 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.
Watch. Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit
here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed. 81
Dog. 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.
Bora. What, comrade!
Watch. [Aside] Peace! stir not.
Bora. Conrade, I say!
Con. Here, man; I am at thy elbow.
Bora. Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would
a scab follow.
91
Con. I will owe thee an answer for that: and now forward
with thy tale.
Bora. Stand thee close, then, under this pent-house, for it
drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to
thee.
Watch. [Aside] Some treason, masters: yet stand close,

SC. III.]
43
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Bora. Therefore now I have earned of Don John a
thousand ducats.
Con. Is it possible that any villany should be so dear? 100
Bora. Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any
villány should be so rich; for when rich villains have need
of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.
Con. I wonder at it.
Bora. That shows thou art unconfirmed.
Thou knowest
that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing
to a man.
Con. Yes, it is apparel.
Bora. I mean, the fashion.
Con. Yes, the fashion is the fashion.
110
Bora. Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But
seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is ?
Watch. [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.
Bora. Didst thou not hear somebody?
Con. No; 'twas the vane on the house.
117
Bora. 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 reechy painting, some-
time like god Bel's priests in the old church-window, some-
time like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten
tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?
Con. 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?
128
Bora. 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
D
44
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
master, planted and placed and possessed by my master
Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable en-
counter.
Con. And thought they Margaret was Hero?
137
Bora. 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 Watch. We charge you, in the prince's name, stand!
Sec. Watch. Call up the right master constable. We have
here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever
was known in the commonwealth.
150
First Watch. And one Deformed is one of them: I know
him a' wears a lock.
Con. Masters, masters,—
Sec. Watch. You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I war-
rant you.
Con. Masters,—
First Watch. Never speak: we charge you let us obey you
to go with us.
Bora. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being
taken up of these men's bills.
160
Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come,
we'll obey you.
SCENE IV. HERO's apartment.
Enter HERO, Margaret, and Ursula.
[Exeunt.
Hero. Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire
her to rise.
Urs. I will, lady.
SC. IV.
45
]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Hero. And bid her come hither.
Urs. Well.
Murg. Troth, I think your other rabato were better.
Hero. No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this.
[Exit.
Marg. 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.
11
Marg. 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.
Marg. 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, grace-
ful and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on't.
21
Hero. God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceed-
ing heavy.
Marg. 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.
Hero. Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?
Marg. Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not
marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honour-
able without marriage? I think you would have me say,
saving your reverence, ‘a husband': an bad thinking do not
wrest true speaking, I'll offend nobody is there any harm
in 'the heavier for a husband'? None, I think, an 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, COS.
Beat. Good morrow, sweet Hero.
Hero. Why, how now? do you speak in the sick tune?
Beat. I am out of all other tune, methinks.
33
46
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Marg. Clap's into 'Light o' love'; that goes without a
burden do you sing it, and I'll dance it.
Beat. Ye light o' love, with your heels! then, if your
husband have stables enough, you'll see he shall lack no
barns.
42
Marg. O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my
heels.
Beat. 'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; 'tis time you were
ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill: heigh-ho!
Marg. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?
Beat. For the letter that begins them all, H.
Marg. Well, an you be not turned Turk, there's no more
sailing by the star.
Beat. What means the fool, trow?
50
Marg. Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's
desire !
Hero. These gloves the count sent me; they are an excel-
lent perfume.
Beat. I am stuffed, cousin ; I cannot smell.
Marg. A maid, and stuffed there's goodly catching of
cold.
Beat. O, God help me! God help me! how long have you
professed apprehension?
60
Marg. Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me
rarely?
Beat. It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your
cap. By my troth, I am sick.
Marg. 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.
:
Beat. Benedictus ! why Benedictus? you have some moral
in this Benedictus.
69
Marg. 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,
sc. v.]
47
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
:
Beat. What pace is this that thy tongue keeps ?
Marg. Not a false gallop.
Re-enter URSULA.
81
Urs. 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 cos, good Meg, good Ursula.
SCENE V. Another room in LEONATO's house.
[Exeunt.
Enter LEONATO, with DOGBERRY and VERGES.
Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour fired
Dog. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you
that decerns you nearly.
90
Leon. Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time
with me.
Dog. Marry, this it is, sir.
Verg. Yes, in truth it is, sir.
Leon. What is it, my good friends?
Dog. 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 be-
tween his brows.
99
Verg. Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living
that is an old man and no honester than I.
Dog. Comparisons are odorous palabras, neighbour
Verges.
48
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious.
Dog. 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.
Leon. All thy tediousness on me, ah?
109
Dog. 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.
Verg. And so am I.
Leon. I would fain know what you have to say.
Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your wor-
ship's presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any
in Messina.
118
Dog. 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, ' 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 !
Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.
Dog. Gifts that God gives.
Leon. I must leave you.
! 128
Dog. One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed compre-
hended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this
morning examined before your worship.
Leon. Take their examination yourself and bring it me: I
am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you.
Dog. It shall be suffigance.
Leon. Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well.
Enter a Messenger.
Mess. My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to
her husband.
SC. I.]
49
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. I'll wait upon them: I am ready.
[Exeunt Leonato and Messenger.
Dog. Go, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacole; bid
him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to
examine these men.
l'erg. And we must do it wisely.
141
Dog. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here's that
shall drive some of them to a noncome: only get the learned
writer to set down our excommunication and meet me at the
gaol.
[Exeunt.
ACT IV.
SCENE I. A church.
Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS,
CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, and attendants.
Leon. Come, Friar Francis, be brief; only to the plain
form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular
duties afterwards.
Friar. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady.
Claud. No.
Leon. To be married to her friar, you come to marry her.
Friar. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count.
Hero. I do.
Friar. If either of you know any inward impediment why
you should not be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to
utter it.
Claud. Know you any, Hero?
Hero. None, my lord.
Friar. Know you any, count?
Leon. I dare make his answer, none.
11
Claud. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what
men daily do, not knowing what they do!
Bene. How now interjections? Why, then, some be of
laughing, as, ha, ha, he!
50
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
20
Claud. Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave :
Will you with free and unconstrained soul
Give me this maid, your daughter?
Leon. As freely, son, as God did give her me.
Claud. And what have I to give you back, whose worth
May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?
D. Pedro. Nothing unless you render her again.
Claud. 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.
Leon. What do you mean, my lord?
Claud.
30
Not to be married, 40
Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.
Leon. Dear, my lord, if you, in your own proof,
Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth
And made defeat of her virginity,
Claud. 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?
Claud. Out on thy seeming! I will write against it:
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
50
sc. 1.]
51
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown ;
Bat 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?
Leon. Sweet prince, why speak not you?
D. Pedro.
What should I speak ? 60
I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about
To link my dear friend to a common stale.
Leon. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?
D. John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.
Bene. This looks not like a nuptial.
Hero.
Claud. Leonato, stand I here?
True! O God!
Is this the prince? is this the prince's brother?
Is this face Hero's? are our eyes our own?
Leon. All this is so but what of this, my lord?
Claud. 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.
Leon. 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?
Claud. To make you answer truly to your name.
llero. Is it not Hero?
With any just reproach?
Claud.
71
Who can blot that name
Marry, that can Hero ;
80
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.
D. 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
52
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
!
D). 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.
Claud. 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.
Leon. Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?
90
100
[Hero swoons.
Beat. Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?
D. John. Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
Smother her spirits up.
[Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John, and Claudio.
Bene. How doth the lady?
Beat.
Dead, I think. Help, uncle!
Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!
Leon. O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand.
Death is the fairest cover for her shame
That may be wish'd for.
Beat.
How now, cousin Hero!
Friar. Have comfort, lady.
Leon. Dost thou look up?
Friar. Yea, wherefore should she not?
Leon. Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
111
SC. I.]
53
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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 smirched 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 !
Bene.
Sir, sir, be patient.
For my part, I am so attired in wonder,
I know not what to say.
Beat. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!
Bene. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?
Beat. No, truly not; although, until last night,
I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.
Leon. 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. Hear me a little ;
For I have only silent been so long,
120
130
140
150
54
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have mark'd
A thousand blushing apparitions 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 tenour of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.
Leon.
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. Lady, what man is he you are accused of?
Iero. 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
160
170
180
Maintain'd the change of words with any creature,
Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death!
Friar. There is some strange misprision in the princes.
Bene. Two of them have the very bent of honour ;
And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
The practice of it lives in John the bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.
Leon. I know not. If they speak but truth of her,
These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
SC. I.]
55
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
190
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.
Pause awhile,
And let my counsel sway you in this case.
Your daughter here the princes left for dead :
200
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
That appertain unto a burial.
Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rights
Leon. What shall become of this? what will this do?
Friar. Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
210
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 be so 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 :
220
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
56
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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,
And wish he had not so accused her,
230
If ever love had interest in his liver,
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,
240
Out of all eyes, tongues, minds and injuries.
Bene. 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.
Leon.
Being that I flow in grief,
The smallest twine may lead me.
Friar. '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.
250
[Exeunt all but Benedict and
Beatrice.
Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
Beat. Yea, and I will weep a while longer.
Bene. I will not desire that.
Beat. You have no reason I do it freely.
Bene. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.
SC. I.]
57
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Beat. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that
would right her!
Bene. Is there any way to show such friendship?
Beat. A very even way, but no such friend.
Bene. May a man do it?
Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours.
260
Bene. I do love nothing in the world so well as you is not
that strange?
Beat. 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.
Bene. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
Beat. Do not swear, and eat it.
270
Bene. I will swear by it that you love me; and I will
make him eat it that says I love not you.
Beat. Will you not eat your word?
Bene. With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I
love thee.
Beat. Why, then, God forgive me!
Bene. What offence, sweet Beatrice ?
Beat. You have stayed me in a happy hour; I was about
to protest I loved you.
Bene. And do it with all thy heart.
280
Beat. I love you with so much of my heart that none is
left to protest.
Bene. Come, bid me do anything for thee.
Beat. Kill Claudio.
Bene. Ha! not for the wide world.
Beat. You kill me to deny it. Farewell.
Bene. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
Beat. I am gone, though I am here there is no love in
you: nay, I pray you, let me go.
Bene. Beatrice,—
Beat. In faith, I will go.
Bene. We'll be friends first.
290
58
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Beat. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with
mine enemy.
Bene. Is Claudio thine enemy?
Beat. 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.
Bene. Hear me, Beatrice,
302
Beat. Talk with a man out at a window! A proper
saying!
Bene. Nay, but, Beatrice,
Beat. Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she
is undone.
Bene. Beat—
308
Beat. Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony,
a goodly count, Count Confect; 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.
Bene. Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.
Beat. Use it for my love some other way than swearing
by it.
320
Bene. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath
wronged Hero?
Beat. Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.
Bene. 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.
SC. II.]
59
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
SCENE II. A prison.
Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Sexton, in gowns; and the
Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO.
Dog. Is our whole dissembly appeared?
Verg. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.
Sex. Which be the malefactors?
Dog. Marry, that am I and my partner.
Verg. Nay, that's certain; we have the exhibition to
examine.
Sex. But which are the offenders that are to be examined?
let them come before master constable.
Dog. Yea, marry, let them come before me.
name, friend?
Bora. Borachio.
What is your
10
Dog. Pray, write down, Borachio. Yours, sirrah ?
Con. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.
Dog. Write down, master gentleman Conrade. Masters,
do you serve God?
Con.
Bora Yea, sir, we hope.
Dog. 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?
Con. Marry, sir, we say we are none.
21
Dog. 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.
Bora. Sir, I say to you we are none.
Dog. Well, stand aside. 'Fore God, they are both in a
tale. Have you writ down, that they are none?
Sex. Master constable, you go not the way to examine:
you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.
E
31
60
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Dog. 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 Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John, the
prince's brother, was a villain.
Dog. Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat
perjury, to call a prince's brother villain.
Bora. Master constable,-
Dog. Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I
promise thee.
Sex. What heard you him say else?
41
Sec. Watch. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats
of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.
Dog. Flat burglary as ever was committed.
Verg. Yea, by mass, that it is.
Sex. What else, fellow?
First Watch. And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his
words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not
marry her.
50
Dog. O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting
redemption for this.
Sex. What else?
Watch. This is all.
Sex. 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.
Dog. Come, let them be opinioned.
Verg. Let them be in the hands-
Con. Off, coxcomb !
[Exit.
61
Dog. God's my life, where's the sexton? let him write
down the prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou
naughty varlet!
Con. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.
SC. II.]
61
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
an ass!
Dog. Dost thou not suspect my place! dost thou not
suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down
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.
ACT V.
SCENE I. Before LEONATO's house.
Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO
Ant. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself;
And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.
Leon.
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,
10
62
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
20
30
Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ.
Leon. 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.
Ant. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
Make those that do offend you suffer too.
Leon. 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.
Ant. Here comes the prince and Claudio hastily.
Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO.
D. Pedro. Good den, good den.
Claud.
Leon. Hear you, my lords,—
D. Pedro.
Good day to both of you.
40
We have some haste, Leonato.
SC. I.]
63
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:
Are you so hasty now? well, all is one.
D. Pedro. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. 50
Ant. If he could right himself with quarreling,
Some of us would lie low,
Claud.
Who wrongs him?
Leon. Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler,
thou :-
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
I fear thee not.
Claud.
Marry, beshrew my hand,
If it should give your age such cause of fear :
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.
Leon. 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!
Claud. My villany?
Leon.
Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.
D. Pedro. You say not right, old man.
Leon.
I'll prove it on his body, if he dare,
My lord, my lord,
Despite his nice fence and his active practice,
His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.
Claud. Away! I will not have to do with you.
60
70
Leon. Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child :
64
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.
Ant. 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.
Leon. Brother,—
Ant. 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!
Leon.
Brother Antony,—
Ant. Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,—
Scambling, 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.
Leon. But, brother Antony,—
Ant.
80
90
Come, 'tis no matter;
100
Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.、
D. 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.
Leon. My lord, my lord,—
D. Pedro. I will not hear you.
Leon. No? Come, brother; away! I will be heard.
Ant. And shall, or some of us will smart for it.
[Exeunt Leonato and Antonio.
D. Pedro. See, see; here comes the man we went to
seek.
110
SC. I.]
65
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Enter BENEDICK.
Claud. Now, signior, what news?
Bene. Good day, my lord.
D. Pedro. Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part
almost a fray.
Claud. We had like to have had our two noses snapped off
with two old men without teeth.
D. Pedro. Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou?
Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young
for them.
Bene. In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came
to seek
both.
121
you
Claud. 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?
Bene. It is in my scabbard; shall I draw it?
D. Pedro. Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?
Claud. Never any did so, though very many have been
beside their wit. I will bid three draw, as we do the
minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.
D. Pedro. As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art
ou sick, or angry?
131
Claud. What, courage, man! What though care killed a
cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.
Bene. Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, an you charge
it against me. I pray you choose another subject.
Claud. Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was
broke cross.
D. Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more: I
think he be angry indeed.
Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.
Bene. Shall I speak a word in your ear ?
Claud. God bless me from a challenge!
140
Bene. [Aside to Claudio] You are a villain; I jest not: I
will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and
66
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice.
You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy
Let me hear from you.
on you.
Claud. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.
D. Pedro. What, a feast, a feast?
149
Claud. 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?
Bene. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.
D. 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 gro33 one.' 'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit:' 'Just,' said
she, 'it hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman is
wise:' 'Certainly,' 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 for-
swore on Tuesday morning; there's a double tongue; there's
two tongues.' Thus did she, an hour together, trans-shape
thy particular virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh,
thou wast the properest man in Italy.
not.
165
Claud. For the which she wept heartily and said she cared
D. Pedro. Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, and if
she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly: the
old man's daughter told us all.
170
Claud. All, all: and, moreover, God saw him when he was
hid in the garden.
D. Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on
the sensible Benedick's head?
Claud. Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick
the married man'?
176
Bene. 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 dis-

SC. I.]
07
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
continue 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.
D. Pedro. He is in earnest.
[Exit.
Claud. In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you,
for the love of Beatrice.
D. Pedro. And hath challenged thee.
Claud. Most sincerely.
189
D. Pedro. What a pretty thing man is when he goes in
his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!
Claud. He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a
doctor to such a man.
:
D. 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.
Dog. 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.
D. Pedro. How now? two of my brother's men bound!
Borachio one!
Claud. Hearken after their offence, my lord.
200
D. Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done?
Dog. Marry, sir, they have committed false report; more-
over, 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.
D. 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.
211
Claud. Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by
my troth, there's one meaning well suited.
68
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
D. 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?
216
Bora. 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 nie court Margaret in Hero's
garments; how you disgraced her, when you should marry
her my villany they have upon record; which I would
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.
D. Pedro. Runs not this speech like iron through your
blood?
Claud. I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it.
D. Pedro. But did my brother set thee on to this?
Bora. Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.
D. Pedro. He is composed and framed of treachery :
And fled he is upon his villany.
Claud. Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
In the rare semblance that I loved at first.
230
Dog. 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.
241
Verg. Here, here comes master Signior Leonato, and the
sexton too.
Re-enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, with the Sexton.
Leon. 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?
Bora. If you would know your wronger look on me.
SC. I.]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd
My innocent child ?
Bora.
Yea, even I alone.
Leon. 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.
Claud. 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
69
250
But in mistaking.
D. Pedro.
By my soul, nor I :
260
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight
That he'll enjoin me to.
Leon. 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 aught 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.
Claud.
O noble sir,
Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
I do embrace your offer; and dispose
For henceforth of poor Claudio.
270
280
70
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. 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.
Bora. 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.
[ACT V.
289
Dog. 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
he 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.
Leon. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.
Dog. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and
reverend youth; and I praise God for you.
Leon. There's for thy pains.
Dog. God save the foundation !
301
Leon. Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank
thee.
Dog. 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 pro-
hibit it! Come, neighbour.
[Exeunt Dogberry and Verges.
Leon. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.
Ant. Farewell, my lords: we look for you to-morrow.
D. Pedro. We will not fail.
Claud. To-night I'll mourn with Hero.
312
SC. II. }
71
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. [To the Watch] Bring you these fellows on. We'll
talk with Margaret,
How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.
[Exeunt, severally.
SCENE II. LEONATO's garden.
Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET meeting.
Bene. Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at
my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.
Marg. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my
beauty?
Bene. In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living
shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest
it.
Marg. To have no man come over me! why, shall I always
keep below stairs?
Bene. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it
catches.
11
Marg. And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit,
but hurt not.
Bene. A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a
woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the
bucklers.
Marg. Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.
Bene. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the
pikes, with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for
maids.
20
Marg. Well, I will call Beatrise to you, who I think hath legs.
Bene. And therefore will come.
[Exit Margaret.
[Sings]
The god of love,
That sits above,
And knows me, and knows me,
How pitiful I deserve,-
27
I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer,
72
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Troilus the first employer of pandars, and a whole bookful of
these quondam carpet-mongers, 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 call thee?
Beat. Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.
Bene. O, stay but till then!
40
Beat. '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.
Bene. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but
foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will
depart unkissed.
47
Bene. 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?
Beat. 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?
Bene. Suffer love! a good epithet: I do suffer love indeed,
for I love thee against my will.
59
Beat. 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.
SC. II.]
73
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
Bear. It appears not in this confession; there's not one
wise man among twenty that will praise himself.
Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the
time 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.
Beat. And how long is that, think you?
70
Bene. Question: 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 ?
Beat. Very ill?
Bene. And how do you?
Beat. Very ill too.
Bene. Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave
you too, for here comes one in haste.
Enter URSULA.
81
Urs. 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 fled and gone. Will you
come presently?
Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior.
Bene. 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.
SCENE III. A church.
Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and three or four with tapers.
Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato ?
A Lord. It is, my lord.
Claud. [Reading out of a scroll]
74
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
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.
Claud. Now unto thy bones good night!
Yearly will I do this rite.
D. Pedro. Good morrow, masters; put your torches out :
Claud.
10
20
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.
Good morrow, masters: each his several way.
D. Pedro. Côme, let us hence, and put on other weeds: 30
And then to Leonato's we will go.
Claud.
And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's
Than this for whom we rendered up this woe.
[Exeunt.
SC. IV.]
75
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
SCENE IV. A room in LEONATO's house.
Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, MARGARET,
', URSULA, FRIAR FRANCIS, and HERO.
Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent?
Leon. 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.
Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.
Bene. And so am I, being else by faith enforced
To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.
Leon. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,
Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
And when I send for you come hither mask'd.
10
[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.
Ant. Which I will do with confirmed countenance.
Bene. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.
Friur. To do what, signior?
Bene. 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.
20
Leon. That eye my daughter lent her: 'tis most true.
Bene. And I do with an eye of love requite her.
Leon. The sight whereof I think you had from me,
From Claudio and the prince: but what's your will?
Bene. 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.
F
30
76
} [ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Leon. My heart is with your liking.
Friar.
Here comes the prince and Claudio.
And my help
Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, and two or three others.
D. Pedro. Good morrow to this fair assembly.
Leon. Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio:
We here attend you. Are you yet determined
To-day to marry with my brother's daughter?
Claud. I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.
Leon. Call her forth, brother; here's the friar ready.
D. Pedro. Good morrow, Benedick.
matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?
[Erit Antonio.
Why, what's the
Claud. 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.
Bene. 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.
Claud. For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.
Re-enter ANTONIO, with the Ladies masked.
Which is the lady I must seize upon ?
Ant. This same is she, and I do give you her.
Claud. Why, then she's mine.
face.
40
50
Sweet, let me see your
Leon. No, that you shall not, till you take her hand
Before this friar and swear to marry her.
Claud. Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
I am your husband, if you like of me,
SC. IV.]
77
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Hero. And when I lived, I was your other wife. [Unmasking.
And when you loved, you were my other husband.
Claud. Another Hero!
Hero.
Nothing certainer:
One Hero died defiled, but I do live,
And surely as I live I am a maid.
D. Pedro. The former Hero! Hero that is dead.
Leon. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived.
Friar. 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.
Bene. Soft and fair, friar, which is Beatrice ?
Beat. [Unmasking] I answer to that name.
will?
Bene. Do not you love me?
Beat. Why, no ; no more than reason.
61
70
What is your
Bene. Why, then your uncle and the prince and Claudio
Have been deceived; they swore you did.
Beat. Do not you love me?
Bene. Troth, no; no more than reason
Beat. Why, then my cousin Margaret and Ursula
Are much deceived; for they did swear you did.
Bene. They swore that you were almost sick for me.
Beat. They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.
Bene. 'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?
Beat. No, truly, but in friendly recompense.
Leon. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.
Claud. 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,
80
90
78
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Bene. A miracle? here's our own hands against our hearts.
Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.
Beat. 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.
Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth.
[Kissing her.
D. Pedro. How dost thou, Benedick, the married man? 99
Bene. 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 propose 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. 109
Claud. 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 exceeding narrowly to thee.
Bene. 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.
Leon. We'll have dancing afterward.
Bene. 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.
Mess. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight,
And brought with armed men back to Messina.
120
Bene. Think not on him till to-morrow: I'll devise thee
brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers.
[Dance. Exeunt,
NOTES.
ACT I. SCENE 1.
Stage Direction. Among the dramatis personae both the folio
and the quarto include Innogen, the wife of Leonato; and Collier
supposes that she was present, though she spoke nothing through-
out the play. This seems impossible, for, as Dyce remarks,
'There are scenes in which the mother of Hero must have spoken;
she could not have stood on the stage without a word to say
about the disgrace of her daughter," etc. Theobald therefore
was probably right when he conjectured that "the poet had in
his first plan designed such a character, which, on a survey of it,
he found would be superfluous, and therefore he left it out."
3. by this, i. e. time.
6. sort. The majority of commentators explain this to mean
rank, distinction, as in 1. 28 below. Steevens inclines to the com-
moner meaning, kind, and the words ' and none of name' seem to be
in favour of his view.
10. much deserved. . . Pedro. Claudio's exploits fully deserved
all the honour which Don Pedro was so careful to bestow upon
him.
11. he hath borne
•
•
lion. Compare the speech of Cominius
about Coriolanus, Cor. ii. 2. 91-105.
51.
13. better bettered, cp. Mach. i. 4. 21,
"More is thy due than more than all can pay."
15. very much glad, we should now say very glad; see Abb.
18. that joy..
bitterness. Cp. Macb. i. 4. 33-5,
"My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.
For badge, i.e. distinguishing mark, Steevens compares Chap-
man's Odyssey, bk. x.,
"Our eyes wore
The same wet badge of weak humanity."
22. kind . . . kindness, natural overflow of tenderness.
79
80
[ACT 1.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
25. Signior Montanto, a term taken from fencing, but used
by Beatrice as an ironical description of Benedick's courage and
prowess. Steevens compares Every Man in his Humour,
"Your
punto, your reverso, your stoccata, your passada, your mon-
tanto ; and M. W. ii. 3. 27, "Thy reverse, thy distance, thy
montánt.
28. sort, see above, 1. 6.
29. what, for who, but less definite: see Abb. 254, who, how-
ever, is inclined to doubt whether in such expressions as that in
the text there was any sense of quality indicated.
31. as pleasant, as full of fun and humour.
32. he set up . . . bird-bolt. The expression to set up bills
was most commonly used (as here) of the posting of placards
by public challengers; but Douce has shown that the prac-
tice was not confined to challenges only, the "bills" being
used as general advertisements much in the same way as at
the present day. Flights were long, light-feathered arrows;
bird-bolts, short, thick arrows without a point, and spreading
at the extremity into a blunt-knobbed head. Douce explains,
Benedick from a vain conceit of his influence over women,
challenged Cupid at roving, a particular kind of archery in
which flight arrows are used. In other words, he challenged
him to shoot at hearts. The fool, to ridicule this piece of vanity,
in his turn challenged Benedick to shoot at crows with the
cross-bow and bird-bolt; an inferior kind of archery used by
fools, who for obvious reasons were not permitted to shoot with
pointed arrows. Subscribed for Cupid, accepted the challenge
in lieu of Cupid, or on Cupid's behalf.
""
37. to eat all of his killing: cf. H. V. iii. 7. 99.
38. tax, you jeer at him too freely, are too witty at his ex-
pense. So, in A. Y. L. i. 2. 91, the fool is told that he will
be whipped for taxation one of these days," that is, for being
too free with his tongue: the verb in this sense is frequent in
Shakespeare.
39. be meet with you, even with you, a match for you.
41. victual. Rolfe points out that elsewhere Shakespeare uses
the plural, and that, in Essay xxxiii., Bacon has both the singular
and plural.
holp, this form for the perfect and for the past participle is
frequent in Shakespeare, and in fact seems to have been preferred
by him to the weak form helped.
42. valiant trencher-man, good eater: trencher, a plate. Shake-
speare has also trencher-friends, parasites, T. of A. iii. 6. 106,
and trencher-knight, a serving-man attending at table, L. L. L.
v. 2. 464.
SC. I.]
81
NOTES.
45. and a good, etc. Beatrice wilfully misunderstands the
messenger.
