931 
 mv 
 1884 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 SB 253 M7b 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: 
 
 A COMEDY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED IN FULLY- RECOVERED 
 METRICAL FORM 
 
 PREFATORY ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD. 
 
 Hontion : 
 
 EREDEKir XOHUATE, 
 
 KING STREET. ('OVEXT GARDEN 
 
 1884. 
 
 PRICE THREE SHILLINGS. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: 
 
 A COMEDY, 
 
PRINCEPS EDITION. 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: 
 
 A COMEDY 
 
 P,Y 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED IN FULLY- RECOVERED 
 METRICAL FORM 
 
 AND WITH A 
 
 PREFATORY ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD. 
 
 Hontfou : 
 
 FEEDERIC NORGATE, 
 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1884. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 FEINTED BY HAEEISON AND SONS, 
 ST. MAETIN'S LANE. 
 
PREFATORY ESSAY. 
 
 [HE distinctive and original feature of theprojected 
 and indeed prepared, edition of Shakespeare, 
 of which this play is' a specimen, is the re- 
 covery and exhibition of the proper character 
 of the speeches hitherto uniformly printed 
 for pure prose, as being in truth metrical, composed by 
 the poet in a very definite form of blank verse. 
 
 This metrical character, as peculiar as it is decided, is 
 demonstrable not merely in particular cases of these 
 speeches, but universally ; by the recognition of it, a new 
 light is thrown on the resources of English versification, 
 and for the first time we attain to a full sense of the 
 harmonious and expressive emphasis which Shakespeare 
 imparted to his language, by a command of these resources, 
 as infallible as it seems spontaneous. 
 
 It is certain that no one play of Shakespeare was 
 printed with the benefit of the author's supervision ; it 
 remains impossible, therefore, to tell in what form he 
 would have cast the speeches in question, had he 
 survived to publish his own works. It does not appear 
 that Ben Jonson, or any other of the leading contem- 
 porary dramatists, recognised any intermediate form of 
 blank verse, between the normal line of ten or eleven 
 syllables of five accented feet, the so-called heroic verse, 
 and pure and simple prose, more or less familiar and 
 colloquial. Nay, it may be admitted as even possible, 
 that had Shakespeare himself printed " Much Ado about 
 Nothing," he might only have given the form of verse to 
 speeches which accommodate themselves to the familiar 
 heroic line. But, nevertheless, it would remain consistent 
 and conceivable, in regard to the rest of his work, that 
 while writing a continuous text, he still, with music in his 
 soul, instinctively adopted and adhered to specific rhyth- 
 mical types as prompted by the spirit of particular 
 characters and scenes ; that a speech so written should be 
 
 733 
 
VI PREFATORY ESSAY. 
 
 found on examination to fall into lines systematically 
 divisible, would be no more strange than that a melody 
 hastily noted by a composer should be susceptible of duly 
 inserted bars. 
 
 The verdict of the ear is in both cases decided and 
 decisive ; under the suggestion, and then under the 
 guidance of an ear for systematic metre, a principle 
 becomes apparent that proves susceptible of the very 
 largest application. It is found that the poet, in these 
 speeches of reputed prose, retained for the most part the 
 principle of giving five .accented feet to a verse, as in his 
 distinctly heroic verse ; but he did so with a difference : he 
 renounced the limitation of lines to ten or at most twelve 
 syllables, and boldly broke into systems of lines in which 
 the five accents were connected with feet consisting of 
 three, four, or even more syllables, as frequently as of two. 
 
 It must be said that this revelation of a momentous 
 secret of Shakespeare's dramatic skill and power, is not 
 without confirmation, by no means insignificant, in the 
 original printed texts. Not a few speeches, which the 
 editors with one consent have reduced to plain prose, 
 appear in the quartos and the folio in form of metre to which 
 they have true claim if only duly distributed. But accurate 
 distribution lamentably fails ; and, from the ruling pedantic 
 notions respecting versification, this semblance of metre has 
 been misconstrued; it has been on all hands too easily 
 ascribed to the carelessness and confusion which in other 
 cases miserably disarranged lines that should take order of 
 themselves as blank verse of the strictest type. 
 