47. stuffed, if used in this way nowadays would carry with it
something of a ludicrous sense; but though Beatrice uses it
immediately afterwards in a comical way, it is employed by
Shakespeare without any such limitation to mean full of; e.g.
W. T. ii. 1. 185—
'Cleomenes and Dion whom you know
Of stuffed sufficiency,
and, again, R. and J. iii. 5. 183—
CC
Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts.
49. a stuffed man, not a real man, a man made up of stuffing,
like a doll. Farmer supposes that Beatrice checks herself after
using the words, as though she had employed them in the scnse
of a cuckold, -a sense which they no doubt sometimes bore. But
there seems no necessity for this. Her pause is merely to give
point to her wit by pretending that she did not like to say all
she might in his disparagement. In a similar way Portia in
M. V. Ĭ. 2. 60-1, says of Monsieur le Bon, "God made him, and
therefore let him pass for a man.
55. five wits. "The five intellectual faculties," says Delius,
corresponding with the five senses are common wit, imagination,
fancy, estimation, memory; and he quotes from Sonnet cxli. 9,
10-
"But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee."
Here the expression possibly means nothing more than the five
senses, and of its use with that sense Delius quotes an instance
from Chaucer's Persones Tale, "Certes delites been after the
appetites of the five wittis, as sight, hearing, smelling, savouring,
and touching.'
went halting off, were so lamed in the contest as to be almost
useless.
56. governed: cp. M. of V. iv. 1. 184.
wit enough, etc., if he has intelligence enough to keep
himself warm, let him regard it as the only thing in which he is
superior to his horse. The expression is proverbial.
difference, an heraldic term: cp. Haml. iv. 5. 183, "You
must wear your rue with a difference."
59. to be known, to cause him to be known for a, etc.
"An
60. sworn brother: cp. H. V. ii. 1. 13, R. II. v. 1. 20.
expression originally derived from the fratres jurati, who in the
days of chivalry mutually bound themselves by oath to share
each other's fortune" (Dyce).
82
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
62. he wears
block. His faith changes as rapidly as
the fashions in dress. The block on which hats were shaped is
again referred to in Lear iv. 6. 187. "The hats of the time,"
says Singer,
seem to have been capable of being re-shaped; as
they were of felt they were new blocked as whim or fashion led.
There is a passage in Euphues, employing the same type of
changeable friendship. The passage referred to is as follows:
"But thy friendship, Philautus, is lyke a new fashion, which
being used in the morning, is accompted olde before noone,
which varietie of chaunging, being oftentimes noted of a grave
gentleman in Naples, who having bought a hat of the newest
fashion, and best block in all Italy," etc.; and again, "But
when, Philautus, thou shalt see that there is no more hold
in a new friend than a new fashion, yet hats alter as fast as the
turner can turne his block," etc.
•
64. is not in your books, is not in your favour. The origin
of this expression is variously said to be from codicils or wills;
from memorandum-books; from matriculation records; from
books of heraldry; from lists of retainers; from lists of those to
whom a tradesman gives credit. Beatrice, pretending to take
the words in a literal sense, replies, "No; were he, I would
burn them."
my study, abstract for concrete, that which I study, my books.
Cp. Temp. i. 2. 74.
66. squarer, quarrelsome young fellow, roysterer; Shake-
speare uses the verb literally in M. N. D. ii. 1. 30, and figura-
tively in A. C. iii. 3. 41.
71. presently, immediately, as most frequently in Shake-
speare. The modern, but less correct meaning, viz., in a short
time, soon, is also used by him.
73. the Benedick, as though she said "the plague.
"
75. I will hold friends, I will keep friends with you, will not
venture to bandy words with you. To "make friends," which
Rolfe quotes from M. M. i. 2. 185, has a different sense, viz., to
acquire the friendship, ingratiate oneself with.
77. you will . . . niece, i.e. you are so already.
..
79. is approached, see Abb. 295.
81. your trouble: cp. Mach. i. 6. 11-14-
"The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love.
Herein I teach you
How you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble."
82. encounter it, i.e. meet it of your own accord.
84. should remain, ought to remain, might be expected to
remain.
SC. I.]
83
NOTES.
86. your charge, the burden laid upon you.
92. you have it full, full in the face, like a well-delivered
blow. If, says Don Pedro, Leonato is free from doubt on the
subject because you were at that time but a child, we may guess
what kind of a character is yours now that you have grown to
manhood.
93. fathers herself, shows, by her likeness to him, who was
her father.
96. if signior
•
•
she is. Like him as she may be, she
would not wish to change places with him; she would prefer
being herself.
99. still, ever, continually.
100. nobody marks you, heeds you, pays any attention to what
you say.
102. is it possible, etc. Steevens compares Coriolanus ii. 1.
93, "Our very priests must become mockers, if they encounter
such ridiculous subjects as you are.
وو
103. courtesy presence, you are enough to turn courtesy
into disdain if you show yourself. The confusion between
"itself" and "her presence" is due to Benedick's having
personified
Disdain." Meet, suitable, possibly with a pun.
104. convert in an intransitive sense is not uncommon in Shake-
speare.
106. loved of, see Abb. 170.
107. in my heart, probably with a secondary sense, i.c.
heartily, truly.
109. a dear happiness, true good luck: cf. R. and J. iii.
3. 28, This is dear mercy'" (Rolfe).
Ill. I am of your, etc., in that respect at all events we are of
the same mind.
blood, temperament.
114. a predestinate scratched face, the scratched face which
is the destiny of any one who marries you for the form pre-
destinate see Abb. 342.
116. as yours were. Collier says that this was certainly the
language of Shakespeare's day, which Dyce is inclined to doubt.
117. well... parrot-teacher, just the person who would be
fit to teach parrots, being always ready with sayings and sentences
that they would be able to repeat.
119. and so . . . continuer, and did not tire any more than
your tongue does: as good a stayer,' as we say of race-horses.
120. keep your way, remain as you are.
84
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
122. you always... trick. Delius compares A. W. iv. 5. 64,
"If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jade's tricks.
Jade, which is properly a tired, panting, exhausted animal, came
to be applied as an opprobrious term to both men and women:
cp. H. V. iii. 7. 63.
131. being reconciled. . . I, etc.: i.e. you being reconciled, etc.
133. I am not of many words, the more common modern phrase
is "I am not a man of many words." Rolfe compares M. M. ii.
1. 204, and Oth. v. 1. 65.
135. please it, etc., will it please, etc.
139. I noted her not, I did not think her worth much observa-
tion possibly for the sake of the play upon the words note and
not; see below ii. 3. 51.
:
143. as being
sex, as one who makes it his avowed
practice to treat men harshly.
146. fair, i.e. in colour.
152. inquire after, in the commercial sense of a would-be pur-
chaser inquiring after some commodity, its price, etc.
155. sad, serious, sober, as frequently in Shakespeare.
:
"The
the flouting Jack, an impudent, saucy fellow cp. Jack-sauce,
H. V. iv. 7. 148, and 'played the Jack,' Temp. iv. I. 198.
phrase Thou Sire John' is in Chaucer, C. T. 14,816; on which
Tyrwhitt remarks, 'I know not how it happened, that in the princi-
pal modern languages John, or its equivalent, is a name of contempt,
or at least of slight. So the Italians use Gianni, from whence
Zani; the Spaniards Juan, as bobo Juan, a foolish John; the
French Jean, with various additions; and in English, when we
call a man a John, we do not mean it as a title of honour. Chaucer,
in 1. 3708, uses Jacke-fool as the Spaniards do bobo Juan, and I
suppose jack-ass has the same etymology" (Skeat, Ety. Dict.).
C
to tell us... carpenter. "This... is nothing more than an
example of what Puttenham terms Antiphrasis or the Broad
floute: Or when we deride by plaine and flat contradiction, as
he that saw a dwarfe go in the streete said to his companion that
walked with him: See yonder gyant; and to a negro or woman
blackemoore, In good sooth ye are a faire one.'-The Arte of
English Poesie, 1589 [p. 201 Arber's Reprints]" (Staunton): Cupid
of course being blind, and Vulcan a smith.
>>
157. in what key... song? How may one be in harmony,
accord with you? Key, "the fundamental note of a musical
composition (Schmidt), is used by Shakespeare both literally
and metaphorically: cp. clef (the same word in French), J. C. v.
2. 11, "And any man may sing her, if he can take her clef."
160. no such matter, nothing of the kind.
SC. I.]
85
NOTES.
161. there's her cousin, etc., "A hint of the half-liking for
Beatrice which is hidden under Benedick's depreciation of her "
(Rolfe).
168. but he will... suspicion ?
suspicion? Is there not a single man in
the world who will avoid marriage and so escape the fear that his
wife has cuckolded him. The old belief that a man who had
suffered in this way had horns grow out of his forehead, a belief
originating in the story of Acteon, is plenteously referred to in
the dramatists and other writers of the Elizabethan age.
170. wear the print... Sundays, let your determination to
do so be seen in your sad and serious behaviour: "An allusion,
says Steevens, "to the strict manner in which the Sabbath was
observed by the Puritans, who usually spent that day in sighs
and gruntings, and other hypocritical marks of devotion."
178. on my allegiance, i.e. I am bound to speak out when you
lay that charge upon me; otherwise nothing would induce me to
tell.
• · •
180. now that part, it is your grace's part to ask with
whom Claudio is in love: I cannot volunteer to tell that. Bene-
dick is of course only too glad to tell.
with who, see Abb. 274.
182. so were it uttered, so should it be spoken.
183. 'it is not... be so.' Dyce (Gloss.) quotes the tale told by
Mr. Blakeway as heard from his great-aunt: "Once upon a
time, there was a young lady (called Lady Mary in the story)
who had two brothers. One summer they all three went to a
country seat of theirs which they had not before visited. Among
the other gentry in the neighbourhood who came to see them was
a Mr. Fox, a bachelor, with whom they, particularly the young
lady, were much pleased. He used often to dine with them, and
frequently invited Lady Mary to come and see his house. One
day that her brothers were absent elsewhere, and she had
nothing better to do, she determined to go thither; and accord-
ingly set out unattended, When she arrived at the house, and
knocked at the door, no one answered. At length she opened it
and went in; over the portal of the hall was written, Be bold,
be bold, but not too bold': she advanced; over the staircase, the
same inscription: she went up; over the entrance of a gallery,
the same she proceeded; over the door of a chamber, Be bold,
be bold, but not too bold, lest that your heart's blood should run
coll.' She opened it; it was full of skeletons, tubs full of blood,
etc. She retreated in haste : coming down stairs, she saw out of
a window Mr. Fox advancing towards the house, with a drawn
sword in one hand, while with the other he dragged along a
young lady by her hair. Lady Mary had just time to slip
down and hide herself under the stairs before Mr. Fox and his
•
86
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
victim arrived at the foot of them. As he pulled the young lady
upstairs, she caught hold of one of the banisters with her hand,
on which was a rich bracelet. Mr. Fox cut it off with his sword;
the hand and bracelet fell into Lady Mary's lap, who then con-
trived to escape unobserved, and got home safe to her brothers'
house. After a few days, Mr. Fox came to dine with them as
usual (whether by invitation or of his own accord this deponent
saith not). After dinner, when the guests began to amuse each
other with extraordinary anecdotes, Lady Mary at length said
she would relate to them a remarkable dream she had lately had.
I dreamt, said she, that as you, Mr. Fox, had often invited me
to your house I would go there one morning.
When I came to
the house, I knocked, etc., but no one answered. When I
opened the door, over the hall was written, Be bold, be bold, but
not too bold.' But, said she, turning to Mr. Fox, and smiling,
'It is not so, nor it was not so'; then she pursued the rest of the
story, concluding at every turn with 'It is not so, nor it was not so,'
till she comes to the room full of dead bodies, when Mr. Fox
took up the burden of the tale, and said, 'It is not so, nor it was
not so, and God forbid it should be so,' which he continues to
repeat at every subsequent turn of the dreadful story, till she
came to the circumstance of his cutting off the young lady's
hand, when, upon his saying as usual, 'It is not so, nor it was not
so, and God forbid it should be so,' Lady Mary retorts, 'But it is
so, and it was so, and here the hand I have to show,' at the same
time producing the hand and bracelet from her lap; whereupon
the guests drew their swords and instantly cut Mr. Fox into a
thousand pieces." On this Dyce (Gloss., s. v. tale) remarks,
above may really be a modernized version of the old tale alluded
to by Shakespeare: but Blakeway was not aware that one of the
circumstances in the good lady's narrative is borrowed from
Spenser's description of what Britomart saw in the castle of
Busyrane... The Faerie Queene, B. iii. C. xi. stanzas 50, 54."
"The
185. passion, the nature of my feelings, rather than my ardent
love.
189. to fetch me in, to catch me, to find out my real feelings;
not, I think, to take in, to dupe, as Schmidt explains it. Cp.
Haml. ii. 1. 38, "a fetch of wit," a clever stratagem.
•
192. by my. troths. This seems to mean, by my faith and
troth, which are two things; referring to the words of Don
Pedro and Claudio.
196. how she should be loved, not in what way she should be
loved, but that she should, etc., answering to Claudio's "That I
love her, I feel"; and so, nor know that she is worthy,'
answering to the Prince's "That she is worthy, I know."
198. die in it, die maintaining that opinion.
SC. I.]
87
NOTES.
•
199. thou wast. .. beauty. You are always so ready to
deny the virtues of woman, that if you die at the stake it will be
only what a heretic like you deserves.
201. in the force of his will, alluding," says Warburton,
"to the definition of a heretic in the schools"; according to
which it was obstinate adherence to heterodox opinion that con-
stituted heresy.
205. but that . . . pardon me. All womankind must excuse
my determination never to give them the opportunity of cuckold-
ing me. Recheat "is a particular lesson upon the horn to call
dogs back from the scent from the old French recet, which was
used in the same sense as retraite" (Hanmer): baldrick, belt:
invisible, because the horns of a cuckold were supposed to be so.
208. and the fine bachelor, and to sum up, I will live,
etc. Go the finer, be all the more handsomely dressed: the pun
of course cannot be kept up in explanation.
•
213. lose more... drinking, become so pale with love that a
draft of wine will not bring back the colour to my cheeks: with
love, with drinking, owing to love, by drinking.
214. pick out, i.e. you may pick out.
215. ballad-maker's pen "refers jestingly," says Delius, "to
the matter of those ballads in which the death or the misfortunes
of lovers play an important part": of course with contempt for
such an instrument.
brothel-house, the older and more correct expression brothel
being properly a person, not a place.
218. argument, subject (for ridicule), as very frequently in
Shakespeare.
219. hang me, etc. "This was one of the barbarous sports of
former times. The practice was to enclose a cat in a suspended
coop of open bars, and shoot at it with arrows till the poor
animal was killed-'arrowes flew faster than they did at a catte
in a basket, when Prince Arthur, or the duke of Shoreditch,
strucke up drumme in field.'—Warres; or The Peace is Broken, a
black-letter tract, quoted by Steevens" (Staunton).
bottle, with a wider sense than at present, a hollow en-
closure.
220. let him... Adam. Let him be applauded as a famous
archer. "An allusion to one of the three noted outlaws, famous
for their skill in archery, who figure in the spirited and pictur-
esque ballad entitled Adam Bel, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam
of Cloudesle" (Dyce, Gloss.).
222. try, prove.
223. in time, etc. "This line," says Delius, "is from Kyd's
88
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Spanish Tragedy, and runs thus, 'In time the savage bull
sustains the yoke.' Kyd himself borrowed the whole passage
from Watson's Passionate Centurie of Love (1582), where the
line is, 'In time the bull is brought to bear the yoke.'
are adaptations from Ovid.
Both
226. let me be, etc., let me be painted as vilely as the painting
of a sign-board hung up in front of an alehouse, and let the motto
under my portrait be, "Here you may see," etc.
229. horn-mad. The same pun occurs in C. E. ii. 1. 57, and
in M. W. i. 4. 51.
•
232. nay, if Cupid. shortly, you will suffer for this
before long, if Cupid has leisure to concern himself with love
affairs anywhere except in Venice. That city in Shakespeare's
time and afterwards was proverbial for the amours and dis-
sipations of its inhabitants.
234. I look, etc., i.. one thing is as likely as the other.
235. you will
hours, you will come to terms with, ac-
commodate yourself to, the hours: not, as Rolfe explains it,
come to terms in the course of time."
236. repair to, betake yourself to.
239. I have almost, etc., I may almost boast that I am capable
of so important a task.
240. and so... Benedick. The reference is "to the formal
conclusions of epistles dedicatory and letters. Barnaby Googe
thus ends his dedication to the first edition of Palingenesis, 1560 :
'And thus committyng your Ladiship with all yours to the
tuicion of the most merciful God, I ende. From Staple Inne at
London, the eighte and twenty of March'" (Reed). Malone
quotes two similar instances, and Rolfe well compares R. of L.,
1308, where Lucrece ends her letter thus:-
"So I commend me from our house in grief:
My woes are tedious, though my words are brief."
245. the body . . . neither, the main portion of your conversa-
tion is often, as now, patched up with quotations, etc., which
have but little connection with its general purport.
246. guarded, trimmed, ornamented: cp. M. of V. ii. 2. 164, 2
H. IV. iv. 1. 34. The sub. in the same sense, whether literal
or metaphorical, is not uncommon in Shakespeare: Rolfe com-
pares, "O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose," L. L.
L. iv. 3. 58, "And the guards are but slightly basted on neither
=nor are the guards (these tags of quotations) basted on except
slightly; an old colloquial idiom still to be heard among the
lower classes.
""
247. For old ends cp. R. III. i. 3. 337, "With old odd ends
stolen forth of holy writ."
SC. I.
89
NOTES.
ere you flout . . conscience in these words there does not
seem to be any such recondite meaning as Johnson and other
commentators would give to them. Benedick merely says with
mock solemnity, "Be careful how you ridicule things so venerable
and sacred as these old ends.
>>
249. may do me good, may help me.
250. thine to teach, ready to be taught by you.
255. affect her, are lovingly inclined towards her.
256. ended action, the campaign just finished.
259. than to . . . love, than would allow of liking being carried
so far as to merit the name of love.
260. but now I am, etc., i.e. But now that I am, etc.; see
Abb. 284, and on am and has, 295.
261. rooms, we should now say room or place.
263. all prompting. wars, all suggesting to me how fair
Hero is, and reminding me that I liked her, etc. For the
omission of the article before wars, see Abb. 90. Some editors,
without improving matters, as it seems to me, mark an aposio-
pesis after wars.
>>
266. book of words, with whole volumes of love-talk: cp.
below, v. 2. 32, "a whole book full of these carpetmongers.'
267. it, the love; to be supplied from the verb.
268. break with her, "open the matter in conversation with
her" (Abb. 194), sound her on the subject and so make it easier
for you to declare your passion. Rolfe points out that the
phrase, though used elsewhere by our author in this sense, is also
used by him to mean "break faith with," as in M. W. iii. 2. 57,
we have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne, and I would
not break with her for more money than I'll speak of."
270. to twist so fine a story. Walker, Cr. Ex. iii. 29, objects
to story, and his editor, Mr. Lettsom, conjectures string. "But
surely there is no necessity for this: "to weave a tale" is a com-
mon expression.
272. his complexion! his, the more ordinary genitive neuter of
the period, see below, v. 2. 48. Complexion in Shakespeare's day
meant external appearance, external indication of some internal
feeling; also natural disposition; as well as the more restricted
meaning, in which its use is now most common, of the colouring
of the face.
274. I would . . . treatise. I would, if I had followed my own
promptings, have made my declaration of love appear less abrupt,
approaching the subject gradually in a lengthened conversation.
Salved, excused, smoothed it over. Treatise, now used almost
always of a written discourse, in Shakespeare's day meant also
any long tale, conversation, etc.: cp. Mach, v. 5. 12.
90
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
275. what need, etc. On this phrase Abbott (297) observes,
"The impersonal needs (which must be distinguished from the
adverbial genitive needs) often drops the s; partly, perhaps,
because of the constant use of the noun need. It is often found
with 'what,' where it is sometimes hard to say whether 'what'
is an adverb and need a verb, or 'what' an adjective and need
a noun.
'What need the bridge much broader than the flood?'
M. Ado i. 1. 318.
Either why need the bridge (be) broader?' or 'what need is there
(that) the bridge (be) broader?""
276. the fairest . . . necessity. There seems no necessity to
change the necessity' into 'to necessity' as has been proposed.
To grant what is necessary' (the necessity) is the fairest grant
that can be made,' is evidently the meaning, and is almost
identical with "what will serve is fit."
377. 'tis once, thou lovest, see Abb. 57. Staunton says that
here, as in C. of E. iii. 1. 89, and Cor. ii. 3. 1, the expres-
sion is equivalent to 'For the nonce, for the occasion.' Schmidt
(Lex.) renders it here, 'It is a fact past help.' 'Once for all' is
perhaps the nearest modern equivalent. Don Pedro briefly sums
up the case, Enough has been said; you admit that you love
her, and that being so, I will,' etc.
278. fit thee with, furnish
you with.
280. I will assume thy part, etc.
"Where is this spoken?
In the next scene Antonio tells Leonato that a servant of his had
overheard the conversation in an alley in his orchard; and in the
next scene Borachio tells John that he had overheard it from
behind an arras in the house. Are we to suppose an interval of
time between the first and second scene of this act? Or were
there two conversations between the Prince and Claudio on this
subject? Or is it one of those instances of the poet's carelessness
in the minor parts of his plot to which reference has already
been made in M. N. D. p. 122 and Ham. p. 241?" (Rolfe).
282. unclasp my heart, show her my feelings as Claudio.
284. stormy encounter, vigorous attack.
285. after, later on.
287. presently, see above, 1. 71.
SCENE II.
1. cousin, really 'nephew'; but in Shakespeare's day the
word was used almost as an equivalent to kinsman; nephews,
nieces, uncles, brothers-in-law, and even grandchildren, being
SC. II.]
91
NOTES.
included among its senses: a contraction of Lat. consobrinus, the
child of a mother's sister.
2. this music, this band or
we were speaking.
4. yet, see Abb. 347.
"consort of musicians of which
5. are they good? Shakespeare uses both news and tidings
indifferently as singular or as plural.
:
S. thick-pleached alley, densely interwoven walk below, iii.
1. 7, we have the simple word, as also in A. C. iv. 4. 73.
orchard (ort-geard, yard of worts or vegetables) = garden, as
usually, if not always, in Shakespeare: the word was at one
time written Hortgard under the mistaken notion that it was
derived from hortus, which singularly enough is said to be related
to the latter syllable, yard.
9. thus much, so far.
10. discovered, revealed.
12. by the top, to take time by the forelock; in reference to
the old presentment of Time as having a lock of hair in front and
being bald behind. Cp. Bacon, Essay xxi., "For occasion (as it
is in the common verse) turneth a bald noddle after she hath pre-
sented her locks in front, and no hold taken.”
14. wit, good sense.
15. good sharp, fairly intelligent.
and question, etc., and do you question, etc. : cp. below, v. 1,
279, v. 2. 27.
as
17. appear itself. Abbott (296) is inclined to think that the
verb is here used reflectively. "In reality," says Delius,
contrasted with a dream. Dyce conjectures approve, i.e.
'prove,' and says that in Cor. iv. 3. 9 the folio has appear'd"
where the sense requires approv'd.
18. withal, with this, as frequently in Shakespeare, who also
uses the word in the more common (modern) sense of " moreover,"
and as a prep. with.
=
20. go you... of it. He seems to change his mind, and dele-
gates the task to Antonio, as being too busy himself.
cousin. This is Dyce's reading. His note is, "Here the old
eds. have 'coosins,' and, two lines after, 'cosin'; but Leonato is
evidently addressing the same individual; and his first speech in
this scene shows plainly who that individual is- Where is my
cousin, your son? hath he provided this music?' The said
cousin,' son to Antonio, now crosses the stage along with
musicians, and, it may be, with others." Steevens, who with
most editors retains the plural, says, “Cousins were anciently
among the dependants, if not the domestics, of great families,
G
92
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
such as that of Leonato. Petruchio, while intent on the subjec-
tion of Katharine [7.S. iv. 1. 54, 'And bid my cousin Ferdinand
come hither'] calls out, in terms imperative, for his cousin Ferdi-
nand."
21. I cry
• • •
friend, I beg your pardon; excuse me; merely
a polite form of address.
22. use your skill, make use of your advice and help.
SCENE III.
1. what the good-year, my lord! Usually taken as a corrup-
tion of goojeer or goujere, the morbus Gallicus ("What a gudyere
aile you, mother?"-Day's Ile of Guls, quoted by Dyce, Gloss.
s.v.), though some commentators understand the word in its
simpler sense. It should, however, be noticed that "what" in
such a collocation is more usually combined with some word that
has the force of an inprecation rather than of a blessing.
3. that breeds, sc. it, which word was inserted by Theobald
and is the reading of many modern editions.
10. born under Saturn, when Saturn was predominant: hence
saturnine, morose. On words of this class Trench (The Study of
Words, p. 170, 17th edition) remarks, "No one now puts any
faith in astrology, or counts that the planet under which a man
is born will affect his temperament, make him for life of a dis-
position grave or gay, lively or severe. Yet our language affirms
as much; for we speak of men as 'jovial' or 'saturnine' or
'mercurial'-'jovial' as being born under the planet Jupiter or
Jove, which was the joyfullest star, and of happiest augury of
all a gloomy, severe person is said to be 'saturnine,' born, that
is, under the planet Saturn, who makes those that own his
influence, being born when he was in the ascendant, grave and
stern as himself: another we call 'mercurial,' or light-headed, as
those born under the planet Mercury were accounted to be. The
same faith in the influence of the stars survives in disastrous,'
'ill-starred,' 'ascendancy,' 'lord of the ascendant,' and, indeed,
in 'influence' itself.
goest about, busiest yourself in applying.
(
11. mortifying, deadly, killing. In Macb. v. 2. 5, "the
mortified man is the dead man, and the reference to the trial by
ordeal in J. C. ii. 1. 324, "my mortified spirit" means 'dead-
ened spirit.' Here the word is probably used for the sake of the
alliteration.
I cannot hide, etc. Johnson remarks, "This is one of our
author's natural touches. An envious and unsocial mind, too
proud to give pleasure, and too sullen to receive it, always
SC. III.]
93
NOTES.
endeavours to hide its malignity from the world and from itself
under the plainness of simple honesty, or the dignity of haughty
independence." In Lear ii. 2. 101-10, the disguised Kent is
accused of knavery for affecting a bluntness of manner-
"This is some fellow,
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.
22
13. stomach, appetite, as commonly in Shakespeare, whether
literally or metaphorically. Other metaphorical meanings of the
word in our author are anger, courage, pride.
15. claw, flatter.
in his humour means in his capricious moods, and is almost
equivalent to our 'out of humour. So Shakespeare uses the adj.
humorous for capricious, perverse.
17. controlment, restraint, rather than constraint as Rolfe
explains it, the hindrance or compulsion being from without.
stood out, been a rebel against, been in opposition to. See i.
1. 156-7, and for the phrase cp. R. II. i. 4. 38-
"Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made."
20. but by . . . yourself, unless you make fair weather for
yourself, i.e. adapt yourself to his moods and caprices.
•
22. I had rather grace, 'canker'-dog-rose, wild-rose, as
in 1 H. IV. i. 3. 176. "I had rather be a neglected dog-rose in a
hedge, than a garden-flower of the same species, if it profited by
his culture" (Steevens). With regard to Conrade's words above,
Malone quotes Macb. i. 4. 28-9-
"Welcome thither,
I have begun to plant thee and will labour
To make thee full of growing.'
*
•
>>
23. blood, disposition, nature, as frequently in Shakespeare.
24. than to fashion any, than so to shape my manner as
to steal the love of a single person. Carriage in the sense of
'bearing,' 'deportment,' though somewhat old-fashioned, is still
in use.
in this
•
villain. In this respect, though I cannot be
credited with the character of an honest man somewhat given to
flattery, yet no one has any right to deny that, if a villain, I am
94
[ACT I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
at all events a plain-dealing one. Abbott (122) says that but is
here used transitionally, i.e. in a sense between the preventive
and the adversative. Possibly, however, there is a slight confu-
sion due to the excessive negative in denied. If Shakespeare had
written, 'It must not be said but I am,' etc., the sense would
have been plain.
26. I am trusted. . . cage, 'they show perfect trust in me,-
yes, by putting a muzzle on me like a dangerous dog; they give
me perfect freedom,-yes, by fettering me with a clog, like an
animal they are afraid will run away: so, like a caged bird, I am
determined I will not sing to please them.'
28. if I had ... liking, if I had my mouth free, were not
"trusted with a muzzle," I would, etc.; if I had my liberty,
were not "enfranchised with a clog," I would, etc.
32. for I use it only, "i.e. for I make nothing else my coun-
sellor" (Steevens).
Stage Direction. Enter Borachio. Comp. Middleton, The
Spanish Gipsy i. 1. 6, “I am no borachio; sack, malaga, nor
canary breeds the calenture in my brains; mine eye mads me,
not my cups," where Bullen notes, "Drunkard.
Drunkard. Literally, a
Spanish term for a bottle made of skins."
35. I came, the aorist for the perfect; the action being re-
garded simply as past without reference to the present or to com-
pletion.
38. model, plan, design. So in 2 H. IV. i. 3. 42, 46, 51,
and R. III. v. 3. 24.
39. what is he for a fool, etc. "This construction," says
Staunton, "though no longer permissible, was trite enough in
the poet's time. The meaning is, what kind of fool is he?" and
he quotes from Peele's Edw. i. sc. 2, "What's he for a man?"
Ben Jonson, E. M. O. H. H. iii. 6, “What is he for a creature?
and Ram Alley iv. 2, "What is he for a man? Nothing
for a man, but much for a beast. Middleton uses the phrase
repeatedly, e.g. The Widow ii. 2. 159, Anything for a Quiet
Life ii. 2. 233, The Family of Love ii. 4. 108, A Mad World,
etc., v. 2. 271. Abbott (148) points out that the expres-
sion is " more intelligible when the order is changed: For a
fool, what is he, i.e. considered as a fool-it being granted that
he is a fool-what kind of a fool is he?""
41. marry, i.e. by the Virgin Mary, an oath frequent in our
author's day, though concealed in form in order to evade the
statute against profane swearing.
right hand, trustiest follower and help.
44. a proper squire! Proper in the sense of "fine," whether
ironical, as here, or seriously meant, is common in Shakespeare
SC. III.]
95
NOTES.
of both persons and things. Squire, besides its senses of "a
gentleman next in rank to a knight" and of "an attendant on a
noble warrior or on a royal person," is used by Shakespeare as
a familiar title, given sometimes in tenderness and sometimes "
(as here) “in contempt; almost fellow" (Schmidt, Lexicon).
and who, and who? Walker, Crit. Ex., etc., vol. iii. p. 29,
quotes four passages from Shirley to show that such repetitions
were common: who is the object of his love, or, as he goes on to
say, "which way looks he?" i.e. whom has he in his eye for a
wife? on whom are his looks of love turned?
47. a very forward March-chick! Said contemptuously of his
precocity in thinking of marriage while still so young, the early
spring in England being too cold as a rule for the rearing of
chickens.
49. entertained, engaged, hired: cp. Lear iii. 6. 83.
>>
as I was smoking, etc. "The neglect of cleanliness, says
Steevens, "among our ancestors rendered such precautions too
often necessary. Among other passages he quotes Burton's
Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 261, "The smoake of
juniper is in great request with us at Oxford to sweeten our
chambers."
50. comes me for the inflexion in s preceding a plural subject
see Abb. 335, and for me here and two lines lower down, 220,
though in the second of the two instances the pronoun is used
reflexively.
51. sad, serious, as not uncommonly in Shakespeare: cp.
below, ii. 3. 229.
arras, tapestry for hanging rooms, called by the name of the
place, Arras in Provence, at which they were most commonly
made. Shakespeare frequently notes the use that was made of
them as places of concealment. For words similarly derived see
Trench, The Study of Words, pp. 153 et seqq.
55. may prove . . . displeasure, may minister opportunity for
exercising the malice I bear to Claudio.
56. start-up, the modern up-start, which Shakespeare uses in
this sense as an adj. only, R. II. ii. 3. 122. Start-up is in use in
other dramatists, e.g. Middleton, Women beware Women iv. 1.
"A poor, base start-up.”
111,
hath
overthrow, I owe it entirely to his interference
that I fell into my brother's displeasure.
•
57. cross bless, though cross here is of course primarily to
thwart, hinder, yet the use of the word bless immediately after-
wards suggests an allusion to the making of the sign of the cross,
as by a priest when blessing, or by a layman when endeavouring
to avert a danger, a curse, etc. Cp. C. E. ii. 2. 190.
96
[ACT. I.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
58. sure, to be relied upon, trustworthy.
60. great supper, the great supper mentioned by Borachio
above, 1. 35, but here of course spoken of scornfully: that supper
which they enjoy all the more because I have been disgraced,—a
piece of egotism which at the same time shows the malignant
nature of Don John, he attributing to others the feelings which
would have been his if in their place.
61. would... mind! i.e. for then he would poison the whole
company.
ACT II. SCENE I.
3. how tartly
after. "The pain commonly called the
heart-burn proceeds from an acid humour in the stomach, and is
therefore properly enough imputed to tart (i.e., sour) looks"
(Johnson). Rolfe compares 1 H. IV. iii. 3. 59. An hour after,
i.e., for an hour after.
6. in the midway, as we should now say, 'midway between.'
8. my lady's eldest son, no particular lady is here meant, my
lady's being used generically; like some fine lady's pet son, a
housebred lad, his mother's spoilt darling.
15. if a' could get her good will is of course an unexpected
close to the sentence, almost nullifying the previous clause. a'
for he, a contraction produced by rapidity of speech; similarly
'am and 'em for them.j
17. shrewd, curst, bitter: originally the past participle of
shrewen, to curse. "As it is in words that ill-temper finds the
readiest and most frequent vent, the terms curst, and shrewd, and
shrew, and shrewsh are often used with a special reference to the
tongue. But sharpness of tongue, again, always implies some
sharpness of understanding as well as of temper. The terms
shrewd and shrewdly accordingly have come to convey usually
something of both of these qualities, at one time, perhaps, most
of the one, at another of the other. The sort of ability that we
call shrewdness never suggests the notion of anything very high:
the word has always a touch in it of the sarcastic or disparaging.
But, on the other hand the disparagement which it expresses is
never without an admission of some thing also that is creditable
or flattering. Hence it has come to pass that a person does not
hesitate to use the terms in question even of himself and his own
judgments or conjectures. We say, 'I shrewdly suspect or
guess,' or 'I have a shrewd guess or suspicion,' taking the liberty
of thus ascribing or assuming our own intellectual acumen under
cover of the modest confession at the same time of some little ill-
nature in the exercise of it. Even when shrewd is used without
SC. I.]
97
NOTES.
any personal reference, the sharpness which it implies is generally,
if not always, a more or less unpleasant sharpness. This last day
was a shrewd one to us,' says one of the soldiers of Octavius to
his comrade, in Antony and Cleopatra iv. 9. [5], after the en-
counter in which they had been driven back by Antony near
Alexandria. Shrewdness is even used by Chaucer in the sense of
evil generally; as in The House of Fame iii. 537--
Speke of hem harm and shreuednesse
Instead of gode and worthinesse.'
And so too Bacon-' An ant is a wise creature for itself; but it
is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden.' Essay 23, 'Of
Wisdom for a Man's Self'" (Craik, The English of Shakespeare,
§ 186).
18. I shall .. way; I shall limit God's gifts in that respect;
for, as she goes on to explain, God will send her no husband, and
therefore no horns.
22. just, if he . . . evening. Exactly so, if he send me no
husband; and that he may grant me that blessing I pray to him
morning and evening.
24. I could not ... woollen. To lie next a husband who had
a beard would be as bad as lying between the blankets, without
any sheets, as Steevens explains the phrase "in the woollen.”
33. I will even . . .
hell, rather than that such fate should be
mine, I would even bind myself to a bear-leader, by taking six-
pence as a handsel or pledge to lead his apes into hell. This last
phrase in connection with old maids has never been satisfactorily
explained. Malone remarks, on T. of S. ii. 34, "To lead apes'
was in our author's time, as at present, one of the employments
of a bear-ward, who often carries about one of those animals
along with his bear; but I know not how this phrase came to be
applied to old maids." Steevens, "That women who refused to
bear children should, after death, be condemned to the care of
apes in leading strings, might have been considered as an act of
posthumous retribution." Delius quotes The London Prodigal, a
play once attributed to Shakespeare, "Women dying maids lead
apes in hell.”
On the form bear-herd, Schmidt (Lexicon) observes,
This is the Shakespearian form of the word: cp. Shr. Ind. 2.
21 and H. 4 B. i. 2. 192; the other passages have berrord, berard,
and bearard, but never bear-ward, as some M. Edd. choose to
write."
35. but, only.
40. to Saint Peter for the heavens. The quarto and the folios.
all read "to Saint Peter; for the heavens he," etc., where 'for
the heavens' would be a petty oath. Pope made the change in
the punctuation which is adopted by most modern editors, and
98
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
seems to give the better sense: i.e. to be conducted by him into
heaven. The plural form is frequent in Shakespeare.
45. make curtsy, a contracted form of courtesy, which differs
from it in meaning only that curtsy is appropriated to the
low bow made by women, the outward expression of courteous
feeling.
please, subjunctive.
49. fitted with, mated with a suitable husband, one who
understands how to treat you.
53. a piece of . . . marl, cp. Haml. v. 1. 224-239.
55. to match in my kindred. To marry with those so closely
related to me, of a nearer degree of relationship than is per-
mitted by the Church.
SO
58. in that kind, in that way, with reference to marriage.
60. in good time, with a double sense, that of keeping good
time in music, and that of doing a thing at the right moment.
important, importunate, as elsewhere in Shakespeare.
measure, proper degree, moderation; and, as the words "
dance out your answer" show, with an allusion to another meaning
of the word, a stately kind of dance "with slow and measured steps
like the minuet; and therefore described as 'full of state and
ancientry [the port and behaviour of old age] (Singer). For
the pun, Steevens compares R. II. iii. 4. 7,
999
My legs can keep no measure in delight
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief."
63. Scotch jig, probably here a Scotch reel, a Highland dance
of a lively character.
66. bad legs, tottering legs.
cinque-pace, a dance, the steps of which were regulated by
the number five" [cinque] (Dyce, Gloss.): another name for it
was a galliard. Middleton, Women beware Women iii. 2. 215-
218, says,
"Plain men dance the measures; the sinquapace, the gay;
Cuckolds dance the hornpipe, and farmers dance the hay;
Your soldiers dance the round, and maidens that grow big;
Your drunkards, the canaries; your whore and bawd, the jig.
In his play More Dissemblers besides Women Sinquapace is the
name of a dancing-master. After the word
After the word 'sink' in 1. 67
Collier's MS. Corrector would add 'apace,' i.e. swiftly, which
conjecture, say the Camb. Edd., "seems to have suggested itself
independently to Capell (Notes, vol. ii. p. 121)," and "is sup-
ported by a passage in Marston's Insatiate Countesse, act ii. [i. 88],
Thinke of me as of the man
Whose dancing days you see are not yet done.
Len. Yet you sinke a pace, sir.'"
SC. I.]
99
NOTES.
69. passing shrewdly, exceedingly keenly: passing for surpass-
ingly as an adv. is frequent in Shakespeare.
70. I can see . daylight. Said of course with her usual
merry irony: cp. Haml. ii. 2. 397, "I am but mad north-north-
west when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a
handsaw.
""
72. make good room, stand aside and give them plenty of room
to enter.
73. friend, used in Shakespeare's day for a lover, of either
sex.
74. so you walk, provided you walk.
75. I am yours for the walk, etc., I am ready to walk with
you, and most ready to walk when it is to walk away from you :
cp. below, v. 2. 39.
·
•
73. I may
please: i.e. I have never said so, whatever you
may choose to think.
80. favour, look, appearance. "In beauty,' says Bacon in his
43rd Essay, 'that of favour is more than that of colour; and
that of decent and gracious motion more than that of favour.'
The word is now lost to us in that sense; but we still use
favoured with well, ill, and perhaps other qualifying terms, for
featured or looking; as in Gen. xli. 4-'The ill-favoured and
lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favoured and fat kine.'
Favour seems to be used for face from the same confusion or
natural transference of meaning between the expressions for the
feeling in the mind and the outward indication of it in the look
that has led to the word countenance, which commonly denotes
the latter, being sometimes employed, by a process the reverse of
what we have in the case of favour, in the sense of at least one
modification of the former; as when we speak of anyone giving
something his countenance, or countenancing it" (Craik, E. of
Shakespeare, § 54).
for God... case! for God forbid that your face should be no
better than your mask: defend in this sense (the Fr. defendre) is
common in Shakespeare, and occurs again below, iv. 2. 21.
•
82. my visor Jove. The story of Baucis and Philemon,
told by Ovid, Metamorphoses 8. 630 et seqq., and translated in
Shakespeare's day by Golding, is referred to; and Staunton
points out that our author obviously intended to form a couplet
in the long fourteen-syllable verse employed by that translator:-
Don P. "My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.
Hero. Why then your visor should be match'd.
Don P.
C
Speak low, if you speak love."
89. which is one? which' is a contracted form of hwilic, in-
strumental case of hwa, who, and lie, like, i.e. of what kind?
100
[ACT 11.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Rolfe remarks that we should now say, "What is one?" but
either expression would be correct, though we more commonly
use which in such cases when an alternative is to be expressed.
91. I love you, etc., i.e. that is no fault at all, but a good
custom, for the hearers may benefit by taking part in your
prayers so far at all events as saying "Amen" to them.
95. clerk, the reader of the responses in the English Church
service; suggested, as Rolfe points out, by Balthazar's Amen.'
Cp. Sonn. 85. 6, "And like unletter'd clerk still cry' Amen
R. II. iv. 173, "Am I both priest and clerk? Well, then,
Amen."
96. the clerk is answered, i.e. your severe words have made
me dumb.
98. at a word, in a word, plainly.
•
101. you could man, you could never imitate him so
perfectly in his bad habit, unless you were he himself. Steevens
compares M. of V. i. 2. 63, "He hath a better bad habit of
frowning than the Count Palatine.'
""
102. here's his . . . down, that is exactly the way in which he
moves his hand up and down, exactly, for all the world, from
head to foot; cp. Tit. And. v. 2. 107, "For up and down she
doth resemble thee"; and Middleton, A Chaste Maid, etc., iii.
2. 13, "The mother's mouth up and down, up and down." A dry
hand was formerly regarded as the sign of a cold disposition, as
was a moist hand of a lecherous one. To the former Maria
alludes in T. N. i. 3. 77.
•
106. can virtue itself? i.e. such an excellent quality as
your wit will show itself, however much one may try to
conceal it.
go to, a form of exhortation, sometimes in the way of en-
couragement, but more often with a scornful force.
107. and there's an end, or, as we still say, 'and there's an
end of it' there is nothing more to be said on the subject.
:
108. told you so, i.e. that I was disdainful.
110. nor will you not, for the double negative see Abb. 406.
113. the 'Hundred Merry Tales': "Of this popular old jest
book, printed by John Rastell, 1517-1533, a fragment, containing
nearly all the tales, was fortunately discovered by the Rev. J. J.
Conybeare some years ago, and has been carefully reprinted by
Mr. Singer, under the title of 'Shakespeare's Jest Book.' The
stories thus reserved from oblivion are so sadly deficient in point,
and sometimes in decency also, that Beatrice might well resent
the imputation of having derived her wit from such a source
(Staunton).
SC. I.]
101
NOTES.
115. what's he? see above, i. 1. 29.
120. a very dull fool: the terms 'fool' and 'jester' were em-
ployed indifferently for the professional maker of jokes at the
courts of princes.
121. only his gift, i.e. his only gift; see Abb. 420.
impossible: see note on 1. 218 below.
123. villany, "by which she means his malice and impiety.
By his impious jests, she insinuates, he pleased libertines; and by
his devising slanders of them, he angered them" (Warburton).
124. I am sure me, I am sure he is among this company
(we use host, troop, crew, in the same vague way), and I wish he
had accosted me. To board, in this sense, is frequent in
Shakespeare, but is used here specially with reference to fleet.
•
•
128. break a comparison . . . on me; cp. below, ii. 3. 211, “I
may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on
me, and v. 1. 178, "you break jests as braggarts do their blades":
the origin of the phrase being from breaking a stick, sword, etc.,
upon some one, .e. while beating him.
130. there's a partridge wing saved. Halliwell says that the
wing of the partridge was formerly considered the most delicate
part of the bird, as, indeed, it still is; but the jest turns not
upon the saving of the best part of the bird, but upon the
effeminacy of Benedick's appetite, for whose supper such a trifle
was sufficient.
132. the leaders, i.e. of the dance, there being in the intricate
dances of the time, as later on in the minuet and cotillon, special
persons appointed for this duty.
134. at the next turning, the next time they turn and come
down the room, but with a reference to the commoner sense of
the phrase, i.e. the next bend in the road.
136. amorous on, 'amorous' with a preposition is a rarc
expression nowadays, and 'of' would be used instead of 'on'; so,
just below, enamoured on' would now be 'enamoured of,' or
with.
137. to break with him, see above, i. 1. 285
138. one visor, ouc masked person.
142. near, in his confidence. Staunton compares 2 H. IV. v.
1. 81, "If I had a suit to Master Shallow, I would humour his
men with the imputation of being near their master.
144. equal for, i.c. in respect of birth.
152. news, see above, i. 2. 4.
155. office, business, employment.
156. use, i.e. let them use: see Abb. 365.
102
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
159. against whose, i.e. held opposite to which; a anything
held opposite to the fire.
blood, passion, as below, ii. 3. 147.
160. of monthly proof, which is being constantly demon-
strated.
169. which
not, i.e. which I ought to have expected, but
foolishly did not. "Ed followed by d or t is often not written
and when written, often not pronounced," Abb. 472, who
includes mistrusted here among his examples. But the line read
thus is intolerably harsh, and there seems no reason why the
accents should not be.
|
Which I' mistrúst | ed nót; | farewell, | therefore, | Heró,
i.e. either a genuine Alexandrine with the pause fully marked
after the third foot, or what Abbott calls an apparent Alexan-
drine, but really a regular verse of five accents followed by an
isolated foot (Hero) containing one accent. On the subject of
Alexandrines in Shakespeare see Ellis, Early English Pronuncia-
tion, pp. 943-6.
166. willow, an emblem of unhappy love: frequently referred
to by Shakespeare. The tree, called from its drooping branches
the weeping' willow, is still planted in English churchyards
over tombstones. Rolfe, among other illustrations from litera-
ture contemporary with Shakespeare, quotes from Fuller's
Worthies, "a sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love
make their mourning garlands, and we know what exiles hang up
their harps upon such doleful supporters," where the refer-
ence is to the Jews in captivity, "We hanged our harps upon
the willows in the midst thereof," Psalms cxxxvii. 2.
167. county, another form of 'count,' several times used by
Shakespeare; originally meaning a companion, i.e. of some great
leader, the modern 'county'=shire being the portion of territory
of which the count had the government.
168. usurer's chain. "Chains of gold, of considerable value,
were in our author's time usually worn by wealthy citizens and
others in the same manner as they now are on public occasions
[such as the procession through the city on Lord Mayor's
day] by the aldermen of London." (Reed). Cp. Middleton,
"But because you
Anything for a Quiet Life iii. 2. 224-5,
are a rich citizen, you will have your chain about your neck."
Steevens and Malone point out that about this time usury was a
common topic of invective.
169. lieutenant's scarf, which passed over the right shoulder
and under the left arm.
one way, i.e. one way or another.
SC. I.]
103
NOTES.
172. drovier. Dyce gives drover, the modern form, but drovier
is the reading of the quarto and the folios.
so they sell bullocks, i.e. with such a commendation.
176. ho, now you strike, etc., i.e. it is the duke you ought
to be angry with, not me.
178. if it will not be, i.e. that you will leave me.
179. into sedges, into the sedges, as we should now say, like a
wounded wild-fowl seeking to escape the sportsman.
181. go under, am known by: cp. A. W. iii. 5. 22, "All these
engines of lust are not the things they go under.”
180. but so I am apt, etc., but in believing that I am frequently
spoken of as a fool, I show myself too ready (apt) to do myself an
injustice; I will not believe that I have this reputation. On the
words, so apt to die," J. C. iii. 1. 160, Craik remarks, "Apt is
properly fit or suited, generally, as here. So formerly they said
to apt in the sense both of to adapt and of to agree. I apprehend,
however, as apt to die (for ready or prepared to die) would have
been felt in any stage of the language to involve an unusual
extension of the meaning of the word, sounding about as strange
as aptus ad moriendum would do in Latin. We now, at all
events, commonly understand the kind of suitableness or readi-
ness implied in apt as being only that which consists in inclina-
tion, or addictedness, or mere liability. Indeed, we usually say
disposed or inclined in cases in which apt was the customary
word in the English of the last century; as in Smollett's Count
Fathom, vol. ii. ch. 27, ‘I am apt to believe in the voice of
heaven. By the substantive aptitude, again, we mostly under-
stand an active fitness.
183. it is the base, etc., there being nothing adversative be-
tween base and bitter, Johnson changed though into the, which
might easily have passed into the contracted form tho'. Others
have suggested bare for base, and tough for though. Singer
suggests, "Though Beatrice is so bitterly disposed towards me,
she does not reflect upon me directly, but contrives with her
bitterness the baseness of circulating her own slanders as the
common report of the world." Walker (Crit. Exam., etc., iii.
p. 30) seems to see in bitter a pun upon the name Beatrice, of
which there was an English form Bettris.
184. that puts ... out, assumes to represent the world,
and thus reports me. For gives me out cf. A. W. ii. 3. 16,
'that gave him out incurable,' etc." (Rolfe).
185. as I may, in any way that I can.
189. have played the part of Lady Fame, have told him what
was currently reported. See Rumour's description of herself in
the Induction to 2 II. IV.
104
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
190. as a lodge in a warren: 'warren' originally a preserve
for rabbits, hares, or fish: lodge, the keeper's house in it.
Steevens remarks, "A parallel thought occurs in the first
chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet, describing the desolation
of Judah, says, 'The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a
vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, etc. But in the
abandonment of those lodges when the cucumbers had grown,
there is no parallel to the present passage where the loneliness
of the lodge is due only to its being out of the way of other
buildings, in places frequented by rabbits, hares, etc.
192. had got the good wish, won the love. Walker would read
'his young lady' for 'this,' etc. Malone makes Hero and Leonato
come in with Don Pedro. Dyce, however, points out that our
early authors use this rather loosely.
193. to make him...to bind him, 'him' reflexively in both
cases.
bind him up a rod, i.e. a birch rod made of several twigs bound
up together.
197. flat transgression, downright folly. That's flat is still a
colloquialism among the lower classes for That is plain, certain.'
201. wilt thou make, etc., will you construe simple faith into
a fault?
202. yet, i.e. even if it is not a fault.
206. I will but. owner, I do not mean to keep her for
myself, but, having taught her how to answer Claudio, to restore
her to him.
them, the young birds in the nest.
208. if their. honestly, if her language to Claudio corresponds
with what you promise for her, then I will admit that you have
dealt fairly by him: if she accepts Claudio, I shall believe what
you say as to your intentions.
210. a quarrel to you, a complaint, cause of quarrel, against
you; from the O. F. querele, Lat. querela, a complaint. For to
in this phrase, Rolfe compares T. N. iii. 2. 248, and Cor. iv. 5.
133.
211. much wronged by you, i.e. by what you had said of her:
See above, 1. 108.
213. misused, abused, which word is frequently employed by
Shakespeare in the modern sense of misuse, .e. to treat badly.
214. with but one green leaf on it, i.e. with any life at all in
it.
215. scold with her, return her taunts, her abuse.
•
216. not thinking. myself, though, of course, Beatrice knew
all the while that she was talking to Benedick.
SC. I.]
105
NOTES.
217. duller than, etc., more gloomy than the weather in a
heavy thaw when the skies are thick with clouds.
218. impossible, 'has been variously altered,-by Theobald
(Warburton) to impassable,' by Hanmer to 'impetuous,' etc. But
Shakespeare, like other early writers, employs the word 'im-
possible' with great license: so, before in this play [ii. 1. 121],
we have impossible slanders'; in The Merry Wives of Windsor,
act iii. sc. 5. [115], 'I will examine impossible places'; in Twelfth
Night, act iii. sc. 2. [76], 'impossible passages of grossness'; in
Julius Caesar, act iii. sc. 1. [325], 'strive with things impossible.'
Walker (Crit. Exam., etc., vol. iii. p. 30) cites from Drayton's
Ode, Love's Conquest, S.' impossibly I love you, etc.'
"
conveyance is explained by Schmidt (Lex.) as artful manage-
ment, jugglery," and by Rolfe almost in the same sense. Perhaps
dexterity" (Dyce) is the nearest modern equivalent.
CC
255 she speaks poniards, cp. Haml. iii. 2. 414, and K. John,
ii. 1. 462.
"He speaks plain cannon fire, and smoke and bounce."
221. terminations, explained by Dyce and others as "terms,
words." Walker, on the ground that the folios read 'as termin-
ations,' (omitting ter) would read minations, i.e. threats; but
though Shakespeare does not elsewhere use 'termination' in this
sense, the previous 'words' is in favour of it as against
'minations.'