 All metre depends, at last, upon equality of successive, 
 well-marked divisions of time ; but the equality of the 
 intervals between marking accents is manifestly open to 
 be maintained by equable, or accommodated by variable, 
 rapidity of pronunciation ; so it is, that associated bars in 
 music are occupied by variable numbers of notes, and 
 indeed of syllables to be sung to them, making up equiva- 
 lent time. This variability, like any other, becomes an 
 element and instrument of expression. 
 
 Milton was a master of the harmonies of versification, 
 but the stateliness of his theme did not encourage laxity ; 
 even so we have such exceptional lines as these : 
 
 Wallowing, unwieldy, enormous in their gait 
 Of sorrow unfeigned and humiliation meek 
 
PREFATORY ESSAY. Vll 
 
 The licence admitted here is scarcely less than that of 
 such lines as 
 
 How many gentlemen have you lost in this action ? 
 Better bettered expectation than you must expect 
 
 associated with a line as regular as 
 But few of any sort and none of name. 
 
 The variety in rapidity and the rhythmical contrasts which 
 the dramatic poet thus gained command of, are of extra- 
 ordinary compass and value ; scenes once read as prose, 
 not improved by shocks of unexpectedly stumbling into 
 occasional rhythm, are found, when their metrical regula- 
 tion is made manifest, to flow on with a full and unchecked 
 tide of admirable music, from beginning to end. 
 
 The accurate division of the lines of any poetical text 
 of a dramatic text especially is of great importance 
 for guidance to inflection of voice and emphasis, whether 
 in reading or declamation. It is characteristic of English 
 blank verse, that proper rhetorical emphasis most fre- 
 quently reinforces the accent of the first foot of the verse, 
 with the natural result of involving the reduction in force 
 of those which ensue : 
 
 To be or not to be, that is the question ; 
 Whether 'tis better that the body suffer, &c. 
 
 This subordination prepares for the contrasted force at the 
 beginning of the next line ; the secondary accents may be 
 of different values among themselves while relatively they 
 accommodate the recurrence of stronger emphasis in its 
 expected place. If this place is not made manifest to the 
 eye of the reader, the rhythmical key is missing, and effort, 
 unwarned, is liable to be exhausted prematurely upon 
 words or phrases which, in their particular relation, have 
 inferior claims. It is from the importance of giving 
 opportunity for the first emphatic accent of an ensuing 
 line, that a certain delicate intimation of a pause or sus- 
 pension is required at the end of the line antecedent, 
 a pause very often beyond what might be challenged 
 by strict rules of grammatical dependence. The due 
 management of this often evanescent pause is the rarest 
 refinement in the delivery of blank verse, and the acquisi- 
 tion of it demands the aid of an accurate distribution of 
 text. And if such aid is necessary in the case of the 
 strictly regulated heroic verse, it is still more indispensable 
 
Vlll PREFATORY ESSAY. 
 
 in a series of verses of which the very principle is eman- 
 cipation from restriction in favour of interchanges of tone 
 that shall have all the calculated value of piquant surprise. 
 
 In the adoption the invention of his freer forms of 
 versification, Shakespeare was following the precedent of 
 the poets of antiquity, as unconsciously to himself, no doubt, 
 as unsuspectedly even by others who had familiar know- 
 ledge both of Greek and Latin literature. The versification 
 of the epic poets, Homer and Virgil, moves on under far 
 stricter laws than even Milton, also an epic poet, was 
 required or chose to confine himself to. Their syllables are 
 either long or short are wholes or halves which cannot 
 interchange places and values ; the utmost that can be 
 said is, that some of their long syllables are effectively 
 longer, and some short are shorter than others, and that 
 varied speed of pronunciation is easily responsible for 
 controlling and compensating these minor differences. A 
 greater variety of feet and values of syllables was admitted 
 in the senarian the verse of six accented feet, of the 
 tragic poets, which answers in dialogue to Shakespeare's 
 ten-syllable verse. But still this form of verse was 
 subject, in their hands, to certain limitations which were 
 very positive, limitations of which some of the most 
 positive were renounced without scruple, when it was 
 adopted by the comic poets, who at last seem to have 
 been quite content so long as versification at all remained 
 recognisable. Still, ancient comedy held pertinaciously to 
 versification ; laxly or licentiously as it was there dealt with, 
 it was susceptible all the more of management with playful 
 and inventive versatility. If the question was argued in 
 antiquity, whether comedies were rightly called poems, the 
 dispute turned at last, not on the value of their metrical 
 forms, but on the propriety of dignifying the themes which 
 they descended to conversation at best, and at lowest, 
 vulgar banterwith so superb a title. In the meantime, the 
 noble lyric poets, Pindar especially, had in an entirely 
 opposite direction released themselves from any obligation 
 to regard the number of syllables in associated metrical 
 feet, in any other relation than would be recognised by a 
 musician. 
 
 Hence it was that Cicero could say that the verses of the 
 finest Greek lyric poets were liable to become, but for 
 the assistance of music, apparently destitute of metrical 
 
PREFATORY ESSAY. IX 
 
 character at all; the succession of syllables, in fact, 
 required, to his appreciation, to be grouped by subsidiary 
 accentuation, vocal or instrumental, if they were not to 
 resolve themselves into prose ; his ear required the same 
 help it may seem to us as we may now read Pindar 
 rather strange that it should be so that is here proffered 
 not too soon to the eye, for the vindication of Shake- 
 speare's comic metre. 
 
 In a certain number of peculiar cases, Shakespeare 
 employs with the greatest effect an equable line of six 
 instead of five of his freer accented feet, through a speech 
 or even an entire scene. Otherwise what might be mis- 
 taken for occasional lines of six accents are often divisible 
 into pairs of triplet accents, and are better so exhibited 
 typographically. Another important variation which has 
 not entirely escaped attention, so far as concerns ten-syllable 
 lines, is the case of what may be called interlaced lines. 
 Incomplete lines, usually half-lines, occur, which admit of 
 being read as completions of portions of the lines that 
 precede, or, in other cases, that follow them ; it is again of 
 importance to due recognition of the metre, that any such 
 incomplete line should be duly distinguished as it is the 
 commencement or the end of an interlacement. Unless 
 this difference is exhibited, an accent of false strength will 
 be placed precisely where it damages a cadence. 
 
 Metrical licence was carried to its extreme by the authors 
 of the later Greek comedy, and Cicero (Orator LII) can 
 say of them that their senarians had frequently such 
 resemblance to common discourse, and were so negligently 
 indicated, that, as he found with the verses of the lyric 
 poets, it was often scarcely possible to recognise in them 
 any metrical character. It is not quite clear whether he 
 appreciated all the same the appropriateness of such versi- 
 fication to the freedom of comedy, and the apt skill 
 displayed in its management. Quintilian (X, I, 918) at 
 least has no sympathy for the varied schemes of verse 
 which Terence plays with, and he never writes so much 
 like a scholastic pedant as when he expresses a wish that 
 an author so elegant had confined himself to the single 
 $enarian form of verse. 
 