221. had left to him, still possessed.
225. have turned, on the use by Shakespeare of the complete
present indicative: see Abb. 360.
spit, i.e. the spit,' unless, as seems possible, Shakespeare
wrote 'turn turnspit.
227. the infernal Ate, the Homeric goddess of discord: cp. T. C.
iii. 1. 271, “ With Ate by his side come hot from hell," and K.
John ii. 63.
227. Iwould. her. "As Shakespeare always attributes to his
exorcists the power of raising spirits, he gives his conjurer, in this
place, the power of laying them" (Mason). Scholar, because
Latin was used in exorcisms.
228. for certainly. . . sanctuary. Thatis, to live in hell would
be as quiet as to live in a sanctuary, compared to living where she
is, and people sin on purpose in order to escape her in that way"
(Rolfe). This seems a perfectly satisfactory explanation of a
passage which Staunton calls " very ambiguous.
"
236. toothpicker, i.e. toothpick. For the use of the toothpick
as evidence of a man having travelled see K. John i. 1. 190.
237. Prester John's foot.
"Prester or Presbyter John was a
106
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
mythical Christian King of India. Some placed his dominions in
Abyssinia; Sir John Mandeville locates them in an island called
Pentexoire. The difficulty of getting access to him is referred to
in Hudibras :-
'While like the mighty Prester John,
Whose person none dares look upon,
But is preserved in close disguise
From being made cheap to vulgar eyes.'
The great Cham was the Khan of Tartary.
He is associated
with Prester John in the old drama of Fortunatus:-
' And then I'll revel it with Prester John,
> ""
Or banquet with great Cham of Tartary (Rolfe).
Cp. The Spanish Gipsy ii. 1. 259, "Kill the great Turk, pluck
out the Mogul's eye-teeth; " where Bullen quotes Cartwright's
Siege (Works, 1651, p. 157):
"Fetch you a hair of the great Cham's beard!
No more? I'd thought you have bid me pull
The Parthian king by the beard, or draw an eye-tooth
From the jaw royal of the Persian monarch."
238. the Pigmies, "A race of dwarfs fabled to dwell beyond
Mount Imaus in India. Their wars with the cranes are celebrated
in a poem ascribed to Homer. Cf. Milton, P. L. i. 575 :-
and Id. i. 781,
Warr'd on by cranes ;'
'That small infantry,
'Like that Pygmæan race
(Rolfe).
Beyond the Indian mount
239. this harpy, who would be as ready to tear one's face with
her nails as the harpies to clutch at food with their claws.
241. none . . . company, none, except to hope that you will con-
tinue to give us the pleasure of your company; which invitation
Benedick, in order to escape Beatrice, hastily declines, and leaves
the hall.
243. Lady Tongue, this lady who is all tongue; with a reference
to his use of dish in the previous line, the tongue of oxen being a
favourite dish, i.e. article of food, in Europe.
•
246. indeed. lost it. This passage, which is ambiguous, and
perhaps intentionally so, is passed over by all the commentators.
Its meaning seems to be this :-Beatrice admits that she once had
Benedick's heart, though only as a loan; but, she says, she had
given it back to him with interest, her own heart as well as his
(with aquibble on the word double, i.e. deceitful). She goes on, Your
grace may well say I have lost it, i.e. this double heart, for my
Use for interest is very
part in it he won by false pretences.
frequent in Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
sc. 1.]
107
NOTES.
252. have put him down, have overthrown him, a metaphor
from wrestling. So Rosalind, A. Y. L. i. 2. 266, in reference
to Orlando's victory in the wrestling match, when by his courage
and bearing he had won her heart, says-
<
Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
More than your enemies."
<
260. civil as an orange. "A civil (not a Seville) orange' was
the usual orthography of the time: Aigre-douce [bitter-sweet].
A cirle orange,' Cotgrave's Fr. and Eng. Dict." (Dixe.)
Civil here seems to mean, neither one thing nor the other, neither
sad nor merry, neither sick nor well, but like the Seville orange
(which is both bitter and sweet) something between the two, a
mixture of both civil being perhaps used with much the same
sense as politic. Jacques' definition (A. Y. L. iv. 1. 10-15) of the
different kinds of melancholy seems to illustrate this passage:-
"I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation,
nor the musician's, which is fantastical, nor the courtier's, which
is proud, nor the lawyer's, which is politic, nor the lady's, which
is nice, nor the lover's which is all these."
261. jealous complexion, in reference to the yellow rind of the
orange, yellow (or green) being the colour of complexion especially
looked upon as indicative of jealousy.
262. blazon, an heraldic term, from "F. blason, a coat of
arms; in the eleventh century a buckler, a shield; then a shield
with a coat of arms of a knight painted on it; lastly, towards the
fifteenth century, the coats of arms themselves'
" (Brachet
quoted by Skeat, s.v.). Hence the description or portraiture of
other things besides a coat of arms.
263. conceit, idea, belief.
261. I have wooed, etc.
From here to the end the speech
looks like verse. Walker, indeed, thinks that the whole speech
is perhaps
CC a kind of verse.
"}
265. broke with, cp. i. 1. 285, "Then after to her father will
I break" though it is possible that there is here a side reference
to the verb to broke, and the subs. a broker, in the sense of
negotiating cp. below, 268, "his grace hath made the match.
267. my fortunes, all that is mine, she being his sole heir.
268. all grace, i.e. God: cp. A. W. ii. 1. 163,
"The greatest
grace lending grace.
>>
Ac-
270. cue, usually derived from the Fr. queue, a tail.
cording to Wedgwood, "The last words of the preceding speech
prefixed to the speech of an actor to let him know when he is to
come on to the stage. From the letter Q, by which it is marked.
•
Minshen explains it somewhat differently: A qu, a term
used among stage players, à Lat. qualis, i.e. at what manner of
I
108
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
word the actors are to begin to speak, one after another hath
done his speech.' The Fr. term is replique." In II. V. iii.
6. 130, the folios express the word by 'Q,' and in Oth. i. 2. 83,
the first quarto by 'Qu.'
271. herald, i.e. interpreter, publisher of.
I were
•
•
much. Cp. A. and C. i. 1. 15, “There's beggary
in the love that can be reckon'd."
272. as you are mine, etc., I am as entirely yours as you are
mine.
273. dote upon, delight in even to excess.
274. the exchange, probably that which I get in exchange,
i.e. you.
278. poor fool: "This was formerly an expression of tender-
ness. See King Lear [v. 3. 305], 'And my poor fool is
hanged [where Lear is speaking of Cordelia] (Malone).
279. windy side of care, so that the wind of care cannot blow
upon me. Schmidt explains so that care cannot scent and find
it," as though care were a hound! Cp. T. N. iii. 4. 181,
Still you keep on the windy side of the law."
<
282 good Lord, for alliance ! Steevens and Staunton explain
this as a wish for a husband; though, if so, Beatrice is speaking
ironically. Malone supposes that she is referring to Claudio's
use of the word cousin, and that the sense is, 'Good Lord, here
have I got a new kinsman by marriage.'
goes to the world, gets married: cp. A. W. i. 3. 20, “If I
may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the
woman and I will do as we may." Rolfe thinks perhaps
originally in distinction from going into the church," where
celibacy was the rule." He also quotes a woman of the world a
married woman, A. Y. L. v. 3. 5.
283. am sunburnt, tanned by the sun, and so not likely to
attract a man's love. Staunton compares T. and C. i. 3. 282,
"The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth The splinter of
a lance.
""
286. getting, i.e. begetting.
287. ne'er, not even one brother.
288. if a maid, etc., if only it were possible for a girl like me
to get one of them as a husband.
290. for working days, i.e. keeping you for Sundays and holi-
days only, like a fine garment.
293. matter, i.e. that which is material, substantial, has some-
thing in it, sense, as often in Shakespeare.
301. I cry you mercy
in excuse for leaving them.
·
pardon.
See above, i. 2. 21: here
SC. I.
109
NOTES.
303. element. Of the four elements out of which all created
things were supposed to be formed, earth and water were the
slower ones, fire and air the quicker ones; and melancholy is
ascribed to earth: cp. II. V. iii. 7. 23.
mischievous
306. unhappiness is commonly explained as
tricks, roguery.' But this interpretation seems to spoil the point
of the passage.
Leonato has said that "she is never sad but
when she sleeps and not ever sad then," i.e. she is never sad for
long even in her sleep; she may dream of sorrow for a few
minutes, but will quickly wake herself with laughter.
often no doubt, as in i. 1. 155, equivalent to serious, but the word
melancholy seems to show that here it is used in its more ordinary
sense.
Sad is
30S. hear tell. Rolfe quotes Grant White on this expression
This form of speech, which Shakespeare constantly puts into the
mouth of personages of the highest rank, but which is now never
heard in Old England, except perhaps in the remotest rural
districts, is in common use in New England.
309. out of suit, .e. courtship; but probably with a quibble
on non-suiting a plea and putting anybody out of court, in the
legal sense of that phrase.
311. were, would be.
313. to go to church, i.e. to be married: 'to go to church' is
to attend divine service; 'to go into the church' is to take upon
oneself the profession of a priest.
316. rites, possibly with a pun on rites and rights.
317. a just seven-night, exactly a week; for just, ep. a just
pound," M. of I. iv. 1. 327. Seven-night, which was also con-
tracted into the form se'nnight, as in 4. Y. L. iii. 2. 333, Oth. ii.
1. 77, has now dropped out of use, though we retain the analogous
fortnight.
319. answer my mind, correspond with my wishes, be carried
out with due pomp and ceremony.
320. breathing, delay; we still use the word breathing time,
i.e. time to take breath.
324. mountain of affection, merely hyperbolical for very great
affection. Why doubt should be thrown on the genuineness of
the reading, and why Steevens, though quoting such parallel
phrases as a mountain of vexation," etc., should call it an offence
against grammar, it is not easy to see. Mooting, Johnson's con-
jecture, is one of the unhappiest ones made by that critic.
323. minister . . direction. Nowadays we should rather
say, lend me help in such a way as I shall direct you.'
328. I am for you, I am ready to join with you in the plot.
110
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
332. any modest office, anything that a modest maiden may.
334. unhopefullest, by no means the worst.
336. strain, stock, lineage; cp. H. V. ii. 4. 51, and J. C. v. 1.
59 the term is still used of animals.
approved, proved.
honesty, honour the Latin sense.
:
338. your two helps, the help of you two.
340 queasy stomach, fastidious taste.
343. my drift, that which I am driving at.
SCENE II.
1. shall marry, is to marry; the matter has been settled.
3. cross, thwart, hinder,
5. medicinable, see Abb. 3.
I am sick...mine, I am made quite ill by my hatred to-
wards him; and anything that is likely to thwart his wishes
will be in accord with mine.
displeasure to him, "cf. a quarrel to you,' in ii. 1. 213 [210]
above. See also [Abbott's] Gr. 186. We find 'displeasure at' in
Per. i. 3. 21, and displeasure against' in Temp. iv. 1. 202,
A. Y. L. i. 2. 90, and A. W. iv. 80." (Rolfe.)
6
12. waiting gentlewoman, an attendant something above an
ordinary maid-servant, as the freedom in conversation permitted
her by her mistress would show.
15. any unseasonable instant, any time in the night, however
late.
appoint her, arrange with her, make an appointment with her.
17. what life...marriage? cp. Lear iv. 6. 206, "Then there's
life in it"; and for a somewhat similar play on the word, H. V'.
iv. 2. 54-5.
19. temper, mix so as to be efficacious: cp. Cymb. v. 5. 250.
22. estimation, just reputation, merit.
23. stale, harlot : cp. Cymb. i. 6. 105, etc.
24. what proof, etc., how shall I substantiate my words?
25. misuse, mislead:
vex and rexation were formerly used in a much stronger sense
than that of the present day, and meant to distress, harass,
torment.
26. look you for, etc., do you desire any, etc.
28. to despite, for this verb we now use spite, though the subs.
SC. II.]
111
NOTES.
is common enough in the adverbial phrase 'in despite of,' or 'des-
pite of.'
31. intend, pretend, as not uncommonly in Shakespeare.
32. as to be joined with that in 1. 40; a zeal which has led you
to this discovery.
35. without trial, without making trial, investigation.
36. instances, corroborative circumstances.
which shall ..likelihood, which shall have all the appearance of
truth in so far that they shall see me, etc.
33. Claudio. Theobald changed this to "Borachio," and he
has been followed by some editors. Malone remarks in opposition
to Theobald, "Claudio would naturally be enraged to find his
mistress Hero (for such he would imagine Margaret to be)
address Borachio, or any other man, by his name, as he might
suppose that she called him by the name of Claudio in conse-
quence of a secret agreement between them, as a cover, in case
she were overheard; and he would know, without a possibility
of error, that it was not Claudio with whom, in fact, she con-
versed." Knight further points out that the very expression
"term me" shows that the speaker assumes that Margaret, by
connivance, would call him by the name of Claudio.
42. disloyalty, untruthfulness in love, a wider sense than the
word more usually bears, i.e. the want of fidelity to the sovereign :
ep. C. of E. iii. 2. 11.
"Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty,
Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger.'
that jealousy...overthrown, that what would otherwise be
regarded as mere suspicion will then be looked upon as some-
thing clearly established, and the preparations for the wedding
will be at an end.
44. grow this, etc., let this plot have whatever result it may,
I will not shrink from carrying it out to the end.
45. in the working this: we should now say either in the work-
ing of this' or 'in working this': see Abb. 373 (a) and (b).
Ital. ducato.
46. ducats, "O. F. ducat.
Low Latin,
ducatus, a duchy. So called because, when first coined in the
duchy of Apulia (about A.D. 1140), they bore the legend Sit tibi,
Christe, datus, quem tu regis, iste ducatus" (Skeat, Ety. Dict.).
The coin, which was both of silver and of gold, has varied in
value at different times. Shakespeare makes it current not only
it Italy, but in Ephesus, Vienna, Denmark; and the frequent use
of it in Elizabethan literature shows how widespread was the
commerce of Venice in those days.
47. be you...accusation, i.e. if you do not allow your courage
112
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
to fail you when you make the accusation, but adhere to it firmly,
you will find that I on my part shall not be wanting in my
cunning.
49. presently, at once; see above, i. 1. 71.
SCENE III.
3. chamber-window, the ledge or sill of the window of his
room.
4. orchard, see above, i. 2. §.
5. I am here already, sir. What the point of the boy's remark
may be does not seem plain, unless perhaps he took the word
' hither' to mean come here."
>
8. dedicates his behaviours, ¿.e. wholly gives himself up in all
his actions, gestures, etc., to love. Probably a sarcastic imitation
of the absurd euphuism which is satirized in Love's Labour Lost.
We no longer use 'behavour' in the plural.
10. argument, subject matter. The word is used by Shake-
speare with various shades of kindred meaning.
12. no music with him, no music that was acceptable to him,
nothing musical to his ears.
13. tabor and pipe, i.c. such instruments as were used with
dancing and revelry rather than those used in war: tabor, a small
drum, the modern form of the word being 'tambourine.'
14. ten mile, the distance of ten miles. Rolfe quotes Macb.
v. 5. 37, “within this three mile": so in the Temp. i. 2. 53, we
have twelve year,' and in i. 3. 296, 'fathom five'; in the T. of S.
Induction 2. 115, fifteen year'; in 1 H. IV. ii. 4. 50, five year';
in 2 H. IV., iii. 2. 224,fifty-five year.' On the first of these
passages Wright points out that we still use pound and stone
with plural numerals, as did Hamlet (iii. 2. 298), 'I'll take the
ghost's word for a thousand pound.' In all these cases it will
be observed that measurement or weight is spoken of.
15. armour, i.e. suit of armour.
16. carving the fashion, designing the shape and style. The
commentators refer to a plate in Borde's Introduction of Knowledge,
in which an English gentleman is represented as naked, with a
pair of tailor's shears in one hand and a piece of cloth on his arm,
with certain verses showing his perplexity as to what he should
wear also to Barnaby Riche's account of a Fashionmonger—
"Here comes first the fashionmonger that spends his time in the
contemplation of sutes."
doublet, an inner garment which served, so to speak, as a lining
or double to the outer one. Fr. double with dim. suffix-et.
Here used generically for any garment.
sc. III.]
113
NOTES.
18. orthography is altered by Dyce and others into ortho-
grapher or orthographist; but the abstract for the concrete seems
more forcible here. Staunton and Rolfe justify the reading in
the text by comparing L. L. L. i. 2. 190, "I am sure I shall
turn sonnet," i.e. sonneteer, into which some editors change the
word.
his words
•
dishes cp. L. L. L. v. 1. 39, 40, where Moth
ridiculing the affected language of the schoolmaster and the
fantastical Spaniard, says, "They have been at a great feast of
languages and stolen the scraps," and Costard replies, "O they
have lived long on the alms-basket of words."
19. may I, etc., i.e. is it possible that I should ever be so
changed?
22. an oyster, i.e. to anything in the world, fish or flesh.
24. yet I am well, yet I am in no ways affected by the fact, I
am still fancy-free.
26. cɔme in my grace, find favour with me.
Abb. 159.
For in into, see
27. or I'll none, i.e. of her, have nothing to say to her.
23. cheapen, bid for her, try to purchase her: "cf. Per. iv. 6.
10, cheapen a kiss of her. In the Shropshire dialect cheaper=
ask the price of. Cf. Heywood, Edward IV.: 'I see you come
to cheap, and not to buy.' Palsgrave gives, 'I cheape, I
demande the price of a thyng that I wolde bye." (Rolfe.)
29. or come not, or let her not come.
•
noble . angel. With a pun (frequent in Shakespeare, on
the names of the coins, worth respectively 6s. Sd. and 10s.), ‘I
will not marry her even if she be an angel,' and 'even if I were
given an angel to do so.
30. her hair
>
God. The commentators all seem to agree
in making reference to the dyeing of the hair, or to the wearing
of false hair, so frequently satirized by Shakespeare and his
contemporaries. But it is perhaps open to doubt whether more
is meant than that Benedick was indifferent as to the colour of
hair his wife might have.
31. Monsieur Love, i.e. Claudio.
34. how still, etc. Cp. M. of I. v. 1. 56.
37. the music ended, when the music is over.
38. we'll fit
pennyworth, we will play upon him the
pretty trick we have designed. Pennyworth, what can be bought
for a penny, i.e. something trifling. Kid-fox is explained by
some as the fox that has been discovered, detected, a meaning
that the word kid bore in Chaucer's day; by others, as Ritson,
in the sense of young fox.' He compares dog apes,' 4. Y. L.
<
114
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
“
ii. 5. 27, where, however, the word merely equals male apes.
Others again read hid fox,' with a reference to Don Pedro's
words two lines above.
40. tax not, much the same as task, of which it is a doublet;
impose a burden upon.
41. to slander, i.e. to disgrace, etc.
42. witness, evidence, proof.
still, ever.
43. to put a strange face, to pretend to be ignorant, possibly
with a reference to the pretended ignorance of unwilling witnesses
in a court of law.
his, i.e. its.
•
46. since many
woes. 'Since here does not refer to his
promise to sing, but rather to a suppressed clause such as, ' And
you may well talk of wooing,' since you act very like many a
wooer who begins and continues to woo one whom he nevertheless
does not think more worthy of being loved than you in reality
think me worthy of being asked to sing.
47. yet . . . yet, still he continues.
50. notes, music.
51. Mr. Grant White seeing a pun upon noting (1. 51), and
nothing (1. 53), thinks that the title of the play might more
properly be Much Ado about Noting, the 'much ado' being pro-
duced entirely by 'noting' various circumstances.
Ellis (Early
English Pronunciation, p. 97) ridicules this idea. According to
him, the only puns here are upon nole in the sense of observe'
and of a musical sound'; upon noting in the same senses, if
Theobald's correction, noting, be adopted in 1. 53; and upon
crotchets, i.e. musical notes' and Balthazar's 'quibbles.' The
same pun on note occurs in R. and J. iv. 5. 121-2.
54. divine air! Dyce puts these words between inverted
commas, and Rolfe agrees in thinking they were meant to be
understood as a quotation.
55. sheeps' guts, the strings of the violin: what we now call
catgut,' though in reality they have always been made from the
intestines of sheep or calves: cp. Cymb. iii. 3. 34, where calves'-
guts has been needlessly altered by some editors into cats'-guts or
calgut.
should hale, etc., with a reference to the word ravished
above. Singer compares T. N. ii. 3. 60, "a catch that will draw
three souls out of one weaver.
56. a horn
•
•
money, give me in preference a horn.
when all's done, or when all's said and done,' after all.
sc. 111.]
115
NOTES.
57. sigh no more, etc.
Steevens compares Lycidas 165.
*>
Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more.
nonny, exchanging all your sighs for the
63. converting .
refrain of merry song.
65. ditties, lit. a thing dictated (Lat. dictatum), then a song,
and inore usually one of a sad character.
moe. According to Skeat, the distinction between mo (or moe)
and more (for which we have now only the single form more) is
that mo referred to number, more to size. This is denied by other
grammarians, according to whom both mo and more were used as
comparatives of many.' Wright, A. Y. L. iii. 2. 243, [278],
says the distinction appears to be that mo (or moe) is used only
with the plural, or words involving a plural sense, more with
both singular or plural.
,,
66. dumps. Dyce takes this in the sense of " a melancholy
strain in music ; Schmidt and Rolfe of "low spirits, melan-
choly." Shakespeare uses the word in both senses several times,
and it is difficult to say which it bears here. Its being coupled
with difties is perhaps in favour of the former; the preposition of
perhaps in favour of the latter.
68. leavy, the form always employed by Shakespeare, and
here necessary for the rhyme, was needlessly altered by Pope to
leafy.
72. for a shift, i.c. you are better than nothing; your singing
will do at a pinch.
74. For an, see Abb. 101; for should have, 327.
76. bode no mischief, as the howling of a dog at night would.
as lief. This word originally meant dear, beloved. In the
present day it is found only (and that colloquially) in the phrase
we have in the text, with the meaning, 'I would as soon,' etc.
Lief, liefer, and liefest are common in Spenser: Shakespeare uses
the positive (in the above sense) very frequently; the superlative
in ii. H. VI. VI. iii. 1. 164, and the compound alder-liefest in the
same play, i. 1. 28, "my alder-liefest sovereign."
night-raven. Whether this is the owl or the night-heron.
nycticorax, is disputed. Yarrell, an eminent ornithologist,
quoted by Dyce (Gloss.), says that the older writers called the
night-heron a raven, "in reference probably to the word corax, and
by Shakespeare it is called a crow [i.e., night-crow, 3. H. VI. v.
6. 45], because corax is a corvus, i.e. belongs to the genus
crow.
78. dost thou hear, not with any reference to Benedick's
remarks, which are not supposed to be overheard, but merely to
impress upon Balthazar the necessity of getting some excellent
music' for such an occasion.
116
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
81. the best, etc., i.e. I will get the best, etc.
$3. that your niece, etc., i.e. as to Beatrice being in love, etc.
S5. O ay.
sits; go on with your conversation, Benedick is
listening.
·
•
stalk on, "an allusion to the stalking-horse; a horse either
real or fictitious, by which the fowler anciently sheltered himself
from the sight of the game" (Steevens), who gives various
illustrations. Douce points out that a stalking-bull was sometimes
used for the same purpose.
>
90. sits the wind, etc. As we should now say, 'Is that the
the wind blows? Is that how matters stand?
way
91. It seems better here to put a semi-colon after “think of
it"; and a comma or a dash to mark an aposiopesis after
affection." Malone's explanation, "But with what an enraged
affection" [mad passion] "she loves him, it is beyond the power
of thought to conceive," does not seem to strain the words too
much. In "enraged affection" and 'past the infinite of
thought,” there is, again, probably a glance at cuphuism.
>>
97. the life of passion, the reality of love.
came, i.e. that came.
discovers, shows, reveals.
98. effects, results outwardly manifesting themselves.
99. bait... bite. Claudio is supposed as before to be watch-
ing Benedick's behaviour.
100. she will sit you. For this use of me, thee, him, etc., in
virtue of their representing the old dative, see Abb. 220. The
force may perhaps here be rendered by, 'You may see how she
will sit in the moody way my daughter just now described.'
104. would, see Abb. 331. In most, if not all, of the examples
given there, he is no doubt right: but in the present passage, as
in some of those (309) in which he denies that rill, with the first
person, was used by Shakespeare for shall, he perhaps refines
too much.
107. a gull, a trick, imposition. The subs. is also used for a
dupe, and more commonly the verb to dupe.
109. reverence, reverent appearance.
110. hold it up, keep up the jest: the plot has already begun
to work.
113. that's her torment, that, i.e. her determination never to
tell her love, is what makes her suffering so great.
114. say she, i.e. Beatrice.
119. smock, under-garment, here apparently 'night-dress.'
writ, see Abb. 343.
SC. III.]
117
NOTES.
126. thousand halfpence, a thousand fragments as small as
halfpence. The old silver halfpenny was necessarily a very
small coin.
127. immodest to write, i.e. as to write, see Abb. 281.
132. curses has been altered by Collier's MS. Corrector into
cries, which many editors adopt. Halliwell transposes prays
and "curses. It is hardly likely that if "cries" had been in
the original it would have been changed to "curses," nor is it
perhaps necessary that we should take "curses "with the words
immediately following. Even if taken with them, it may mean
nothing more than utters adjurations.
135. ecstasy, passionate outburst.
138. by some other, we should now say either 'knew it from
some other' or 'were informed by some other.'
142. an alms, a charitable deed: though an alms' is the
correct expression, we nowadays, influenced by its plural form,
use the word in the plural only: conversely, while Shakespeare
wrote "these news,
we employ the singular only. So in the
Acts of the Apostles iii. 3, "asked an alms.
143. excellent, adv., see Abb. 1.
For out of we should now say beyond.
147. blood, passion, as before.
151. bestowed this dotage, endowed me with this rich heritage
of love, with a reference to 1. SS above, should so dote on,' etc.
152. daffed, thrust aside all other considerations, such as his
birth and position: daffed, a weakened form of dojj; see below,
v. 1. 78.
153. a', see above, i. 1. 73.
159. crossness, perverseness, obstinate opposition.
160. make tender, offer it voluntarily the word is most fre-
quently used by Shakespeare of an offer of love, affection,
marriage.
162. contemptible, contemptuous, which word Rolfe points
out was sometimes used by Shakespeare conversely for con-
temptible.
163. proper, handsome, very frequently in Shakespeare in this
sense.
164. a good outward happiness, he is happy, fortunate, so far
as externals go, has a prepossessing appearance, as Schmidt
explains it cp. happy, in Cymb. iii. 4. 177, "tell him wherein
you're happy,” i.e. accomplished.
167. wit. Staunton points out that wit and wisdom were
synonymous.
118
[ACT II.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
·
170. for either. fear. Said of course in order to pique.
Benedick.
177. howsoever it seems, etc., however much it might appear to
the contrary, judging from the language he sometimes uses.
large, broad, coarse.
181. counsel, reflection, as Shakespeare uses advice, H. I'. ii.
2. 43, “upon our more advice."
182. she may, i.e. she would.
184. by, from.
185. let it cool the while, let the matter rest for the time being.
187. much unworthy, she should now say 'greatly.'
188. my lord, etc. From this point the actors in the scene
move away from Benedick's place of concealment, and he of
course does not hear the rest of their conversation.
189. upon this, in consequence of what he has heard from us.
192. carry, carry out, manage, contrive.
193. one an opinion, each one an opinion of, belief in, the
other's dotage.
194. and no such matter, while in reality nothing of the kind
exists see above, i. 1. 160.
195. which will, etc., aud it will be an entirely dumb show,
for both will be too obstinate to utter a word of their real
feelings: mere and merely in Shakespeare entire, entirely.
196. was sadly borne, was seriously conducted.
have the truth of this, have obtained and possess.
200. have their full bent, a metaphor from the bending of a
bow to the utmost. Steevens quotes Haml. ii. 2. 30, Rolfe the
closer parallel from T. N. ii. 4. 38.
201. censured, the verb and the subs. in Elizabethan writers
more usual = 'to judge' and 'judgment' (the radical meaning)
than the present meaning, that of condemnation.
I will bear, i.e. that I am certain to bear.
205. their detractions, what is said in disparagement of them.
For to mending, we should say 'to the mending.'
207. reprove, disprove.
209. argument, proof.
for I will, etc. This refers to the immediately preceding
clause only it is no great proof of her folly that she loves me,
for I will show that I fully return the feeling.
211. quirks and remnants of wit, jests and stale quotations of
witty sayings; much the same as 'quips and sentences' below.
SC. III.]
119
NOTES.
broken on me, see above, ii. 1. 128.
215. these paper bullets of the brain, these shafts of wit that
are as harmless as bullets made of paper would be.
awe a man
clinations.
humour, deter a man from following his in-
219. some marks of love, i.e. in the manner in which she comes
to meet him.
223. for those thanks, to win those thanks.
228. choke a daw withal. Collier's MS. Corrector inserts not
before choke but Rolfe pertinently remarks that as the differ-
ence between the maximum that would not choke a daw and the
minimum that would is practically nil, the emendation seems a
most superfluous one. Withal, with, as frequently in Shake-
speare.
stomach, appetite.
""
235. a Jew. "Often used in this contemptuous way. Cf. M. of
1. ii. 2. 119: 'I am a Jew if I serve the Jew any longer'; 1. H.
IV. ii. 4. 198: 'I am
'I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew,' etc."
(Rolfe.)
236. picture, likeness, a word that Shakespeare does not use in
that sense.
ACT III. SCENE I.
1. run thee: on thee for thou, see Abb. 212, and for the scansion
of the line, 507.
"}
3. proposing, "conversing, from the French word propos, dis-
course, talk (Steevens). In 1. 12 propose should be read for
the first folio purpose. Rolfe compares proposer=speaker, Haml.
ii. 2. 297.
4. whisper her ear. See Abb. 200, where examples are given
of the verb without a preposition before a personal object—a con-
struction still allowable, though we should hardly say 'whisper
her ear.'
6. all, wholly, adv., tautological here.
7. pleached, see above, i. 2. S.
S. honeysuckles. Ellacombe (Plant-Lore, of Shakespeare, pp.
95, 6) strangely says that "there can be little doubt that in
Shakespeare's time the two names [honeysuckle and wood-
bine] "belonged to the same plant, and that the woodbine was
(when the two names were at all discriminated. ) applied to
the plant generally, and honeysuckle to the flower.
in M. N. D. iv. 1. 47, which he quotes,
•
The passage
120
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
"So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist. The female ivy so
Enwrings the barky fingers of the elm,"
should be enough in itself to show that Shakespeare, at all events,
regarded them as two distinct plants. Ellacombe also quotes
from Comus "flaunting honeysuckle and from Lycidas "well-
attired woodbine," and admitting that Milton would scarcely
apply two such contrary epithets to the same plant, says that
that poet
does not seem to have been very clear in the matter."
For woodbine, see below, 1. 30.
11. there will she hide her, there is she sure to hide herself
when you tell her that we, etc.
16. trace, walk.
21. sick in love, we say 'deeply, madly, in love with,' etc., but
for 'sick in love with' we should rather say 'dying of love for,
or ill from love of,' etc.
of this matter, of such things as this.
23. that only wounds, etc., that wounds by hearsay only.
24. like a lapwing, the common plover, which, when any one
approaches its nest, runs along the ground, uttering its peculiar
cry (whence its other name of peewit), and so diverts attention
from its eggs or young birds.
27. golden oars, fires: not that all fires are golden, but used
here for the sake of contrast with silver stream.
30. woodbine, the great convolvulus or bindweed, so called
from its twining about other plants: see quotation from M. N. D.
iv. 1. 47 on 1. 8 above. For coverture cp. M. N. D. ii. 1. 251,
Quite overcanopied by luscious woodbine."
31. fear you not, etc. In reply to 11. 18, 19 above.
36. haggards, wild, untrained hawks. Steevens quotes Turber-
vile on Falconry, "the haggard doth come from foreign parts a
stranger and a passenger"; and Latham, "such is the great-
ness of her spirit, she will not admit of any society, until such
a time as nature worketh," etc. Shakespeare uses the word as a
subs. in the above sense in several places, and also as an adj. in
the sense of 'wanton, libertine,' Oth. iii. 3. 260.
42. wish, advise, bid for omission of to before wrestle, see
Abb. 349.
45. as full as fortunate. The quarto and the two first folios.
give no comma after full. Mason, following the later folios iu
adding the comma, explains, as deserving of complete happiness
in the marriage state, as Beatrice herself "; and he quotes Oth.
i. 1. 66, "What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe! Whether
or not a comma should be placed after full, whether, that is, we
SC. I.]
121
NOTES.
>>
are to take full in an adjectival or in an adverbial sense, it seems
certain that "As ever...upon
does not mean 'as complete
happiness as Beatrice herself deserves,' but 'as complete happiness
as to marry a wife in every way equal to Beatrice.' The two
next lines show this.
50. of prouder stuff, Rolfe compares J. C. iii. 2. 97,
bition should be made of sterner stuff."
52. misprising, despising, undervaluing.
54. weak, worthless, of no consideration.
"Am-
55. project, “a chalking out, a forming in the mind, an idea ”
(Schmidt), who compares 2. H. IV., i. 3. 29,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts."
56. self-endeared, "self-loving, absorbed in love of self” (Rolfe).
58. she knew his love, we should rather say 'of his love.'
60. how, see Abb. 46.
}))
61. spell him backward, make out all his good qualities to be
defects as she says just below, "So turns she every way the
wrong side out.
Steevens quotes similar passages from Lyly's
Anatomy of Wit, but there seems no need to suppose with him an
allusion" to the practice of witches in uttering prayers."
62. should be, ought to be.
63. black, swarthy, of dark complexion.
drawing of, see Abb. 178.
an antique, a buffoon; not only did nature intend in him to
draw a buffoon, but even in doing that made a mess of it.
65. low, short for shorter' Shakespeare, A. Y. L. i. 2. 284,
uses lesser.'
an agate vilely cut, agates in seal-rings, etc., then, as now.
often had figures engraved upon them. Beatrice is represented
as comparing a short man to such a figure for his size, and, more-
over, to a figure badly engraved.
66. a vane blown with all winds, ever on the move, but also,
perhaps, with a reference to the constant creaking of the weather-
cock as it is blown about from one point of the compass to another:
cp. below, iii. 3. 138, Borachio. Did'st thou not hear some-
body? Con. 'No; 'twas but the cane on the house."
?"
C
70. purchaseth, deservedly obtains: cp. Cor. ii. 1. 155,
"Wondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his true
purchasing. There is no contrast here between truth and
virtue' on the one hand, and simpleness and merit' on the
other the two latter terms are almost equivalent to 'plain,
honest merit.'
122
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
71. commendable, accented on the first syllable, as generally
in Shakespeare.
72. not: to avoid redundancy, Capell proposed nor, which Dyce
reads.
from all fashions, contrary to, etc.: see Abb. 158.
74. dare, subjunctive.
76. press me to death. "The allusion is to an ancient punish-
ment of our law called peine fort et dure, which was formerly
inflicted on those persons, who, being indicted, refused to plead.
In consequence of their silence, they were pressed to death by an
heavy weight laid upon their stomach. (Mason.)
79. it were a better, etc. Grant White adopts the reading of
the second folio, "It were a bitter death to die of mocks," etc.,
thinking that Hero is referring to her own death. But Rolfe
well points out that "when Hero speaks of being pressed to
death with wit, it is a mere feminine hyperbole; she has of
course no real fear of such a death. Her thoughts then turn to
Benedick, who, like herself, would be exposed to the mocks of
Beatrice if his position became known to her; and she says,
naturally enough, 'Better let him die of secret love than of
Beatrice's scorn. The transition is as thoroughly feminine as the
form of expression. Dyce also rejects White's suggestion as
giving a meaning which the construction of the speech shows to
be wrong."
>
tickling, metrically a trisyllable: see Abb. 477.
84. honest slanders, slanders devised and uttered with a good
purpose.
89. swift, acute, ready. Steevens compares A. Y. L. v. 4. 65,
"He is very swift and sententious."
99. prized, honourably reputed to have.
92. of Italy, belonging to Italy, or throughout all Italy.
95. my fancy, my idea on the subject.
96. argument, rather the powers of reasoning' (Johnson),
then merely conversation' (Steevens).
99. his excellence, etc., he deserved it even long before he had
it.
101. why, every day, to-morrow, why, from to-morrow, I
shall be married (i.e. a married woman) every day.
103. to furnish me, to deck me in: cp. R. and J. iv. 2. 35,
"Such needful ornaments as you think fit to furnish me to-
morrow," said by Juliet on the eve of the day on which she was
to be married.
104. limed, caught as with bird-lime; a metaphor frequent in
Shakespeare.
SC. I.]
123
NOTES.
105. by haps, by accident, chance our perhaps, a hybrid word,
originally had the same meaning.
107. what fire, etc. Many of the commentators see a reference
to the proverb of a person's ears burning when being talked
about. There seems no necessity for this: Beatrice is merely
expressing her indignation at the character that has been given
her.
110. no glory, etc., no good repute is to be won by those who
are contemptuous and scornful of others.
112. taming. hand : "This image is taken from falconry.
She had been charged with being as wild as haggards of the rock;
she therefore says that wild as her heart is, she will tame it to
the hand" (Johnson): hawks being trained to sit on the hand,
or rather, on the wrist of the hawker.
113. bond, i.e. band.
114. reportingly, more firmly than ordinary hearsay is to be
believed.
SCENE II.
1. consummate, see Abb. 342.
3. bring, accompany, conduct.
vouchsafe me, permit me originally two words, rouch, i.e.
warrant, and safe, guarantee.
5. new gloss, first freshness: cp. Macb. i. 7. 34, “Which
would be worn in their newest gloss.
as to show, etc. Steevens quotes R. and J. iii. 2. 29,
"As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.
,,
7. I will only be bold with Benedick, etc., i.e. I will be bold
with Benedick only, I will make a demand upon him only, for his
company not only for his company in the sense of his company
and nothing more,' but his company and no one else's.'
·
•
(
9. he hath twice
bow-string, i.e. he has on several
occasions shown that he laughs at love and love's attacks.
hangman: Farmer says that this is taken from Sidney's
Arcadia, where we are told that Jove appointed Cupid
'In this world a hangman for to be
Of all those fooles that will have all they see.
Dyce (Gloss) thinks this probable, but also that Shakespeare
I
124
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
here used the word as equivalent to rogue, rascal, a sense which
it certainly had later on.
11. as sound as a bell, the least crack in a bell rendering it
useless.
12. what his heart
covert allusion to the proverb,
•
•
speaks.
According to Steevens, a
"As the fool thinketh
So the bell clinketh."
17. to be, so that it should be.
wants, needs.
19. the toothache: Boswell quotes Beaumont and Fletcher,
The False One,
"You had best be troubled with the tooth-ach too,
For lovers ever are.
22. you must hang it, etc., an allusion to hanging, drawing,
and quartering, the punishment of criminals condemned for
treason, which Middleton applies in the same way, The Widow,
iv. 1. 108,
Mar. "I pray, what's good for a wicked tooth?
Ric. Hang'd, drawn, and quartering,”
Of course Benedick's exclamation, Hang it is equivalent
curse it!"
to
24. where is, i.e. where there is, which is caused by.
a worm "at the root of the tooth was formerly supposed to be
the cause of toothache. Cp. Bartholomæus, De Prop. Rerum,
1535; 'some tyme by wormes they [the teeth] ben chaunged into
yelow colour, grene or black; all this cometh of corrupt and evil
humours'; and again: Wormes of the teethe ben slayne with
myrre and opium. (Rolfe.)
28. fancy, love, as frequently in Shakespearc.
unless it be a fancy, etc. "So in The Seven deadly Sinnes of
London, by Tho. Dekker, 1606, For an Englishman's sute is like
a traitor's bodie that hath been hanged, drawne, and quartered,
and is set up in severall places: his codpiece in Denmarke; the
collor of his dublet and the belly, in France; the wing and
narrow sleeve, in Italy; the short waste hangs over a Dutch
botcher's stall in Utrich; his huge sloppes speak Spanish:
Polonia gives him the bootes, etc. - and thus we mocke everie
nation, for keeping one fashion, yet steall patches from everie one
of them to peece out our pride; and are now laughing-stocks to
them, because their cut so scurvily becomes us." (Steevens.)
32. slops, large, loose breeches or trousers.
33. no doublet, or, in other words, all cloak. The words,
or in the shape of... doublet' were omittel in the folio,
་
SC. II.]
125
NOTES.
probably to avoid giving offence to the Spaniards, with whom
James became a friend in 1604 " (Malone).
34. he is no fool for fancy, unless he has a fancy (a taste) for
such foolery, as it appears he has, he cannot be said to be fooled
by fancy of any kind, least of all by such fancy as you speak of,
i.e. love.
37. old, i.e. well known.
41. old ornament of his cheek, his whiskers and beard: cp.
Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday, "Yet I'll shave it off, and stuff
tennis balls with it." Steevens gives other instances, and the
allusion is the same in H. V. iii. 7. 13, 14.
43. by the loss, to the extent of the loss, etc. So, below, iii.
4. 24, "heavier by the weight of a man.
>>
45. civet, perfume obtained from a small bag at the tail of the
civet-cat. This perfume undiluted is offensive; but, mixed with
other substances, it was much in vogue in former times.
word is Arabic.
The
smell him out by that, detect his condition, with a play on the
word.
49. note, mark, proof.
50. and when, etc. Grant White, quoted by Rolfe, points out
that Englishmen were in those days by no means so fond of
washing as they now are.
51. paint himself, use rouge, etc., to improve his complexion.
for the which, etc., as to which, I heard how he is talked
about on the which see Abb. 270.
53. nay, but . . . spirit, i.e. think too what has become of his
former love of jesting, how completely it has disappeared.
54. lute-string, love-songs were usually sung to the music of
the lute cp. 1. H. 11'. i. 2. 84. Stops or frets, in instruments
of the lute or guitar kind, were "small lengths of wire on which
the fingers press the strings" (Busby's Dict. of Musical Terms,
quoted by Dyce, Gloss.). For now governed," Walker suggests
and Dyce adopts, new governed," which improves the sense, as
otherwise "now... now would look as if "at one time. . . and
at another time were meant.
CC
55. tells a heavy tale, etc., is strong evidence against him, i.c.
of his being in love.
57. nay, but, etc., yes, he is clearly in love, and not only that
but I, etc.
60. ill conditions, bad qualities; so in A. II. iv. 3. 288: we no
longer use the word in the plural in this sense.
62. she shall . . . upwards, she shall be buried in her lover's
arms, as Steevens suggests, quoting W. T. iv. 4. 131,
126
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
"Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried,
But quick, and in my arms.
Malone points out that Don Pedro is evidently playing on the
word dies in Claudio's speech.
63. yet is... toothache, yet that is no remedy for the pain
from which I told you I was suffering. Rolfe quotes from Scot's
Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584 (p. 197 Nicholson's edition), "O
horsecombs and sickles that have so many teeth, come heale me
of my toothach." Other charms equally efficacious are also
recorded there.
•
65. hobby-horses. "A person belonging to the ancient morris-
dance.. made..
by the figure of a horse fastened round the
waist of a man, his own legs going through the body of the
horse, and enabling him to walk, but concealed by a long foot-
cloth; while false legs appeared where those of the man should
be, at the sides of the horse" (Nares, Gloss.). The term was
hence contemptuously applied to foolish men and loose women.
67. break with, see above, i. 1. 268.
69. and then, i.e. the result of which will be.
-the two bears, Beatrice and Benedick who have hitherto been
as fierce to each other as two bears.
Other forms of the
72. good den, a contraction of 'good even.'
expression were God dig-you-den (God give you good e'en), God
gi' god-den, God ye (give ye) god-den; forms of salutation "used
by our ancestors as soon as noon was past, after which time
'good morrow' or 'good day' was esteemed improper" (Nares,
Gloss.).
81. I know not that, I am by no means sure of that.
82. discover, reveal.
84. aim better at me, form a truer judgment of me; not
(primarily) "form a better opinion of me," as Rolfe says.
85. for, as regards.
holds you well, loves you, regards you with favour; we still
'holds you dear': cp. Oth. i. 3. 396, "He holds me well."
dearness of heart, true good will.
say
86. holp, see Abb. 343.
89. circumstances shortened, to cut the matter short.
90. for she . . . of, for she has been talked of more than
enough, i.e. has given cause for plenty of scandal; but with an
equivoque on the more ordinary meaning of being talked about:
a talking of, see Abb. 140.
91. disloyal, false to her betrothed husband; see above, ii. 2.
49.
SC. II.]
127
NOTES.
96. to paint out, fully to describe; out here, as with many
words, intensifying the meaning.
98. fit her to it, show that she corresponds to it.
warrant, assurance, proof.
101. then, after seeing that.
103. may, can.
105. if you dare not . . . know, if you are not then convinced
by such ocular proof, do not mention what you know that you
see, that which, etc., see Abb. 244.
106. follow me, i.e. my guidance in this matter.
109. anything. . . why, any good reason why.
115. bear it coldly, keep cool about it, do not noise it about.
117. untowardly turned, which began so happily, but is having
such an untoward (unfortunate) ending.
118. thwarting, crossing my desires.
119. so... sequel, so will you say if things turn out as I
know that they will.
SCENE III.
Stage Direction. Dogberry and Verges. "The first of these
worthies has his name from the dogberry, i.e. the female cornel,
a shrub that grows in the hedges in every county in England.
Verges is only the provincial pronunciation of Verjuice.
(Steevens).
""
1. good men and true, the technical qualification of such
public servants as constables, etc.
3. salvation, for damnation: if they are not good men and true
it would be a shame if they escaped damnation.
5. the prince's watch. These relics of the past were still to be
seen in some parts of England thirty years ago, with their bell
and staff, though they no longer wielded the bill.
7. give them their charge, i.e. directions as to their duty;
this part of the constable's office is referred to by several of the
old dramatists.
8. desartless, for 'deserving.
13. good name, probably a good reputation,' as in iii. 1. 99,
but Dogberry may be referring literally to his name.
to be... fortune, well-favoured, well-featured, good-looking :
for favour, see above, ii. 1. SO. In A. Y. L. i. 2. 41-2, Celia says
of Fortune that those women "that she makes honest she makes
very ill-favouredly"; to which Rosalind replies, "Nay, now
128
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's: Fortune reigns in
the gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature."
19. such vanity, for such ability,' 'capacity.'
senseless, for sensible.'
21. lantern, part of the equipment of a watchman in days when
the streets were so dimly lighted, if lighted at all.
22. comprehend, apprehend.
vagrom, vagrant.
32. tolerable, for intolerable.'
34. what belongs to a watch, what is befitting a watch.
36. ancient, of long standing.
38. bills, the halberds or pikes which in Shakespeare's day
were carried by watchmen: Johnson says they were still in use
at Litchfield in his day. Steevens quotes from Glapthorne's Wit
in a Constable, 1639—
Well said, neighbours ;
You're chatting wisely o'er your bills and lanthorns
As becomes watchmen of discretion.
>>
41. if they, etc., if they do not answer you more civilly and
promise to go to their houses, you may say that you made a
mistake in trying to apprehend them--an excuse which, according
to Halliwell, was usually made by constables when they had
searched innocent persons.
•
·
48. the less. honesty, the less you have to do with such
men, the better the chance of your continuing honest men, or of
being reputed such.
52. by your office, you may; i.e. you would be perfectly justi
fied as watchmen in laying hands on him, but you will find it
more prudent, etc.
53. they that touch, etc., A popular proverb found in
Ecclesiasticus xiii. 1, 'He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled
therewith ""
(Rolfe).
54. to let him. . . company, to let him show what he really
is by stealing (i.e. going quietly, stealthily) out, etc.
65. will never
•
•
bleats, will never pay any attention to
injunctions such as yours.
67. to present, to represent.
stay him, stop him and question him as to his business at
that late hour.
71. five shillings to one, etc., I would bet five shillings to one
with any man acquainted with the statutes that he may, etc. :
statues, either a misprint or one of Dogberry's blunders.
77. keep your fellows, etc. Malone points out that "this is
SC. III. .J
129
NOTES.
part of the oath of a grand juryman, and one of the many proofs
of Shakespeare's having been conversant, at some period of his
life, with legal proceedings and courts of justice. Even bar-
risters are not admitted into the Crown Court till the charge is
over, which Lord Campbell, Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements,
p. 45, says is "in order that it may not be too severely criticised.'
81. church-bench, a bench outside, or more frequently in the
porches of, churches for visitors to the spot, or for worshippers
waiting for the opening of the church, to rest themselves upon.
These benches are still to be seen in village churches.
coil, bustle; used by Shakespeare in the sense also of trouble
90. mass, i.e. by the mass, a petty oath.
and my elbow, etc., i.e. that is why my elbow, etc.
***
91. scab, "the incrustation formed over sores by dried matter;
applied to persons as a term of extreme contempt and disgust:
Well said, i̇' faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab,' 2 H. IV. iii.
2. 296" (Schmidt).
92. I will... that I will repay your rudeness in the same
coin sooner or later: cp. below, v. 4. 52, "For this I owe you.”
94. pent-house, "a porch or shed with a sloping roof, com-
mon in the domestic architecture of the time" (Rolfe), and still
to be seen especially in villages.
it drizzles rain, ‘it,' indefinite; it rains slightly.
95. true drunkard, who divulges everything when in his cups.
For the allusion to his name see above, i. 3. 42.
97. stand close, do not stir till we have heard their con-
versation.
100. should be so dear, should cost so much, have to be paid
so highly.
101. any villany should, etc. Borachio is repeating Conrade's
very words with the substitution of rich for dear; and though
Conrade's remark refers to Borachio, and Borachio's to Don
John, it seems scarcely necessary to change villany into villain,
as some editors do. It should, however, be noticed that in the
next line 'rich villains' are spoken of.
105. unconfirmed, inexperienced.
iv. 2. 19.
Rolfe quotes L. L. L.
106. nothing to a man, of no real importance to a man.
•
111. I may as well. fool, I may as well say that you
are you.
112. deformed thief, misshapen (but also probably with the
sense of disfiguring) rascal: cp. C. of E. v. 298—
O grief hath changed me since you saw me last
And careful hours with time's deformed hand
Have written strange defeatures in my face."
130
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
114. this seven year, for ever so long, indefinite; for the sing.
cp. above, ii. 3. 14.
goes up and down, i.e. instead of being locked up, as he ought
to be, in jail.
119. hot bloods, hot blooded young men; young rakes: the
term in this sense was common till a very recent period. The
expression 'young bloods' in J. C. iv. 3. 262, quoted by Rolfe, is
scarcely analogous.
121. Pharaoh's soldiers, i.e. figures taken from Scriptural
subjects in the old tapestries or the 'painted cloths' frequently
mentioned by Shakespeare.
reechy or recky, smoked, dirty from age and from the smoke of
the flaring lights used by our ancestors.
122. Bel's priests, alluding," says Steevens,
to some
awkward representation of the story of Bel and the Dragon, as
related in the Apocrypha." Representations of Biblical narra-
tives are common in the stained-glass windows of churches and
cathedrals in Europe.
123. the shaven Hercules, i.e. "Hercules when shaved [of his
beard] to make him look like a woman, while he remained in the
service of Omphale, his Lydian mistress. Had the shaved Her-
cules been meant to represent Samson [as Warburton imagined],
he would probably have been equipped with a jawbone [he
having slain a thousand men with that weapon] instead of a
club." (Steevens.)
smirched, soiled, sullied: cp. 4. Y. L. i. 3. 114.
125. wears out, causes them to cast aside as worn out.
126. giddy with the fashion, has not this fashion of which you
talk so much, turned your head, made you giddy and incapable
of keeping long to one thing? The play upon words is kept up
in shifted out of, as though out of a garment.
131. leans me, see Abb. 220.
134. possessed, primarily 'instructed,' 'informed beforehand,`
as in T. N. ii. 3. 149, "Possess us, possess us," i.e. communicate
your knowledge to us; but probably also with a play upon the
word in the sense of being taken possession of by an evil spirit.
135. amiable encounter, loving meeting: we do not now use
'amiable' of 'loving' in this sense, but rather to mean ‘of a
kindly temper, disposition.'
140. possessed, persuaded, convinced; in an evil sense.
143. as he was appointed, as it had been appointed he should
do; according to the arrangement for the marriage.
144. temple, church: the Latin term, which Shakespeare fre
quently uses in this sense.
SC. III.]
131
NOTES.
145. shame her with what, i.e. by the narration of that which
he saw, etc.
148. right master. The second watchman seems to use right
as an adv., as in such phrases as "right honourable," "right
noble."
149. recovered . . . lechery, for discovered' and 'treachery.'
152. a lock, see Malone's note quoted on v. 1. 294.
157. obey you, for persuade you.'
159. we are like
•
6
If a
bills. "Here is a cluster of conceits.
Commodity was formerly, as now, the usual term for an article of
merchandise. To take up, besides its common meaning_(to
apprehend), was the phrase for obtaining goods on credit.
man is thorough with them in honest taking up (says Falstaff)
[2 H. IV. i. 2. 45], then they must stand upon security.
Bill was the term both for a single bond, and a halberd.
have the same conceit in K. H. VI., P. II. [iv. 7. 134], My
lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up commodities
upon our bills?'" (Malone.)