 T compensate in some degree for the loss of the new 
 Greek comedians, we have in Terence and Plautus examples 
 of how the ancients married comic motives and dialogue 
 
X PREFATORY ESSAY. 
 
 representative of common life, with varied and appropriate 
 metrical forms of true artistic finish. The following obser- 
 vations of Erasmus on the versification of Terentian comedy, 
 have been fully borne out by the study of more recent 
 scholars, with Bentley at their head, and are applicable in 
 ultimate result to what we shall see of the practice of 
 Shakespeare. Shakespeare assuredly was under no obliga- 
 tion to any ancient for the hint ; the common sympathies of 
 poetic genius are sufficient to account for the coincidence. 
 Nature is not so economical of her suggestiveness as to limit 
 herself to a single intimation of a principle, leaving the world 
 thereafter to take its precarious chance of making the best 
 of it, in case it survives, by processes of evolution. 
 
 " The Latin writers of comedy," says Erasmus, " allowed 
 themselves much liberty in versification, and none more 
 than Terence ; he indeed so extensively that some have 
 even concluded that he observed no rules of verse whatever. 
 The mistake made by these is manifest. There were 
 others again who did not deny that he attended to rules of 
 metre, but concluded that from his immoderate licence it 
 was not worth the while of the learned to plague themselves 
 with scanning the verses, as it would be a matter of great 
 labour with very little profit at last. For my own part, I 
 disagree with both ; for as no proof is really required that 
 the comedies of Terence are in verse, so those who thought 
 his metrical system might be neglected have repeatedly 
 corrupted the poet's language by substituting one word for 
 another (an incident too frequent with copyists of prose 
 authors) by additions, omissions, or inversions of the order 
 of words. Even the learned have somewhat sinned in the 
 same way, who in default of study have, in the process of 
 distinguishing and scanning classes of verses, interpolated 
 words to fill up a supposed gap or cut away a seeming 
 redundancy. It appears, however, to have been distinctly 
 intentional on the part of Terence, to make the nearest 
 approach possible, by verse in disguised form (dissimulate 
 carmine), to the language of prose, the same purpose that 
 Horace seems to have had in view in his Satires and 
 Epistles." 
 
 The metrical systems of both Terence and Plautus have 
 been made the subject of profound study since the time of 
 Erasmus ; and we may now have the advantage of editions 
 in which the metrical accents are marked, and facility is 
 
PREFATORY ESSAY. XI 
 
 given for appreciating the skill with which the expression 
 of humour, sentiment, or passion, is heightened by appro- 
 priate rhythm, and the charm of harmonious versification is 
 fully restored. " Above all," says a recent editor of Plautus, 
 "the rhythmical accents have been inserted throughout 
 this edition, following the precedent of Bentley's Terence, 
 inasmuch as only in virtue of such aid can Plautus be read 
 as he ought to be, not as a prose author, but rhythmically 
 as a true poet." 
 
 In the case of Shakespeare there is no need to mark 
 accents ; but the necessity is the more absolute for his 
 metrically constructed lines to be so divided as to give 
 the assistance which is indispensable, if he is to be read 
 with comfort and confidence, and full enjoyment of his 
 marvellous rhythmical harmonies and constantly varying 
 characteristic tone and style, if he too is to be read, not as 
 a prose author, but as a poet chiefly, as a poet always. 
 
 When we compare the more free verses of Plautus with 
 the severely regulated measures of the hexameter and the 
 senarian, we find that they have great analogy to the form 
 of verse which Shakespeare employed in the speeches which 
 have been, as uniformly as falsely and unfortunately, printed 
 as prose. In these it will be found that sequences of feet 
 are marked off by accents which so strongly reinforce the 
 natural accents of the emphatic words or phrases, as to 
 perfectly subordinate those which carry no especial em- 
 phasis. In consequence, although in the great majority of 
 cases the rule of five feet in a line is still observed, the 
 frequency of trisyllabic feet is much increased ; feet con- 
 taining even more syllables are not unusual, and all forms 
 of redundancy of syllables at the end or commencement of 
 a verse are more freely admitted. 
 