We
161. a commodity in question, i.e. "a commodity subject to
judicial trial or examination " (Steevens).
(เ
SCENE IV.
6. rabato, an ornament for the neck, a collar-band or kind
of ruff. Fr. rabat. Menage saith it comes from rabattre, to put
back, because it was at first nothing but the collar of the shirt or
shift turn'd back towards the shoulders" (T. Hawkins). Steevens
quotes (among other passages) Dekker's Guls Hornbook, 1609:
Your stiff necked rebatoes (that have more arches for pride to
row under, than can stand under five London bridges) durst not
then," etc.
8. by my troth, 's not so good; i.e. it is not so, etc.
12. tire, a shortened form of attire, decoration; here head-
dress: cp. M. W. iii. 3. 61, “Any tire of Venetian admittance.`
within, i.e. in an inner room.
if the hair
•
•
·
browner, if the hair in the head-dress were
only a shade browner: a reference to the false hair in vogue
then, as now, and so frequently satirized.
16. exceeds, intransitive, like "passes," T.A. i. 1. 12, "passed,"
M. W. i. 1. 310, used absolutely.
:
17. a night-gown, a loose gown for undress what we now
call a night-gown would have then been known as a bed-gown.
132
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
in respect of, in comparison with.
19. cloth o' gold, cloth thickly interwoven with gold threads,
the Indian Kinkáb; cp. H. V. iv. 1. 279, "The intertissued
robe of gold and pearl.
18. cuts. Schmidt explains this as a slope in a garment," a
very vague sense: it more probably refers to the slashed sleeves
of the period-a fashion lately revived-which had their counter-
part in the "razed shoes" mentioned in Haml. iii. 2. 288.
set with pearls. It was common to sew garments of state with
small pearls called 'seed pearls': cp. Marlowe, Edward the
Second i. 4. 414-
"He wears a short Italian cloak
Larded with pearl."
19. down sleeves, side sleeves. Steevens, followed by Dyce,
takes "down sleeves as equivalent to "down the sleeves
but the most satisfactory explanation is that given by Grant
White: "The dress was made after a fashion which is illustrated
in many old portraits. Beside a sleeve which fitted more or
less closely to the arm and extended to the wrist, there was
another for ornament, which hung from the shoulder, wide and
open"; in which case, as Rolfe remarks, down sleeves would
mean the inner close sleeves, side sleeves, the outer loose ones.
Side or syde, in the north of England and in Scotland was, accord-
ing to Steevens, used for long when applied to the garment.
He quotes from the Paston Letters, "a short blue gown that was
made of a side gown"; and Reed from Fitzherbert's Book of
Husbandry, "Theyr cotes be so syde that they be fayne to tucke
them up whan they ride, as women do theyr kyrtels whan they
go to the market."
skirts round underborne with, etc., skirts trimmed all round
with, etc.
20. quaint, Fr. cointe, Lat. comptus, elegant.
26. honourable without marriage, i.e. even without marriage,
the word honourable belonging to him as a title honourable
in a beggar is probably a reference to Hebrews xiii. 4, "Marriage
is honourable in all," etc., a passage which forms part of the
marriage service of the English Church.
29. saving your reverence, a husband.' The Cambridge
Editors who read saving your reverence, a husband,' remark,
"Modern editions have say, saving your reverence, 'a husband.'
But surely Margaret means that Hero was so prudish as to
think that the mere mention of the word 'husband' requires
an apology." This seems quite to miss the point. Margaret in
effect says, I see what it is that shocks your modesty; instead
of saying by the weight of a man,' I should for the sake of
propriety (saving your reverence) have said 'by the weight of a
SC. IV.]
133
NOTES.
husband'; for unless bad thinking wrest honest speaking (i.e.
unless immodest thoughts put a bad construction upon honest
words), you cannot at all events find anything objectionable in
my amended version, the heavier for a husband.'
31. the right husband, and the right wife, i.. not a husband
with some one else's wife.
32. light, the play on this word in its two senses of not heary
and of wanton is very frequent in Shakespeare.
33. ask
else; i.e. if you do not believe what I say.
36. speak in the sick tune, in the tune, or tone of voice, of a
sick person.
37. am out
tune, cannot speak in any other tune; with
a reference to the phrases in tune, out of tune, i.e. harmony.
38. clap's, etc., let us quickly strike into the tune of the dance
called Light o' love; which is frequently mentioned by the old
dramatists, and of which Sir J. Hawkins discovered the music in
an old MS.
39. without a burden, a pun on the word in its senses of
musical refrain, and of a load, referring to Hero's heaviness of
heart.
do you sing it, i.e. hum the air.
40. yea, light o' love.
quarto and the folios,
Capell into yea,' etc.
Some editors retain the reading of the
ye, light o' love,' which was altered by
On ye as nominative see Abb. 236: light
o' love was a common term for a loose woman.
42. barns, a quibble on barns, in the sense of storehouses for
grain, and bairns, i.e. children. There is no necessity to adopt
Ingleby's allusion to stables in another sense.
43. illegitimate construction! illogical conclusion, with a side
reference to the legal sense of the adjective.
with my heels. To scorn anything with the heels, i.e. as if
kicking out at it, was formerly a very common expression: cp.
M. of V. ii. 2. 9.
46. ready, dressed; as unready was used for undressed.
47. for a hawk, etc. Do you sing 'heigh-ho' for a, etc.
Heigh-ho for a husband, or the willing Maid's Wants made
known,' is a title of an old ballad in the Pepysian Collection, in
Magdalen College, Cambridge" (Malone).
56. for the letter, etc, a reference to the older pronunciation
of ache, i.e. aitch. Steevens quotes an epigram of Heywood's on
the letter H—
"It is worst among letters in the cross-row ;
For if thou find him either in thine elbow,
134
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
In thine arm, or leg, in any degree;
In thine head, or teeth, or toe, or knee;
Into what place soever H may pike him,
Wherever thou find ache thou shall not like him"
to which Staunton adds one from Wit's Recreation, 1640-
"Nor hawk, nor hound, nor horse, those h, h, h,
But ach itself, 'tis Brutus' bones attaches.'
49. turned Turk, a proverbial expression for any change of con-
dition for the worse, especially of changing one's religion: cp.
Haml. iii. 2. 287.
there's no more, etc., we need never again trust the stars.
51. trow, i.e. do you trow, think? Surely not here in the sense
given by Schmidt.
54. are an excellent perfume, i.e. of an excellent perfume,
excellently scented. Presents of scented gloves were common.
56. stuffed, have a cold in my nose and cannot smell.
57. there's a goodly, etc., that's a pretty way of catching cold;
with also a double sense of the word stuffed.
60. professed apprehension, set up for a wit, as Rolfe ex-
plains it, with a reference to the practising of any profession or
calling.
61. left it, i.e. left off 'professing apprehension.'
63. his not... cap, that is, where it may be conspicuous pro-
bably with a reference to the custom of knights, etc., wearing in
their helmets, etc., gloves and other tokens of their mistresses'
favour.
65. Carduus Benedictus, ''' or blessed thistle (says Cogan, in his
Haren of Health, 1595), so worthily named for the singular virtues
that it hath." This herbe may worthily be called Benedictus or
Omnimorbia, that is, a salve for every sore, not knowen to
physitians of old time, but lately revealed by the special
providence of Almighty God' (Steevens). A handsome annual
from the south of Europe, which was supposed to cure even the
plague.
66. lay it to your heart, i.e. apply it to your heart, as a plaster,
etc., is applied, and with a play on the phrase 'to lay a thing to
heart,' i.e. to ponder on it.
67. prickest her with a thistle, i.e. your words pierce her very
sharply; with a pun, of course, on the word thistle.
68. some moral, some secret meaning. Malone quotes from 7.
of S. iv. 4. 79, and the Rape of Lucrece 1. 103.
72. I am not. . . can, I am not such a fool as to give free play to
my thoughts and think just what I should like to think, nor do I
like to think all that I might think, etc. Margaret, in her banter
SC. IV.]
135
NOTES.
of Hero, is merely stringing together a number of phrases with-
out much meaning: list, from A. S. lust., i.e. pleasure.
74. think..
with thinking.
thinking, think till I have worn my heart out
76. such another, a scoffer at love like yourself; become a man,
has shown himself as capable of being wounded by love as any
other man.
· •
·
78. in despite . grudging, "is in love and takes kindly to it"
(says M. Mason); "in spite of his resolution to the contrary feeds on
love, and likes his food" (Malone). But it seems doubtful whether
anything more is meant than that Benedict, in spite of his heart
being touched with love, does not find himself any the worse for
it. Middleton, Women Beware Women iv. 1. 115—
"The former thing, my lord, to whom you gave
The captainship, he eats his meat with grudging still :
i.e. he is not yet satisfied with what has been done for him.
SO. look... do, are, like other women, liable to love. Steevens
explains, "direct your eyes towards the same object-viz., a
husband."
In
82. not a false gallop, a natural, not a forced pace.
A. Y.L. iii. 2. 119, The very false gallop of verses means an
unrhythmical measure.
84. withdraw, i.e. to your dressing-room in order to get
ready.
86. fetch, escort, conduct.
SCENE V.
conference,'' concerns.'
2. confidence, decerns, for 'conference,
9. off the matter, away from the purpose.
11. honest...brows, a proverbial expression, of which Reed
quotes other instances. The brows' probably because the eyes
and forehead are supposed to be especially indicative of
character.
15. odorous, for 'odious.'
palabras, "So in the Taming of the Shrew [Ind. i. 5], the Tinker
says, pocas pallabras, i.e. few words-a scrap of Spanish which
might once have been current among the vulgar, and had appeared,
Mr. Henley observes, in The Spanish Tragedy,
pallabras,' 'milde as the lambe'" (Steevens).
as
Pocas
19. the poor Duke's officers. In M. for M. ii. 1. 47, Elbow
blunders in the same way, "I am the poor duke's constable."
23. an 'twere, etc., as though the Duke had credited him with
bestowing something valuable upon him.
136
[ACT III.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
a thousand pound, i.e. the aggregate sum: see above, ii. 3. 14.
24. exclamation, another of Dogberry's blunders, though for
what word, unless for 'acclamation,' it is not easy to see.
C
29. excepting... presence. Verges means to say, if such a thing
may be mentioned in your worshipful presence; but by the turn
of the words he makes the Duke out to be the most arrant knave
in Messina. Arrant, according to the Eng. Dict. of the Phil.
Society, "a variant of errant, wandering, vagrant, vagabond,'
which, from its use in such expressions as arrant thief, became an
intensive, thorough, notorious, downright,' especially from its
original association with opprobrious names. Though this
opprobrious sense is generally present, there are instances of the
word being used in a good sense; e.g., Ford, The Fancies, etc.,
iii. 2--
C
>>
"'Tis scarce possible
To distinguish one of these vile naughty jacks
From true and arrant ladies."
So, too, in Love's Sacrifice iii. 2, The Loyal Subject iii. 5, Little
French Lawyer iv. 4. 4.
33. when the age, etc. As Rolfe points out, an obvious
blunder for the old proverb, "When the wine is in, the wit is
out."
it is a world to see. Various explanations are given of this
phrase wonderful to see; worth seeing; a treat to see. Dyce
points out that it was in use as early as Skelton's time and as late
as Strype's Annals of the Reformation, first published in 1725.
Rolfe compares T'. of S., ii. 1. 113, "that is a world to see.”
35. God's a good man, another proverbial expression which
Steevens illustrates from several old writers.
an two men, etc, probably, as Halliwell says, a proverb imply-
ing that the chief post of distinction can belong to but one; that
where two are associated in any labour, where one leads, the other
must follow; though, like the words 'God's a good man,' this is
but an imitation of the irrelevant talk, largely made up of old
saws, which so often serves as a butt for the satire of the old
dramatists, as in Jonson's Tale of a Day, Middleton's Blurt,
Master-Constable, etc.
37. but God alike, a condescending excuse for Verges' in-
firmities. Similarly in M. V. i. 2. 60, Portia says of the French
Lord, "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In
the same condescending strain Dogberry replies to the Duke's
ironical acknowledgement of his vast superiority to Verges,
Gifts that God gives."
42. comprehended, auspicious, for 'apprehended,'' suspicious.'
47. suffigance, sufficient.
sc. v.]
137
NOTES.
54. examine.
:
This is the reading of the folios: the quarto
gives "examination," which most editors adopt. Grant White,
however, well remarks, "The blunder in the quarto is entirely
out of place in Dogberry's mouth it is not of the sort which
Shakespeare has made characteristic of his mind. Dogberry
mistakes the significance of words, but never errs in the forms
of speech; he is not able to discriminate between sounds that
are like without being the same, but he is never at fault in
grammar; and this putting of a substantive into his mouth for
a verb is entirely at variance with his habit of thought, and con-
founds his cacology with that which is quite of another sort.
To this Rolfe adds in support of the folio reading that Dogberry
has just used the verb correctly.
""
56. we will spare for, etc., it will not be for lack of wisdom if
it is not done as it should be.
57. a non-come, "i.e. to a non compos mentis; put them out of
their wits: or, perhaps, he confounds the term with non-plus"
(Malone).
58. excommunication, for communication, official report.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
2. you shall recount. . . afterwards, shall address them after-
wards more fully as to the natural duties of a husband and wife.
An exhortation of this nature is contained in the ritual of the
marriage ceremony, but over and above this it was customary
for the priest to make a special address to newly-married
couples. Such an address would of course be out of place on the
stage.
6. to be married to her. Leonato supposes that Claudio's
answer "No" merely had reference to the verbal inaccuracy of
the friar's question.
9. if either . . . it. The words in use in the marriage service
at the present day are almost the same: "I require and charge
you both..
that if either of you know impediment, why ye
may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now
confess it.
>>
•
18. some be... he! "A quotation from the old grammars.
Cf. Lyly, Endymion, 1591, where one of the characters exclaims,
Hey-ho.' What's that?' another asks; and the reply is,
An interjection, whereof some are of mourning, as eho, vah
(Rolfe).
20. by, aside.
father. So in 7. of S. ii, 1. 318, the betrothal scene, Petruchio
says-
138
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
"Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests
and five lines lower down-
"Father and wife, and gentlemen, adieu";
it being customary in those days for spouses, i.e. those betrothed,
to term one another husband' and
' wife even before the
marriage ceremony, and consequently their future parents-in-law
father' and 'mother.'
render. . . again, strictly speaking, tautological, as 'render'
in itself meaus 'give back again.'
27. learn, teach.
32. authority, warranty, guarantee;
nobleness,' as Schmidt explains it.
33. withal, a preposition.
rather than
rather than 'dignity,
34. comes, i.e. into her cheeks, offers itself as a witness.
35. simple, pure.
36. that she were, see Abb. 368.
37. by these, judging by these.
38. luxurious, lascivious, the sense in which Shakespeare
always uses the word.
40. not to be married, etc., i.e. I mean not to be, etc. Dyce
adopts Tyrwhitt's suggestion that the words, "Not to be married,
not to knit my soul," should be read as a single line, thus getting
rid of the harshness of metre in the usual arrangement by which
"Not to knit" begins a separate line. Steevens suggests "Nor
knit," etc.
41. approved, proved.
42. dear, my lord, on the transposition, see Abb. 13, and on
the word dear, 480.
in your own proof, having made proof of her; with a reference
to the words'approved wanton.'
43. have vanquished . . . youth, have, by your importunity,
taken advantage of her youth, and overcome her scruples of
modesty.
44. made defeat, accomplished the ruin of, etc.
So in H. V.
i. 2. 107, "Making defeat on the full power of France."
45. known her, i.e. carnally.
46. you'll say... sin, you will say that, being betrothed to
me, she already looked upon me as her husband, and so will
palliate her guilt on the grounds that she did but prematurely
grant me conjugal rights. The forehand sin (not forehand as
Schmidt gives), the sin which consisted in the deed being prema-
ture.
Betrothal in Shakespeare's day was looked upon as a con-
SC. I.]
139
NOTES.
tract much more binding than the "engagement" of modern
times, and was accompanied by certain ceremonies such as the
joining of hands before witnesses, see W. T. iv. 4. 400 et seqq.;
the exchange of kisses, see K. John ii. 1. 532-5; the interchange
of rings, see T. N. v. 1. 159-62, R. III. i. 2. 202, T. G. of V. ii.
2. 5-7. One result of these espousals or betrothals was that
subsequent seduction was not considered so heinous as if there
had been no contract.
49. too large, licentious; so above, ii. 3. 177.
53. out on thy seeming this, Pope's correction for thee, is
made almost necessary by the words against it': according to
Delius, who reads "Out on thee, seeming!" seeming is the per-
sonification of hypocrisy in Hero: he compares enchantment,
W. T. iv. 4. 445, and fair affliction, K. John iii. 4. 36.
54. you seem, etc. Hanmer, followed by Dyce, reads, "you
seem'd," which Malone also had conjectured. But this is scarcely
an improvement. The contrast is between seem in this line and
are in l. 56, and Claudio might well say, "from your appearance
one would suppose you to be 'as Dian, etc.
I will write against it: Steevens quotes Cymb. ii. 5. 32, where
Posthumus, persuaded of his wife's disloyalty, says in regard of
women
“I'll write against them,
Detest them, curse them."
55. as is... blown, "before the air has tasted its sweetness
(Johnson).
57. those. sensuality, those highly-fed animals that have
no hard work which might keep down their sensual propensities.
59. wide, so far from the purpose. Steevens quotes T. and C.
iii. 1. 97, "No, no; no such matter, you are wide," and
M. W. iii. 1. 5, "I never heard a man of his place, gravity, and
learning so wide of his own respect.
60. sweet prince
•
you. Dyce, followed by Delius and
others, gives these words to Claudio, and the arrangement seems
probable.
what should I say, etc., what can I possibly say?
61. that, almost equivalent to 'in that,' 'seeing that.'
gone about, endeavoured, busied myself about, etc.
62. stale, as above, ii. 2. 23, almost prostitute: lit. that
which has stood too long and so become vapid, tainted.
63. are these, etc. Steevens quotes Macbeth i. 3. 83
"Were such things here, as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?
K
140
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
64. sir .
are true.
true. Not only are they spoken, but also they
65. nuptial, singular as generally (perhaps always, for the ex-
ceptions are of doubtful authority) in Shakespeare. On the other
hand we have in J. C. iv. 3. 105, "his funerals," where Craik
compares the Fr. funerailles and the Latin funera.
""
true! O God! most probably referring to D. John's words
"and these things are true.' Some editors, however, read
"True, O God!" and take the words as answer to Benedick.
70. move one question: Rolfe compares T. C. ii. 3. 89, "We
dare not move the question of our place," where, however, the
meaning is slightly different.
71. kindly, natural: that which you derive from nature.
75. what kind, etc., a reference to the Church Catechism, the
first question in which is, "What is your name?"
76. to make you, etc. What is the object of your catechising
me, says Hero by implication; the object of it, replies Claudio,
is to make you, etc. The words truly to your name refers to the
answering by a man to his name when called upon to give
evidence in court, or on similar occasions; but Hero, bewildered
by the strange turn which the proceedings have taken, answers
literally, Is it not Hero, the same as ever, and as free from
taint?
79. Hero itself, i.e., the name.
81. out at your window, standing outside, close to your
window.
82. if you are a maid, if you are as chaste and free from
reproach as you pretend to be, you will not hesitate to answer
this question.
84. you are no maiden, if you had admitted that you were
talking to a man at your window, and had explained how it
happened, we might perhaps be still able to believe in your
innocence; but as you deny that to which we were all witnesses,
it is no longer possible for us to have any faith in you.
89. most... villain, with all the unblushing effrontery of a
villain. Liberal, licentious, as frequently.
94. There is not . . them, no language has a vocabulary
which could utter them without using terms that would shock
the hearer.
96. much misgovernment, exceeding lack of continence, self-
restraint: for much great, see Abb. 51.
=
97. O Hero, etc. Here, in the second "Hero," Johnson
imagines a poor conceit upon the word; but it is almost im-
possible to believe that in a scene so solemn Shakespeare would
SC. I.]
]
141
NOTES.
1
have representhe person most deeply interested in the matter
as making a wretched pun.
101. thou pure . . . purity! cp. Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine,
11. 871, 2-
2-
"His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."
102. for thee, on thy account.
103. conjecture, suspicion: Rolfe quotes W. T. ii. 1. 176, and
Haml. iv. 5. 15.
107. gracious, a trisyllable, attractive.
108. come, p. part.
109. smother up, 'up' intensive: cp. below, 1. 149, 'barr'd
up.'
114. may can or could.
116. dost thou look up? do you venture to take courage, to
be cheerful? For look up in this sense, cp. Haml. iii. 3. 50-
"Then I'll look up :
My fault is past.'
")
and W. T. v. 1. 215, "Dear, look up."
120. the story, etc. "That is the story which her blushes
discover to be true' (Johnson): Schmidt takes blood to be used
in the same sense as in ii. 1. 159 above [i.e. passion]. Seymour
objects to the former explanation that Hero had fainted; but we
find the Friar afterwards referring to the thousand blushing
apparitions' he had noted in her face, and this may be a similar
reference" (Rolfe).
123. spirits, a monosyllable, your vital forces.
124. on the rearward, after heaping reproaches upon you,
"would still come after them to finish what they had only done
by halves" (Schmidt). Delius compares "behind the back,
iii. 1. 110.
126. at frugal nature's frame? Delius, comparing R. III. i. 2.
244, “Fram'd in the prodigality of nature," paraphrases, 'Did I
formerly grieve that I had only one child, and scold at the parsi-
monious ordinance or dispensation of Nature that gave me that
one child only?' Malone, Grieved I at nature's being so frugal
as to have framed for me only one child." Staunton would give
the sense of limit, restriction, to frame; Schmidt that of casting-
mould. For the construction of child with that, Rolfe compares
T. G. of V. ii. 1. 178, A. Y. L. iii. 5. 129, . T. iv. 4. 6.
127. by thee, 'by' indicating the excess, as above, iii. 4. 24,
by the weight of a man.
130. took, see Abb. 343.
142
ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
at my gates, e. a foundling that had been let at my gates by
some poor woman unable to bring it up herself.
131. who smirched, etc. For a similar construction cp. M. of
V. iv. 1. 134-
"Thy currish spirit
"
Govern'd a wolf, who hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet.
Smirched, sullied, befouled: cp. H. V. iv. 3. 110, "Our gayness
and our gilt are all besmirched."
133. derives itself, has its origin; Lat. derivare.
•
134. mine I loved. praised, i.e. whom I loved, whom I
praised: see Abb. 244.
136. that I . . . her, mine so wholly that, in my estimation of
her, she seemed more myself than I myself was. In the marriage
ritual the husband speaks of the wife as "flesh of my flesh, bone
of my bone," and here Leonato speaks of Hero as if she had been
something even more than this.
138. into a pit of ink, i.e. black contamination.
compares Mach. ii. 6. 60,
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?"
Steevens
140. and salt. . . flesh! The metaphor is taken from the
preserving of meat by means of salt, and is frequent in Shake-
speare: cp. T. N. i. I. 30—
"All this to season
A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh," etc.
In support of foul-defiled,' which Collier would needlessly alter
into soul-defiled,' Dyce quotes Lucrece, 1. 1029—
"The remedy indeed to do me good
Is to let forth my foul-defiled blood,”
and Peele's Edward I.,
"That I was hew'd with foul-defiled bands."
He also refers to Leonato's words a few lines lower down,
'speaking of her foulness." For too followed by which, see
Abb. 278.
142. attir'd in wonder, wrapped up in astonishment : cp.
Lucrece, 1. 1601, "Why art thou thus attired in discontent.
Schmidt refers to Shakespeare's use of enwrap and wrap in
similar senses.
149. barr'd up, strengthened by. Up, intensive.
151. foulness, so Lear i. 1. 230,"no vicious blot, murder, or
foulness."
152. wash'd, i.e. he washed.
SC. I.]
143
NOTES.
t
hence from her, away from her, leave her to herself.
The
153. hear me . . . mark'd. These lines appear in the quarto
as prose with the reading "been silent" (which words were
transposed by Grant White), and no stop after "lay."
Camb. Edd. consider that the punctuation usually adopted, of a
colon after "lady," makes but indifferent sense. By noting
seems to be equivalent to 'being engaged in, occupied by, mark-
ing,' etc. Given way
fortune, i.e. without interrupting
matters by any protest in her behalf.
•
157. blushing apparitions, the blushes which suddenly appeared
in her cheeks and were as quickly succeeded by the paleness of
frightened innocence. The reading in the text is that of Reed
adopted by Dyce. For shames (pl.) Rolfe quotes A. C. i. 4. 72—
"Let his shames quickly
160. to burn the
Drive him from Rome."
errors, as though they were heretics
Steevens compares R. and J. i. 2. 93, where the same expression
is used of tears.
164. experimental seal, the seal of experience.
165. book, i.e. reading, my knowledge derived from books.
166. calling, sacred profession.
divinity, knowledge of sacred things.
168. biting error, cruel mistake: biting, a word which
Shakespeare frequently used in the same metaphorical sense, is
needlessly altered by Collier's MS. Corrector into "blighting.
169. grace, the only redeeming good quality.
171. she not denies, for the transposition see Abb. 305.
173. proper, in its own naked reality.
175. they know, etc., i.e. let them answer, I cannot.
181. maintained the change, interchanged words with, kept up
a conversation with, as we should say. In Lear iii. 3. 16, we
have maintain talk,' and in 7. N. iv. 2. 107, even maintain
words.'
182. refuse, deny, disown: cp. R. and J. ii. 2. 34.
183. misprision, misunderstanding.
princes, under this term is included Claudio.
184. the very bent. Johnson, followed by Dyce, Delius, and
Rolfe, understands bent to mean "the utmost degree of any
passion or mental activity," and derives the metaphor from
archery. He quotes "her affections have their full bent," ii. 3.
200. Schmidt explains "tendency, a leaning or bias of the mind,
inclination"; and this seems both more apposite here, and more
suitable to the word very true, as in J. C. ii. 1. 210,
"I can give
144
[ACT IV.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
1
his humours the true bent" it is also in keeping with misled in
the next line.
186. the practice, the contriving.
lives seems more forcible than lies, for which it was supposed
to be a misprint, and means 'has its vitality from,' etc.
187. whose
villanies, whose energies spend themselves
upon the fashioning of villainous schemes.
188. but truth, nothing more than truth.
189. if they wrong, etc., if on the other hand they, etc.
shall well hear of it, i.e. I shall not tamely sit quiet, but will
call them to a rigorous account, proud and of high rank as they
may be.
191. invention, as in H. V. Prol. i. 2, a quadrisyllable, mental
activity (Schmidt).
eat, see Abb. 343.
194. so much, so completely.
195. awaked in such a kind, in me when aroused in such a
manner, if the reading is right; but Dyce, following Walker,
reads cause.
•
198. to quit . . throughly, to requite them fully, make
myself thoroughly even with them for their ill deeds. Throughly
for 'thoroughly as frequently in Shakespeare.
>
200. the princes, the old reading princess was corrected by
Theobald.
201. secretly kept in, kept in retirement where no one shall
know of her existence.
203. mourning ostentation, appearance of mourning; not in
the sense in which the word is now always used, pretentious
show.
•
204. and on
epitaphs. Gifford, in a note upon Ben
Jonson's elegy on Lady Jane Pawlet (quoted by Mr. Stone on
H. V. i. 2. 233), says that the custom of affixing (with pins, wax,
paste, etc.), to the hearse of the deceased persons short laudatory
poems as epitaphs, was a common one on the continent in his
day, and one that had prevailed formerly in England also.
quotes from Eliot's elegy on Lady Pawlet-
"Let others, then, sad epitaphs invent,
He
And paste them up about my monument," etc.
And from the Bishop of Chichester's verses to the memory of Dr.
Donne-
“Each quill can drop his tributary verse,
And pin it, like the hatchments, to the hearse."
207. what shall become, etc. What good will result from this? .
sc. I.]
145
NOTES.
208. well carried, skilfully carried out: Rolfe quotes M. N. D.
iii. 2. 240, "This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled," and
refers to ii. 3. 192, above.
remorse, pity; the sense it more frequently has in Shakespeare.
210. but not . . . course, but it is not only with that hope that
I advise this course which seems to you so vague and strange: in
using the word dream, he is looking at the matter from their
point of view rather than from his own, for from that there is
nothing vague, dreamy, in his project.
211. but on this, etc. This labour will produce still greater
results; a metaphor from childbirth.
travail, the same word as travel (both forms implying labour,
exertion), means originally an obstacle or impediment.
212. as it . maintained, for so we must assert the fact to
have bec.
•
·
216. to the worth, adequately.
217. whiles, see Abb. 137. Rolfe points out that being
lack'd" does not mean 'being missed,' but 'missing,' 'wanting.
218. rack the value, exaggerate, stretch it to the utmost point.
Steevens says the allusion is to rack-rents [i.e. rents stretched to
their full value].
then we . ones cp. A. and C. i. 4. 43-4—
·
"And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd till ne'er worth love,
Comes dear'd by being lack'd.'
221. upon,
"not after,' but in consequence of his words,
says Abbott; but there seems to be also the idea of immediate
sequence.
idea, image, as always in Shakespeare.
223. his study of imagination, the study of his imagination, his
imaginative study; when he allows his imagination, reflection, to
work. For the collocation cp. Haml. i. 4. 73, your sovereignty
of reason," i.e. the sovereignty of your reason.
224. every . . . life, all her personal graces of feature and
figure.
225. habit, dress, guise, appearance.
etc.
226. moving-delicate, the old reading is moving, delicate,"
The hyphen is due to Capell, and though most modern
editors follow him, it seems doubtful whether the new reading is
a gain. Moving-delicate would mean impressively graceful':
see Abb. 2.
227. eye and prospect, apparently a reduplicative phrase of
little more force than сус alone it occurs again in K, John
ji. 1. 208.
146
ACT IV.]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
•
•
229. if ever. liver, if ever love touched his heart, as we
should say. As among the ancients, the liver was in Shakespeare's
day supposed to be the seat of love.
231. though he, etc., however certain he might be of the truth
of his accusation.
232. success, the sequel, whether good or bad; frequently
qualified in Shakespeare by 'good,' 'best,' 'bad,' 'vile.' In W. T.
i. 2. 394, the word is used in the modern sense of succession-
"Which less adorns
Our gentry than our parents' noble names
In whose success we are gentle."
Nowadays success and succeed when standing alone always have a
good sense, but both may be qualified by a depreciatory epithet.
234. likelihood, supposition, conjecture.
235. but if... infamy, but if (though I hope for better things)
we should not in any other respect hit the mark at which we aim,
i.e. if we should altogether fail to re-establish Hero's character,
the supposition of her death will, at all events, stop the tongues
of those who would otherwise always be exclaiming at her
guilt.
238. sort, turn out, issue (Lat. sortiri), frequent in Shake-
speare.
240. reclusive, secluded, see Abb. 3 and 445.
•
241. out of . . injuries, beyond the reach of scornful looks,
remarks, thoughts, and annoyances. Injuries seems in a way
to qualify the whole line, making it by a kind of hendiadys
equivalent to 'injurious looks, remarks, thoughts, and actions."
242. advise, be your adviser in the matter; i.e. follow his
counsel.
243. inwardness, intimacy; in which sense Shakespeare uses
the adj. also.
much, as in 1. 96 above,
=
great.
247. should, would be certain to deal.
•
being.. grief, it being that I abound in grief; but also with
the idea of going readily in any direction: cp. T. and C. v. 2. 41,
"You flow to great distraction." For the construction see Abb.
378. Johnson remarks, "Men overpowered with distress
eagerly listen to the first offers of relief, close with every scheme,
and believe every promise. He that has no longer any con-
fidence in himself is glad to repose his trust in any other that will
undertake to guide him.
""
250. for to strange, etc. Rolfe quotes Haml. iv. 3. 9–
"Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved.'
Delius notices the alliteration in strange, strangely, strain.
SC. I.]
147
NOTES.
256. freely, there is no need for you to do that, for I weep of
my own accord, without being desired by anyone.
258. deserve of me, i.e. deserve and obtain. Nowadays the
more usual idiom would be "how much might not the man
deserve!
261. even, plain.
Rolfe compares 2 H. VI. ii. 3. 2, give
even way unto my rough affairs."
263. but not yours, i.e. whom I hardly consider a man.
266. it were as possible, etc., i.e. as to believe what you say.
269. I am sorry for my cousin, another way of saying, 'If you
wish to make me confess that I love you, you will do something
to avenge my cousin.'
270. by my sword, etc. To swear by one's sword was to swear
by the cross, the hilt in those days forming, with the handle, a
cross.
273. eat it, Beatrice means the oath he has sworn, Benedick
takes the words literally of his sword.
274. eat your word, recant your word. Rolfe refers to 2 H. IV.
ii. 2. 149.
275. with no sauce, etc. In H. V. v. 1. 36, Fluellen compels
the braggart Pistol to eat his leek (in confession of his cowardice)
with the sauce of blows.
277. God forgive me! i.e. God help me! .e. for being loved by
you, but Benedict pretends to take the words literally, and asks,
Forgive you for what offence?'
279. in a happy hour, just in time, just at the right moment.
287. to deny it, by refusing; see Abb. 356.
289. I am.
here, "I am gone, am lost to you, while still
here in the body" (Delius), said as she is forcibly detained by
Benedick.
293. be friends: on the expression Friends am I with you all,"
J. C. iii. 1. 220, Craik writes, This grammatical impropriety,
Henley very well remarks, 'is still so prevalent as that the omission
of the anomalous s would give some uncouthness to the sound of
an otherwise familiar expression.' We could not, indeed, say
Friend am I with you all'; we should have to turn the ex-
pression in some other way. In Troilus and Cressida iv. 4. [72],
however, we have And I'll grow friend with danger.' Nor does
the pluralism of friends depend upon that of you all: 'I am
friends with you' is equally the phrase in addressing a single
person. I with you am is felt to be equivalent to I and you are."
297. approved, proved, as above, ii. 1. 336.
C
in the height a villain, a villain in the highest degree. The
148
[ACT IV.、
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
construction is "Is not he that hath slandered, etc., approved,
etc., i.e. for doing so.
""
299. bear her in hand, delude her into the belief that all was
well: a common expression in Shakespeare.
302. I would eat, etc. Steevens quotes from Chapman's Iliad,
bk. xxii.-
66
Hunger for slaughter, and a hate that eates thy heart to eate
Thy foe's heart."
304. a proper saying! a fine thing to say! absurd!
309. princes and counties! i.e. they are fine fellows to call
themselves princes and counts! They have much that is noble in
them! On counties see above, ii. 1. 167.
310. goodly . . . Confect, the words "a princely testimony
show, as Grant White seems to have been the first to point out,
that in the first count there is a play upon the word in its two
senses. "In Shakespeare's time," he says, "the French title
Count was pronounced like conte, or compte, meaning a fictitious
story, a word which was then in common use. Rolfe notes that
the quarto reads counte, counte comfect. Staunton neatly
paraphrases the expression by "My Lord Lollipop."
>>
>>
311. for his sake, for my sake! The former means so that I
might meet him, man for man"; the latter, on my account, to
serve me.
313. courtesies, mere forms of courtesy.
formerly used by men as well as by women.
L. L. L. i. 2. 66, A. W. v. 3. 324" (Rolfe).
314. tongue, i.e. mere words.
The curtsy was
Cf. R. III. i. 3. 49,
trim ones, fine, i.e. empty nothings, palaver and nothing else.
Steevens explains, "Not only men but trim ones are turned into
tongue, i.e. not only common, but clever men"; but Rolfe points
out that the change from singular to plural was not uncommon in
Elizabethan English.
is now as valiant, is accounted as valiant.
316. with wishing, with grieving, by wishing, through grieving.
319. use it for my love, etc., if you wish to win my love you
must make some other use of your hand than that of mercly
swearing by it, i.e. you must kill Claudio.
324. engaged, pledged to your service.
326. dear, heavy.
327. I must say, etc., i.e. I must pretend, as it has been agreed
upon, that, etc.
SC. II.]
149
NOTES.
SCENE II.
Stage Direction. in gowns.
It appears from the Black Book,
1604, that this was the dress of a constable in our author's time :
when they mist their constable, and sawe the black gowne of
his office lye full in a puddle'” (Malone).
1. is appeared, see Abb. 295.
dissembly, for assembly.
2. for the sexton, who is a sort of a president, and directs the
examination.
5. we have the exhibition, etc.
exhibit" (Steevens).
>>
'Blunder for examination to
66
to professions is
master doctor,'
Just below
S. master constable, the prefix of "master
frequent in Shakespeare, e.g. "master parson,
master schoolmaster, "master lieutenant," etc.
we have "master gentleman Conrade," though then Dogberry is
speaking.
16. yea, sir.. villains! These words, omitted in the folios
but necessary to the sense, were restored by Theobald. Their
omission was probably due, as Blackstone supposes, to fear of the
statute of James I. forbidding the use of God's name on the
stage. God defend, God forbid. It is proved, followed by it
will... shortly, is, of course, one of Dogberry's absurd anti-
climaxes.
23. a marvellous, etc., a most clever fellow, no doubt.
I will go about with him seems to mean will circumvent him,
rather than go to work with him, the explanation given by
Schmidt, s. v. about.
28. in a tale, in one tale, i.e. tell the same story.
32. eftest, quickest, best. Theobald and Steevens suppose
this to be a mistake for deftest (i.e. most cleverly), the superlative
form of eft not being found elsewhere.
38. perjury, Dogberry's blunder for treason, as below, burglary
for conspiracy, and redemption for damnation.
40. I promise thee, I assure you.
42. ducats, see above, ii. 2. 46.
48. upon his words, basing his accusation upon Borachio's
statements.
57. refused, rejected by Claudio.
upon, in consequence of.
61. opinioned, he means pinioned, handcuffed.
62. let them be, etc. The reading of the old editions was
"Let them be in the hands of Coxcombe": Malone restored the
generally accepted reading given in the text.
150
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
64. God's my life, i.e. God is my life. Another oath more
common at the period is God's life, or 'slife, i.e. by God's life, the
abbreviated form being used to avoid the penalty referred to on
1. 16 above.
66. thou naughty varlet! 'naughty,' now generally used of
children, had formerly a stronger sense: varlet, the same word
as valet, originally meant a young vassal, a youth, a stripling ;
the opprobrious sense, in which it is used here, being a later one.
68. suspect, for respect: below, piety for impiety.
he, i.e. the sexton.
that I am an ass, he of course means that he has been
called so.
75. as pretty a piece of flesh, as fine a fellow as anyone, etc.
Rolfe compares A. Y. L. iii. 2. 68, T. N. i. 5. 30, L. L. L. iii.
1. 136.
77. that hath had losses, who was once even better off than I
am now a not uncommon form of boastfulness. The conjectures
law-suits and leases are simply ridiculous.
ACT V.
SCENE I.
2. to second, assist, co-operate with.
7. suit with mine, accord with mine, are similar to them.
8. joy of her, respecting her, in her.
10. to me was inserted by Hanmer, who is followed by Dyce
and others.
Rolfe says that patience is here a trisyllable, as in 1. 19 below;
but even so the verse halts woefully.
11. measure his woes, etc., let his woe be measured to be as
great as mine in length and breadth.
12. strain for strain. Rolfe, following Schmidt, interprets
strain as feeling. But in the large majority of the passages
cited by Schmidt under that head there is the notion of stretching
(inherent in the verb), and that notion seems to be present here,
and to be indicated by the two next lines. Delius explains "Zug
für Zug," i.e. trait for trait.'
"The old eds.," says Dyce,
"have
16. bid sorrow. . . groan.
' And sorrow, wagge,' etc. I adopt Capell's emendation, which
is incomparably the best yet proposed, and I think, not to be
objected to because the word 'bid' occurs in the seventh line
above. Johnson by a violent transposition reads, Cry.
sorrow wag! and hem when he should groan.' Walker (Crit.
Exam., etc., vol. i. p. 307) proposes, Say, sorrow wag,' etc.
SC. I. 1
151
NOTES.
•
That the words sorrow wag' are uncorrupted, and equivalent to
sorrow be gone,' I feel quite confident.
"To stroke the
beard and cry hem! is the very picture of a sententious
pedant who would talk down or scold down the first gush of
natural feeling, whether of grief or rage. Such was Achilles'
epitome of Nestor in Troilus and Cressida i. 3. [165], where that
chief is described as amusing himself with Patroclus' mimicry of
the Greeks:
'Now play me Nestor; hem and stroke thy beard!'
And if any doubt still remained that Shakespeare by the ex-
pression stroke his beard' meant to describe a philosophic
character, the following, from a comedy of the time, would
remove it, viz., 'Yes, thou shalt now see me stroke my beard,
and speake sententiously,' Chapman's May Day ii. 1 (Ingleby,
who also refers to A. Y. L. i. 3. 18).
18. candle-wasters. Steevens, followed by Dyce and Staunton,
understood this of revellers, strangely taking drunk in the pre-
ceding line in a literal sense. But Whalley has shown that the
term was in use of those who wasted the midnight oil in study,
and this interpretation is clearly in keeping with the general
sentiment (see 11. 24, 26, and 35, 36), which in Ingleby's words
is, "Show me a man who has my weight of sorrow and wrong,
and yet is an example of stoical or cheerful endurance, and I will
follow your counsel." For a full discussion of the whole passage,
see Ingleby's Still Lion, pp. 129-135.
yet, i.e. even now.
22. tasting it, i.e. they tasting it; see Abb. 379.
passion, emotion, strong feeling.
24. preceptial medicine, the medicine of precepts, the proverbs
and wise reflections referred to above.
26. air, mere empty breath.
to speak patience, to counsel patience.
28. wring, writhe: Rolfe quotes H. '. iv. 1. 253, and Cymb.
iii. 6. 79.
29. sufficiency, stoical endurance.
30. so moral, so full of wise reflections.
32. advertisement, according to Johnson, "admonition, moral
instruction."
34. I will be flesh and blood, I will give way to natural feelings.
and not pretend to be above them like the philosophers.
37. writ the style of gods, an exalted language; such as we
may suppose would be written by beings superior to human
calamities, and therefore regarding them with neglect and cold-
152
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
ness.
Beaumont and Fletcher have the same expression in the
first of their Four Plays in One-
'Athens doth make women philosophers,
And sure their children chat the talk of gods "" (Steevens).
38. made a push, probably here only another spelling of the
exclamation pish, into which Pope unnecessarily altered the word.
Dyce (Gloss.), among other instances, quotes Day's Law Trickes,
1608, You that make a pish at the black art." Others under-
stand "contend against,' defy"; but it is the contempt for
pain which the philosophers pretended to feel that is here
satirized.
sufferance, suffering.
""
45. comes, see Abb. 335.
46. good den. For the various forms of this expression, see
above, iii. 2. 72.
49. are you so hasty now? i.e. you were not always so anxious
to escape our society; you could spare plenty of time before.
all is one, i.e. it does not matter.
52. some of us, really meaning some of the Prince's party,
more especially Claudio. Delius points out that Don Pedro uses
the word quarrel in the sense of a wordy wrangle, Antonio in
that of a conflict with swords.
53. dissembler, hypocrite; properly one who pretends not to
be what he really is.
55. beshrew my hand, a pretty form of curse, like the modern
confound on shrew, see above, ii. 1. 17.
So.
56. if it should give, for having given, if it really has done
57. my hand, etc., if I touched my sword, it was a purely un-
conscious act.
58. fleer, "grin, sneer.
Palsgrave defines it thus: 'I fleere,
I make an yvell countenaunce with the mouthe by uncoveryng of
the teethe"
(Rolfe).
60. as under, etc., as though my age gave me the privilege of
bragging, etc.
:
62. to thy head, boldly to your face I say it so in M. N. D.
i. 1. 106, M. M. iv. 3. 147.
64. to lay my reverence by, to forget that I am a reverend old
man.
65. bruise of many days, broken as I am by my many days:
in "the bruises of the days before," 2 H. IV. iv. 1. 100, quoted
by Rolfe, the sense is slightly different.
66. trial of a man, the hand-to-hand combat in which men
engage, possibly with a sneer at Claudio's manhood,
SC. I.]
153
NOTES.
70. where never scandal slept, where none of them were ever
laid to rest with a reputation tarnished.
+
75. his nice fence, in spite of his skill with his rapier, and his
being in active practice, in contrast to myself who have so long
laid my arms by.
76. his May
•
lustihood. The springtime of his youth,
and his freshness of vigour : cp. H. V. i. 2. 120, "the very
May-morn of his youth.
77. I will not
•
you, I refuse to have anything to do with
you in the way of fighting: to do-dealing.
78. daff me, put me off; the same as doff, i.e. do off, as don=
do on, dout=do out: daff is used by Shakespeare both literally
and metaphorically.
SO. men indeed, i.e. not boys like himself.
82. win me and wear me, "proverbial: (he laughs that wins),
originally=win me and have me, or enjoy me," (Schmidt): cp.
H. V. v. 2. 250. Ben Jonson, The Alchemist iv. 1, has "Win
her and carry her."
answer, i.e. in combat.
me, emphatic.
S4. I'll whip . . fence, I'll beat you out of your boasted
skill in fencing.
foining "is a term in fencing, and means thrusting " (Douce).
86. content yourself, do not give way to further passion,
restrain your anger.
89. a man indeed, a real man, one worthy of the name there
should be no comma before or after indeed : cp. 1. 80 above.
91. Jacks, "a common term of contempt and reproach, fellow,
knave, rogue (Dyce, Gloss.). See above, i. 1. 155.
92. content, adj., see 1. 86 above.
•
94. scambling. boys. Skeat says that scamble is a similar
form to scamper, and is put for scamp-le, a parallel frequentative
form from the same base. The meaning here is shuffling:
"Griffe graffe,' says Cotgrave, by hook or by crook, squimble
squamble, scamblingly, catch that catch may.' We have skimble
skamble stuff in K. Henry IV. part i." [iii. 1. 154] (Singer):
outfacing, that are prepared to meet any matter with shameless
face: fashion-monging, “In my Few Notes, etc., p. 46, I cited
money-monging from Wilson's Coblers Prophecie, 1594; and Mr.
Arrowsmith gives three other examples of the word, observing
that 'monging' is the present participle regularly inflected from
the Anglo-Saxon verb mangian,' to traffick " (Dyce).
95. cog, "to cheat, to wheedle, to lie, to load a die” (Dyce),
154
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
in which last sense Skeat quotes Turbeville, "To shake the
bones and cog the crafty dice.
deprave, vilify, traduce.
""
96. anticly, like antics, buffoons.
show
hideousness, wear a most martial appearance.
Steevens compares,
81.
97. and speak
•
•
a horrid suit of the camp," H. V. iii. 6.
durst, and glibly utter a string of threats
as to how they could punish their enemies, -if only they had the
courage to do so. To mark the sarcasm it would be better, it
seems to me, to point "enemies-if they," etc. Durst, the past
tense of dare as an auxiliary verb, used in all persons sing. and
plural.
102. we will not wake your patience,
"wake has been sus-
pected and various emendations proposed. If genuine, it must
mean, 'will not do anything to disturb your patience,' as
our peace," R. II. i. 3. 132.
103. my heart is sorry, I ani heartily sorry.
"ake
105. very full of proof, Fully proved. Cf. full of rest' in
1 Hen. IV. iv. 3. 27, and J. C. iv. 3. 202, etc." (Rolfe).
108. I will be heard, I am determined to be heard, if not now,
at all events sooner or later.
109. and shall, i.e. and you shall.
114. almost a fray, the second almost has been suspected, but
it is quite in Shakespeare's manner and in keeping with the
jesting tone in which in the next speech Claudio refers to the
encounter.
115. had like, were likely: cp. A. Y. L. v. 4. 48, and W. T.
iv. 4. 750. Schmidt takes the word as a subs., but it is more
probably an adverb.
with, see Abb. 193.
118. I doubt, I fancy.
120. false quarrel, unjust quarrel: probably used here for the
sake of an antithesis with "true valour.
In
123. high-proof, melancholy in the highest degree. A weapon
is said to be "of proof" when it has been tested after manu-
facture; spirits are under or over proof according as they have
been refined above or below a fixed standard; and the metaphor
in the text may have its origin in either of these processes.
the M. of '. ii. 2. 38, Launcelot jestingly speaks of his father as
'being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind?: in it in the
next line the subs. melancholy is to be understood from the adj.
wilt thou use thy wit? i.e. to drive away our sadness.
t
sc. I.]
155
NOTES.
127. have been beside their wit, as we should now say, "beside
themselves," or "out of their wits."
I will bid thee draw, etc., an equivoque upon different senses
of the word, to draw the sword for fighting, and to draw the bow
across the strings of the fiddle, or musical instruments from their
cases. Douce thinks there may be an allusion to the itinerant
sword-dancers, who were looked upon as little better than vaga-
bonds.
132. care killed a cat, a proverbial expression.
Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour i. 4,
care'll kill a cat."
Reed refers to
hang sorrow,
134. in the career, in full tilt, boldly, if you will set your wit in
rest, like a lance, for a charge.
•
a
136. nay then
cross, that is, give him some other
subject to talk about; in the last one he did not shine:
metaphor from tilting, at which it was reckoned disgraceful for
the tilter to break his spear across the body of his opponent,
instead of breaking it in a direct line" (Dyce, Gloss.).
138. by this light, a common oath, a stronger form of which
was God's light or 'slight.
140. to turn his girdle. The origin of this expression and its
exact meaning are doubtful. According to some the metaphor is
from a practice in wrestling when the buckle of the belt was
turned behind in order to give the adversary a fairer grasp at the
belt; and to do so was regarded as a challenge. According to
others, the sword was formerly worn much at the back, and, to
bring it within reach, the buckle of the belt had to be turned be-
hind. Halliwell says the expression had nothing to do with
either wrestling or challenging, and merely meant change of
mind or humour. This last explanation certainly does not suit
the present passage.
142. God bless me from, etc., God save me from, etc., said
tauntingly.
143. I will make, etc., I will prove my assertion in combat
in any way you prefer, giving you choice of weapon, place
and time.
do me right, give me the satisfaction I demand or I will
publicly proclaim you a coward.
146. her death, etc., you shall pay dearly for it.
147. let me hear from you, send me some friend of yours to act
as your second in the duel and arrange the conditions of it.
148. so I may have, provided I may have.
150. he hath bid . . . capon: Yes, says Claudio in answer to
the Prince, he has invited me to a feast, in which the dishes I
L
156
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
shall have to carve are a calf's head and a capon, two terms of
ridicule which he applies to Benedick. Schmidt, referring to
Cymb. ii. 1. 25, "You are cock and capon too; and you crow,
cock, with your comb on," suggests that perhaps capon = cap on,
i.e. with a coxcomb, and Rolfe thinks the same pun may be in-
tended here.
151. curiously, skilfully.
152. say
•
·
•
naught, you may say that my knife (i.e. my
sword) is good for nothing in my hands.
a woodcock was proverbial for a simpleton; perhaps, as Malone
thinks, because the bird was supposed to have no brains, or per-
haps (Dyce) from its being easily caught in springes or nets.
153. ambles well, the easy gait to which ladies horses' especially
were trained.
154. praised, rated, valued in which sense we now use
appraise.
157. just, true.
158, it hurts nobody, it is too blunt to hurt anyone: cp. below
v. 2. 13, 14.
159. a wise gentleman. Steevens compares the more modern
'wiseacre.
160. he hath the tongues, he knows foreign languages: cp.
T. G. of V. iv. 1. 33.
163. trans-shape, distort, misrepresent, twist, each single good
quality.
165. properest, handsomest.
166. for the which . . . cared not, for which fact, etc. As in
Don Pedro's next speech, the former half of the sentence is con-
tradictory of the latter.
171. God saw him, etc. Rolfe points out that the reference is
to Genesis iii. 8.
•
•
but when . head? but when shall we see Benedick married
and made a cuckold? See above, i. 1. 205.
178. you break jests, etc., as harmlessly as boastful fellows
break their swords and pretend they did it in some hard-fought
combat. In 1 H. IV. ii. 4. 34, the Prince asks, "How came Fal-
staff's sword so hacked?" to which Peto replies, "Why, he
hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of
England but he would make you believe it was done in fight."
Break, in two senses. Cp. the proverb, Hard words break
no bones."
180. I must discontinue, etc., I am obliged to quit your com-
pany, no longer to be one of your followers,
SC. I.]
157
NOTES.
182. my Lord Lackbeard, another sneer at his youth. Delius
quotes lack-love, M. N. D. ii. 2. 77, and lack-brain, 1 H. IV.
ii. 3. 17.
189. most sincerely, in all seriousness.
190. what wit! There does not seem to be any necessity to
suppose a reference to the levity indicated by wearing doublet
and hose without the cloak, or to a man's throwing off his cloak
in order to fight a duel. Steevens explains the passage satis-
factorily: "What an inconsistent fool is man, when he covers
his body with clothes and at the same time divests himself of his
understanding!"
192. he is then . . . man, in appearance he is as a giant com-
pared to an ape, but an ape is a learned being compared to such
a man.
For to see Abb. 187.
194. soft you, gently.
let me be, if the reading is right, this must mean, ‘let me
alone,' 'leave me to myself' (metaphorically).
>>
* C
pluck up, etc. Steevens explains this, rouse thyself, and be
prepared for serious consequences. Staunton suspects that
Shakespeare wrote, "let me pluck up my heart," rouse my
spirits to serious business.