 To versification in this form, still more than to ordinary 
 blank verse of high character, does the rule apply that the 
 places of reinforced emphatic accent are decided by no 
 fixed rule ; they are discoverable only by intelligent 
 reading or expressive declamation. The true distribution 
 and regulation of the lines, as certified by revelation of 
 poetic expression in full force, is even so in many cases 
 not to be determined until after many trials and compari- 
 sons. A metrical speech printed as prose a speech of 
 such metrical character as is in question is " a tangled 
 chain, nothing impaired, but all disordered." The process 
 
Xll PREFATORY ESSAY. 
 
 of disentanglement is often the more difficult from the 
 very elaborateness and refinement of the workmanship of 
 the chain ; but when it is once effected, these very qualities 
 are testimony to the success. From what has been said of 
 the interlacements of verse usual with Shakespeare, it will 
 be quite understood that a prose printed speech often 
 includes what seems to be an indisputable independent 
 verse, but which, nevertheless, is of right to be distributed 
 between two successive verses. If such a false end of a 
 clue be retained too obstinately, all that follows and all 
 that precedes will be thrown out of metrical gear. The 
 same will be the case if one of the loose half-lines of which 
 examples are abundant should be forcibly worked in as 
 portion of an independent and complete line. On the 
 other hand, guidance most welcome and decisive is often 
 ministered by the occurrence of successive lines that reveal 
 themselves as certainly self-limited. 
 
 There are thus many difficulties and false lights that 
 mislead and frustrate first attempts ; is it possible that 
 these have disheartened some explorers prematurely and 
 caused them to renounce the inquiry, and even keep silence 
 as to ever having entertained a suspicion of its value ? 
 Some explanation seems certainly required for the world 
 of criticism having remained blind so long to a fact which 
 is glaring as soon as it is pointed out. 
 
 Finally to clench the entire argument, for those by 
 whom argument may be challenged to vindicate the de- 
 cision of simple refined instinct of rhythm and cadence, 
 let due weight be given to this observation : 
 
 No licences of versification will be found to be pre- 
 sumed on for the reduction of the complete dramatic text 
 to metrical form, for which authoritative precedents are 
 not ci table from speeches which have always been accepted 
 and printed as verse. In some of these speeches the 
 exceptionally constituted lines are rare enough or missing; 
 in others they are even numerous and in close succession. 
 But whether few or many, interposed and interlinked as they 
 are, they have never roused suspicion of being other than 
 truly metrical. Truly metrical, therefore, such lines must 
 be no less when, as in the speeches now for the first time 
 reconstituted, they as a rule preponderate above associated 
 lines of the common normal type, and even exclude such k 
 altogether. 
 
PREFATORY ESSAY. Xlll 
 
 Let the dialogue between lago and Eoderigo at the 
 opening of " Othello " serve to exemplify both the variable 
 frequency and the variety in themselves, of such inter- 
 polated and interwoven abnormal lines, which in virtue of 
 position have passed muster without question or protest. 
 
 The same speeches supply opportunities, at the com- 
 mencement of the extract, for indicating the metrical 
 dependence of loose half-lines by reformed typographical 
 ordination. 
 
 Enter RODERIGO and IAGO. 
 
 Rod. Tush ! Never tell me ; I take it much unkindly 
 That thou, lago, who hast had my purse 
 As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this. 
 
 lago. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me : 
 
 If ever I did dream of such a matter, 
 Abhor me. 
 
 Rod. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate. 
 
 lago. Despise me 
 
 If I do not. Three great ones of the city, 
 In personal suit to make me his lieutenant, 
 Off-capped to him : and, by the faith of man, 
 I know my price, I am worth no worse a place : 
 But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, 
 Evades them, with a bombast circumstance 
 Horribly stuffed with epithets of war ; 
 