197. weigh more reasons: Walker would transpose weigh
and more, but, as Dyce remarks, it is dangerous to meddle with
the language of Dogberry. Ritson here sees a pun on reasons
and raisins, words then pronounced alike.
198. cursing hypocrite, accursed slanderer.
once, see above, i. 1. 277, and Abb. 57.
201. hearken after their offence: Rolfe, following Schmidt,
explains, "inquire concerning," and quotes R. III. i. 1. 54,
"He hearkens after prophecies and dreams." But there, as in
1 H. IV. v. 4. 52, hearken'd for your death," the sense
is rather to listen attentively for, to listen with expectancy,
i.e. to be anxious for; while here it does not seem to mean more
than pay heed to.'
เ
"
203. committed, secondarily, slanders, verified, for "per-
petrated, secondly," slanderers, testified. In H. V.
iii. 6. 4, Fluellen says, There is very excellent services com-
mitted at the bridge," where committed=performed.
208. first, etc. The Prince imitates Dogberry's sequence of
heads.
212. division, arrangement of the subject.
213. one meaning well suited.
"That is, one meaning is put
158
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
into many different dresses; the Prince having asked the same
question in four modes of speech" (Johnson).
214. who, see Abb. 274.
bound to your answer, compelled to answer before a court
of justice with a pun on bound. Rolfe quotes H. VIII. iv.
2. 18-
"Arrested him at York and brought him forward,
As a man sorely tainted, to his answer," etc.
216. cunning, clever, knowing.
217. go no farther, etc., i.e. let me proceed to my answer
at once, let me speak out without any circumlocution or attempt
at defence.
219. your wisdoms, you in your wisdom, wise as you are; see
above, iv. 1. 189.
222. incensed, incited, instigated: we still use such phrases as
'fired to a deed.'
224. when you should, etc., at the time when you ought to
have married her.
226. seal with my death, confirm by my death.
227. upon, in consequence of, as above, iv. 1. 221.
229. like iron. . . blood, like a sword-thrust in your body.
231. whiles, see above, iv. i. 217.
233. practice is here rather 'performance,' 'execution,' than
'plotting,' as Rolfe explains it.
234. composed, like compact (frequent in Shakespeare), is
entirely made up of, one whole mass of, treachery: cp. Temp.
iii. 19.
237. in the rare
first loved it.
first, in all the rare beauty in which I
For in omitted, see Abb. 284.
238 etc. plaintiffs, reformed, specify, for 'culprits,' 'in-
formed,'' testify.'
241. that I am an ass, i. e. have been called so.
242. master signior, see above, iii. 3. 15.
244. eyes, as being specially indicative of character.
251. honourable men, said with great scorn, as in J. C. iii. 2,
Antony repeatedly speaks of Brutus and his fellow-murderers as
"all honourable men.
255. if you bethink, etc., as you will own when you come to
think over the matter: said sarcastically.
258. impose me to, etc., impose on me what, etc.
the construction is unusual there is no need to change
Though
impose '
SC. I.]
159
NOTES.
'
to expose,' as Hanmer does. Just below we have " enjoin me
to," while the more common expression is "enjoin upon me,
etc.
260. but in mistaking, except through an error.
262. heavy weight, grievous punishment.
266. possess, inform, acquaint; as frequently in Shakespeare.
268. labour aught: for this transitive use Rolfe compares R.
III. i. 4. 253, "That he would labour my delivery," etc.
invention, here specially of poetic skill, imagination, as in
H. V. Prol. 2.
269. hang her, etc., see above, iv. 1. 205.
275. and she
•
•
us. The editors point out that Shakespeare
has here forgotten the son spoken of in i. 2. 1.
279. and dispose, i.e. and do you dispose of Claudio for the
rest of his life; I leave my future in your hands: for the con-
struction, cp. below, v. 3. 28, "Thanks to you all, and leave
us.
282. naughty, see on iv. 2. 66, above.
284. pack'd, confederate Shakespeare uses the subs. also
packings, in the sense of plots, Lear iii. 1. 26.
288. just, honest.
289. in any thing
her, so far as I know any thing about
her for by her, Rolfe compares M. of V. i. 2. 60,
"How say you
by the French lord ?"
290. under black and white, Dogberry seems to have confused
the expression in black and white,' i.e. in writing with 'under
seal,' or possibly 'under lock and key.'
291. plaintiff, for culprit,' or 'caitiff.'
293. he wears, etc., a reference to the love-locks so fashionable
at the time, which Prynne satirized in his treatise, "The Un-
lovelyness of Love-lockes." Dogberry having misunderstood the
First Watchman's remark, iii. 3. 152, about the lock, adds on hie
own account the wearing of a key.
295. borrows money in God's name, i.e. is a common beggar.
This alludes . to the 17th verse of the xixth chapter of
Proverbs: He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord.'
(Steevens.)
295. hath used so long, hath so long made a practice of doing.
301. I praise God for you, I thank God for creating men like
you.
303. God.
foundation !
Though this was the customary
phrase employed by those who received alms at the gates of
religious houses, Steevens thinks that in the present instance
160
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Dogberry may have intended to say 'God save the founder !
So Middleton, More Dissemblers besides Women v. 1. 100—
'Marry, pray for the founder, here he stands.”
304. I discharge
•
•
prisoner, that is, I take upon myself
all further responsibility regarding the prisoner; your duty in
the matter is at an end: see Abb. 166.
306. arrant, see above, iii. 5. 30.
309. God restore, give you leave, prohibit, for Keep you in
good health'; 'I humbly beg leave,' etc.; God grant it.'
313. we look for, expect.
•
318. how her . . fellow, how she came to be acquainted
with this base fellow. Though lewd often meant ignorant, there
is no point in taking it so here, as Steevens does.
2. by helping
SCENE II.
Beatrice.
me to speech with Beatrice.'
We should now say by helping
5. in so...
over it. Delius and Schmidt point out the pun
upon style and stile, and the literal and metaphorical meanings of
come over: the latter quotes L. L. L. i. 1. 201, iv. 1. 98. There
is a further quibble upon come over and comely, fair.
8. shall I . . stain ? Rolfe, following Schmidt, explains
Keep in the servants' rooms and never get married,' which
seems the most satisfactory sense.
11. it catches, it seizes the point as swiftly as a greyhound
seizes a hare: the word is again used absolutely in T. of S. v. 2.
53, and T. N. ii. 3. 65.
12. and yours, etc. Cp. above, v. 1. 165,
good wit'; 'just,' said she, it hurts nobody.'
66 C
Nay,' said I, 'a
15. I give thee the bucklers, I confess myself beaten. Steevens
quotes instances from Elizabethan literature of the phrase in the
text, and of taking up, and laying down, the bucklers.
17. we have, etc., i.e. we can defend ourselves, what we need
is weapons of offence.
19. pikes. "The circular bucklers of the sixteenth century,
now more commonly called targets, had frequently a central
spike or pike, usually affixed by a screw. It was probably found
convenient to detach this pike occasionally; for instance, in
cleaning the buckler, etc. Fice is the French vis, a screw
(Thoms, quoted by Rolfe): there is of course a pun on vice.
24. the god, etc. "This was the beginning of an old song, by
W. E. (William Elderton), a puritanical parody of which, by one
SC. II.]
161
NOTES.
W. Birch, under the title of The Complaint of a Sinner, etc. . .
is still extant" (Ritson).
29. of pandars, i.e. Pandarus of Troy, the fabled go-between in
the loves of Troilus and Chryseis.
30. carpet-mongers, equivalent to carpet-knights, effeminate
persons, who were dubbed at court by mere favour-not on the
field of battle for their military exploits (Dyce): see T. N. iii. 4.
258.
whose names. . .
heroic poem.
verse, who are still celebrated in many a
32. turned over . . .
in love, never so completely overcome by
love; with the notion of a body rolling over and over again in the
dust, mire, etc.
34. innocent, silly, foolish.
36. under a rhyming planet, see above, i. 3. 12.
37. festival terms, what in 1 H. IV. i. 3. 46 Shakespeare calls
'holiday terms'; not everyday language.
38. wouldst thou . . . thee? does your coming now show that
you are ready to do so whenever I might call you?
39. and depart. . . me, that is, I should be quite as ready to
leave you as to come to you.
12. that I came, i.e. came for, which word some editors insert:
see Abb. 394.
14. thereupon, a consequence which does not follow upon the
premiss.
45. words is, see Abb. 333.
noisome, annoying, both words being from the Lat. in odio
abere), to regard with hatred or disgust.
48. his=its, see Abb. 228.
According to Ingleby, the posses-
sive its occurs ten times in Shakespeare.
50. undergoes, bears, has received; possibly an imitation of
the ceremonious, euphuistic language employed in settling the
terms of a duel.
hear from him, see above, v. 1. 151.
51. subscribe him, write him down, declare him: lit. write his
name down under the word 'coward' see above, v. 1. 149.
which maintained, etc., which showed such statecraft in
preserving a constitution of unmixed evil, that no good quality
could find place among them: an allusion to the jealousy of
admitting foreigners to the privilege of citizenship.
58. epithet, expression, a loose use of the word.
60. in spite of, formerly in despite of,' in hatred or ill-will
162
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
towards; now used with little more than the sense of notwith-
standing.
64. it appears not, i.e. the wisdom you speak of.
this confession, of your love.
66. instance, proverbial saying: cp. A. Y. L. ii. 7. 156, "Full
of wise saws and modern instances.
lived, had life, was pertinent, true.
67. good neighbours, "i.e. when men were not envious, but
every one gave another his due " (Warburton).
68. in monument, in memorial, that which ensures remem-
brance.
71. question, probably, that is the question': to which I
answer, why, an hour, etc. Some editors put a note of inter-
rogation, and explain, 'Do you ask the question?'
clamour, noisy sorrowing.
rheum, tears.
'
72. Don Worm. "Conscience was formerly represented under
the symbol of a worm. Cf. Rich. III. i. 3. 222, The worm of
conscience still begnaw thy soul!' In an account of the expenses
connected with one of the old Coventry mysteries, we find,
'Item, payd to ij wormes of conscience, xvj d.'” (Rolfe.)
75. is for am, speaking of himself as though somebody else.
76. how doth, how is.
80. mend, get better; with perhaps the secondary meaning of
'improve in character.'
• 82. yonder's old coil, there is a terrible business: old, intensive,
and coil in the sense of trouble, are frequent in Shakespeare.
84. abused, deceived.
presently, at once.
89. and moreover, etc., a humorous anticlimax after his pro-
fessions of devotion.
SCENE III.
3. done to death, murdered. Rolfe quotes several examples of
this old phrase.
5. guerdon, reward, recompense: from "O. F. guerdon . . .
equivalent to Ital. guidardone”... from
from "Low Lat. widerdonum
This is a singular hybrid compound from O. H. G. wider
(G. wieder), against, back again, and the Lat. donum, a gift; and
the whole word is an adaptation of O. H. G. widarlón, a recom-
pense" (Skeat, Ely. Dict ).
SC. III.]
163
NOTES.
11. music, musicians, as often in Shakespeare.
12. goddess of the night, Diana: "Diana's knight or virgin
knight was the common poetical appellation of virgins in Shake-
speare's time. So in The Two Noble Kinsmen [v. 1. 140]—
'O sacred, shadowy, cold and constant queen,
who to thy female knights
Allow'st no more blood,' etc." (Malone.)
>>
16. midnight... heavenly. In regard to this passage Halli-
well says,
"The slayers of the virgin knight are performing a
solemn requiem on the body of Hero, and they invoke Midnight
and the shades of the dead to assist, until her death be uttered,
that is, proclaimed, published, sorrowfully, sorrowfully. As to
graves yawn,' etc., "I know not," says Walker, why we
should consider them as anything more than an invocation-
after the usual manner of funeral dirges in that age, in which
mourners of some description or other are summoned to the
funeral-a call, I say, upon the surrounding dead to come forth
from their graves as auditors or sharers in the solemn lamenta-
tion. Other editors follow the folio in reading heavenly,
heavenly, which, according to Grant White, means that death is
to be uttered (¿.e. expelled, outer-ed) by the power of heaven.
24. good morrow, see above, iii. 4. 34, 35.
25. the wolves have preyed, i.e. have now ceased to prey, the
night being over.
27. dapples: cp. R. and J. ii. 3. 1-3—
"The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels."
28. thanks... us. The construction is elliptical and equivalent
to, 'I offer my thanks to you all and request you to leave us':
cp. above, v. 1. 303, “I do embrace your offer; and dispose,'
etc. Several, particular, individual, as frequently in Shakespeare
and in accordance with the literal meaning of the word.
30. weeds, garments: "lit. something that is wound or
wrapped round, exactly as in 'weed wide enough to wrap a fairy
in,' M. N. D. ii. 1. 256 " (Skeat, Ety. Dict.).
32. speed's, i.e. speed us, Thirlby's emendation of speeds, the
reading of the quarto and first folio. He remarks, Claudio
could not know, without being a prophet, that this new proposed
match should have any luckier event than that designed with
Hero; certainly, therefore, this should be a wish." Rolfe com-
pares "cram's with praise and make's," etc., W. T. i. 2. 91 ;
you may ride's," ib. i. 2. 94 ; and "give's your hand," A. C. ii.
7. 134.
164
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
•
·
33. than this woe, than this on account of which we have
just paid these mournful rites: see Abb. 264.
see Abb. 264. Possibly the
expression may be elliptical for "this of hers for whom," etc., or
whom be due to the thought of Hero prominent in the speaker's
mind.
SCENE IV.
3. upon, in consequence of, as above.
debated, spoken about.
4. in some fault, somewhat to blame.
6. in the true . . . question, as has been proved, has turned
out, now that the whole matter has been thoroughly sifted.
7. sort, as before, turn out.
S. being... enforced, who should otherwise be compelled by
the oath or pledge I took to, etc.
15. must be father, must play the part of father in giving her
in marriage to Claudio.
17. confirm'd countenance, steady face, not betraying the plot.
20. to bind . . . undo me, to bind me in marriage, or, it may
be, to ruin me; with a pun on the literal meaning of undo, i.e.
unbind.
•
•
•
23. that eye her, she would not have looked upon you so
favourably if it had not been for what my daughter told her
about your being so deeply in love with her.
25. the sight whereof, etc., you owe it to what you overheard
us say "in the pleached alley," that you in return now look upon
her with that eye of love.'
28. but, for my will, etc., but as regards my will (desire), that
is that yours may go with mine and Beatrice's, which is that we
may this day be, etc.
30. honourable, see above, iii. 4. 27. Johnson would alter
state into estate, and thus give a more harmonious line than by
taking marriage as a trisyllable, as Steevens does.
32. my heart. . . liking, I go heartily with you in your desire
to marry Beatrice : cp. above, v. 1. 103, “My heart is sorry for
your daughter's death.
34. good morrow, see above, iv. 3. 24.
assembly, a quadrisyllable.
36. attend, are here awaiting you.
37. to marry with, to be joined in matrimony with see above,
iv. 1. 8.
SC. IV.]
165
NOTES.
38. I'll hold my mind, keep to my determination.
43. I think . . . bull, referring to v. 1. 173.
45. all Europa, Steevens would read 'all our Europe.`
47. would play, desired to play.
52. for this I owe you, I am in your debt and shall take care
to pay it sooner or later: cp. above, iii. 3. 92.
comes, see Abb. 335.
other reckonings, other matters which have to be reckoned
with, settled.
53. must seize upon, am to take.
59. like of, see Abb. 177.
62. certainer, see Abb. 7.
63. defiled, i.e. by slander.
The word, omitted in the folio, is
found in the quarto. Collier would substitute belied, which is
not an improvement.
67. qualify, moderate; used by Shakespeare both literally and
metaphorically.
68. after that, sec Abb. 287.
largely, at length, in full.
•
70. let familiar, let what looks so strange appear to be of
ordinary occurrence : familiar, a quadrisyllable.
(
72. soft and fair, more commonly, fair and softly': our
'gently, gently."
$2. almost sick, almost ill from your love for me; to which
Beatrice replies that she had been told he was not only sick but
almost dead from love for her.
S4. 'tis ... matter, nothing of the kind: see above, ii. 3. 194.
S5. friendly recompense, such a return as one friend might
make to another.
S9. halting sonnet, .. halting in metre; see what Benedick
says of himself above, v. 2. 32-37.
pure brain, ¿.e. entirely his own, written without any one's
assistance.
91. writ, see Abb. 343.
unto, for, towards.
93. hands, = handwriting and also
'hearts.'
>
against, i.e. witnesses agaiust.
94. by this light, see above, v. 1. 138.
95. I would not, I do not wish.
hands as opposed to
97. a consumption, the disease technically called phthisis
166
[ACT V.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
100. wit-crackers, professional wits, jesters.
101. cannot. . . humour, could not dissuade me from my pur-
pose, inclination, by any number of jests.
102. if a man. . . about him, if a man is going to allow himself
to be beaten with brains, he will do well not to put on a hand-
some dress, lest it should be spoilt. Of course beaten with brains
metaphorically means flouted out of his purpose.
107. giddy, fickle.
108. I did think, etc., it was my intention, etc.
in that
since.
111. single life, thy one life; for the sake of the antithesis
with 'double-dealer,' deceiver.
113. look... thee, watch you carefully.
119. there is no ... horn, an allusion to the walking-sticks
used by elderly people "which were often headed or tipped with
a cross-piece of horn or sometimes amber. They seem to have
been imitated from the crutched sticks, or potences, as they were
called, used by friars, and by them borrowed from the celebrated
tau" [i.e. stick in the shape of the Greek letter T] "of Saint
Anthony" (Douce, quoted by Dyce, Gloss.): in horn there is of
course the old joke we have had so often in this play.
122. with, by; see Abb. 193.
124. brave, fine, excellent; and so, indirectly, suitable, be-
coming, as Schmidt explains the word.
A', i. 1. 73.
A.
Adam, i. 1. 220.
INDEX TO THE NOTES.
Advertisement, v. 1. 32.
Agate, iii. 1. 65.
Alms, an, ii. 2. 142.
Angel, the coin, ii. 2. 29.
Anticly, v. 1. 96.
Antique, an, iii. 1. 63.
Apparitions, iv. 1. 157.
Appear, i. 2. 17.
Appoint, ii. 2. 15.
Approve, ii. 1. 336; iv. 1. 297.
Apt, ii. 1. 180.
Arrant, v. 1. 306.
Arras, i. 3. 51.
Ate, ii. 1. 227.
B.
Badge, i. 1. 19.
Barns, iii. 4. 42.
Bear in hand, v. 1. 299.
Bel, iii. 3. 122.
Bent, sb., ii. 2. 200; iv. 1. 184.
Bills, iii. 2. 38.
Bird-bolt, i. 1. 34.
Blazon, ii. 1. 262.
Block, i. 1. 63.
Blood, i. 3. 23; ii. 1. 159.
Books, in your, i. 1. 64.
Borachio, i. 3. after line 32.
Brave, v. 4. 124.
Break, a comparison, ii. 1. 128.
Break with, i. 1. 268.
Breathing, ii. 1. 320.
Bucklers, v. 2. 15.
Burden, iii. 4. 39.
C.
Candle-wasters, v. 1. 18.
Canker, i. 3. 22.
Capon, v. 1. 150.
Carduus, iii. 4. 65.
Carpet-mongers, v. 2. 30.
Career, v. 1. 134.
Censure, ii. 2. 201.
Cheapen, ii. 2. 28.
Church-bench, iii. 3. 81.
Cinque-pace, iii. 1. 66.
Civet, iii. 2. 45.
Civil, ii. 1. 260.
Clap, iii. 4. 38.
Claw, to, i. 3. 15.
Clerk, ii. 1. 95.
Cloth of gold, iii. 4. 19.
Cog, v. 1. 95.
Coil, iii. 3. 81.
Complexion, i. 1. 272.
Composed, v. 1. 234.
Conditions, iii. 2. 60.
Contemptible, ii. 2. 162.
Controlment, i. 3. 17.
Conveyance, ii. 1. 218.
County, ii. i. 167.
Cousin, i. 2, 1.
Cue, ii. 1. 270.
Curtsy, ii. 1. 45.
Cuts, iii. 4. 18.
D.
Deprave, v. 1. 95.
Despite, to, ii. 2. 28.
167
168
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Difference, i. 1. 56.
Disloyalty, ii. 2. 42.
Ditty, ii. 2. 65.
Division, v. 1. 212.
Dogberry, iii. 3. s.d.
Don Worm, v. 2. 72.
Doublet. ii. 2. 16.
Dry (hand), ii. 1. 102.
Ducats, ii. 2. 46.
Dumps, ii. 2. 66.
E.
Ecstasy, ii. 2. 135.
Element, ii. 1. 303.
Ends, old, i. 1. 247.
Entertain, i. 3. 49.
Epitaphs, iv. 1. 204.
Epithet, v. 2. 58.
F.
Favour, ii. 1. 80.
Festival, adj., v. 2. 37.
Fetch in, i. 1. 189.
Flat, ii. 1. 197.
Fleer, v. 1. 58.
Flout, i. 1. 247.
Frame, iv. 1. 126.
Friend, ii. 1. 73.
Friends, to be, iv. 1. 75.
Friends, to hold, i. 1. 75.
૬.
Girdle, the, to turn, v. 1. 140.
Gloss, iii. 2. 5.
Go about with, to, iv. 2. 23.
Good-den, iii. 2. 72.
Good-year, i. 3. 1.
Go to the world, ii. 1. 282.
Guarded, i. 1. 246.
Guerdon, v. 3. 5.
Gull, ii. 2. 107.
Guts, sheeps', ii. 2. 55.
H.
Habit, iv. 1. 225.
Haggards, iii. 1. 36.
Halting v. 4. 89.
Halfpence, ii. 2. 126.
Hangman, iii. 2. 9.
Happiness, ii. 2. 164.
Hearken after, v. 1. 201.
Heavens, for the, ii. 2. 40
Hell, apes in, ii. 1. 33.
Hercules, iii. 3. 123.
Hideousness, v. 1. 96.
High-proof, v. 1. 123.
Hobby-horse, iii. 2. 65.
Honeysuckle, iii. 1. 8.
Horn, v. 4. 119.
Horn-mad, i. 1. 229.
Humour, i. 3. 15.
I.
Important, ii. 1. 60.
Impossible, ii. 1. 121, 218.
Instance, ii. 2. 36.
Intend, ii. 2. 31.
Invention, iv. 1. 191 ; v. 1. 268.
Inwardness, iv. 1. 243.
Jack, i. 1. 155.
Jig, ii. 1. 63.
Key, i. 1. 157.
J.
K.
L.
Lack-beard, v. J. 182.
Lapwing, iii. 1. 24.
Large, iv. 1. 89.
Liberal, iv. 1, 89.
Lief, iii. 2. 76.
Light o' love, iii. 4. 40.
Likelihood, iv. 1. 234.
Lodge, ii. 1. 190.
Lute-string, iii. 2. 54.
Luxurious, iv. 1. 38.
M.
March-chick, i. 3. 47.
Marry, sh., i. 3. 41,
INDEX TO THE NOTES.
169
Mass, iii. 3. 90.
Measure, ii. 1. 60.
Merry Tales, the Hundred, ii.
1. 113.
Misgovernment, iv. 1. 96.
Misuse, ii. 1. 210.
Model, i. 3. 38.
Moe, ii. 2. 65.
Montanto, i. 1. 25.
Monument, v. 2. 68.
Mortifying, i. 3. 11.
Music, i. 2. 2.
N.
Near, ii. 1. 142.
Need, i. 1. 275.
Night-gown, iii. 4. 17.
Night-raven, ii. 2. 76.
Noisome, v. 2. 35.
Nuptial, iv. 1. 65.
0.
Once, i. 1. 377.
Orchard, i. 2. 8.
Ostentation, iv. 1. 203.
P.
Palabras, iii. 5. 15.
Passion, i. 1. 184.
Pennyworth, ii. 2, 38.
Pent-house, iii. 3. 94.
Pictures, ii. 3. 236.
Pigmies, ii. 1. 238.
Pikes, v. 1. 19.
Pleached, iii. 1. 7.
Possess, iii. 3. 134.
Practice, iv. 1. 186.
Preceptial, v. 1. 24.
Predestinate, i. 1. 114.
Press, to death, iii. 1. 76.
Prester-John, ii. 1. 237.
Proper, ii. 2. 163; v. 1. 165.
Propose, iii. 1. 3.
Purchase, iii. 1. 70.
Push, v. 1. 38.
Q.
Queasy, ii. 1. 340.
Quirks, ii. 2. 211.
Quit, to, iv. 1. 198.
R.
Rabato, iii. 4. 6.
Ready, iii. 4. 46.
Recheat, i 1. 205.
Reclusive, iv. 1. 240.
Reckonings, v. 4. 52.
Reechy, iii. 3. 121.
Recompense, v. 4. 85.
Remorse, iv. 1. 208.
Reportingly, iii. 1. 114.
Rheum, v. 2. 71.
S.
Sad, i. 3. 51.
Saturn, i. 3. 10.
Scab, iii. 3. 91.
Scamble, v. 1. 94.
Seven-night, ii. 1. 317.
Shrewd, ii. 1. 17.
Sleeves, down, side, iii. 4. 19.
Smiched, iii. 3. 123.
Smock, ii. 2. 219.
Sort, i. 1. 6, 26.
Sort, to, iv. 1. 238.
Spell, backward. iii. 1. 61.
Squarer, i. 1. 66.
Stalk, ii. 2. 85.
Start-up, i. 3. 56.
Stomach, i. 3. 13.
Strain, ii. 1. 336; iv. 1. 12.
Stuffed, i. 1. 47. 49.
Subscribe, v. 2. 51.
Success, iv. 1. 232.
Sufficiency, v. 1. 29.
Sworn, brother, i. 1. 60,
T.
Tabor, ii. 2. 13.
Tartly, ii. 1. 3.
170
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Tax, i. 1. 38.
Tender, make, ii. 2. 160.
Terminations, ii. 1. 221.
Thick-pleached, i. 2. 8.
Tire, sb., iii. 4. 12.
Toothache, iii. 2. 19.
Toothpicker, ii. 1. 236.
Trace, iii. 1. 16.
Travail, iv. 1. 211.
Treatise, i. 1. 274.
Trim, iv. 1. 314.
Trencherman, i. 1. 42.
U.
Unhappiness, ii. 1. 306.
Underborne, iii. 4. 19.
Up and down, ii. 1. 102.
Usurer, ii. 1. 168.
V.
Varlet, iv. 2. 66.
Verges, iii. 3. s.d.
Visor, ii. 1. 82, 138.
W.
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Willow, ii. 1. 166.
Win and wear, v. 1. 82.
Wits, i. 1. 55.
Wit-crackers, v. 3. 100.
Woollen, ii. 1. 24.
Woodbine, iii. 1. 30.
Woodcock, v. 1. 152.
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