 And, in conclusion, 
 
 Nonsuits my mediators ; for, " Certes," says he, 
 " I have already chose my officer." And what 
 Was he ? Forsooth, a great arithmetician, 
 One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, 
 A fellow almost damned in a fair wife ; 
 That never set a squadron in the field, 
 Nor the division of a battle knows 
 More than a spinster ; unless the bookish theoric, 
 Wherein the toged consuls can propose 
 As masterly as he : mere prattle, without practice, 
 Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election : 
 And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof 
 At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds, 
 Christian and heathen, must be be-lee'd and calmed 
 By debitor-and-creditor, this counter-caster ; 
 He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, 
 And I God bless the mark ! his Moorship's ancient. 
 Rod. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman. 
 lago. Why, there's no remedy ; 'tis the curse of service, 
 Preferment goes by letter and affection, 
 And not by old gradation, where each second 
 Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself, 
 Whether I, in any just term, am affined 
 To love the Moor. 
 
XIV PREFATORY ESSAY. 
 
 Rod. I would not follow him then, 
 
 Tago. O, sir, content you ; 
 
 I follow him to serve my turn upon him : 
 
 We cannot all be masters, nor all masters 
 
 Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark 
 
 Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave, 
 
 That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, 
 
 Wears out his time, much like his master's ass, 
 
 For nought but provender ; and when he's old, cashiered : 
 
 Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are, 
 
 Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty, 
 
 Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves ; 
 
 And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, 
 
 Do well thrive by them, and, when they have lined their coats 
 
 Do themselves homage : these fellows have some soul : 
 
 And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir, 
 
 It is as sure as you are Koderigo, 
 
 Were I the Moor, I would not be lago : 
 
 In following him, I follow but myself ; 
 
 Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, 
 
 But seeming so, for my peculiar end. 
 
 This extract taken alone is sufficient to show how the 
 numbers and the places of the trisyllabic and still more 
 polysyllabic feet which are admitted by the poet, are 
 subject to interchanges and permutations that would 
 almost defy tabulation ; there proves in consequence to be 
 as much scope for characteristic variation in the internal 
 construction of these more loosely regulated lines, as in 
 the groups or alternations by which they diversify 
 sequences of forms more normally constituted. 
 
 What wonder that Shakespeare, after shaking himself 
 clear of the last trammels of tradition in versification, 
 appears exultant in the exercise of his self-achieved 
 freedom; but at the same time that he is exhaustless 
 in his invention of opportunities for variation of rhythmical 
 harmony, he ever displays full command over himself in 
 controlling its application, in evolving its resources under 
 subjection ever to a dominant ideal born of the occasion. 
 
 " Shakespeare, it has been well said, most assuredly 
 wrote without any reference to rule ; he trusted to his- ear, 
 and produced the finest dramatic verse in the world. 
 Milton, also, beyond all competition the greatest writer of 
 epic verse that we can boast, learned as he was both in 
 metres and music, and with finest apprehension of harmony, 
 evidently composed without rule, and trusted to his ear alone 
 for those exquisite cadences with which, from his Lycidas 
 
PREFATORY ESSAY. XV 
 
 to his Paradise Regained, his poems abound " (Quarterly 
 Review, 1825, p. 34). It is added : " To deduce authori- 
 tatively rules from poems that have been written without 
 rule, is plainly to derive an argument in favour of bondage 
 from the most splendid proofs of the benefits of freedom." 
 But to deduce rules which are to be insisted on as generally 
 authoritative is one thing ; to elicit the rules which a poet 
 allowed to govern him as contrasted with those which he 
 disregarded is another; it is to set forth how the privileges 
 of t freedom are exercised by the highest poetic genius under 
 spontaneously yielded allegiance to recondite law. 
 
PERSONS REPRESENTED. 
 
 DON PEDRO, Prince of ARRAGON. 
 
 DON JOHN, his bastard Brother. 
 
 COUNT CLAUDIO, a young Lord of FLORENCE. 
 
 SIGNIOR BENEDICK, a young Lord of PADUA. 
 
 LEONATO, Governor of MESSINA. 
 
 ANTONIO, his elder Brother. 
 
 BALTHAZAR, Attendant on DON PEDRO. 
 
 BORACHIO ) 
 
 > followers of DON JOHN. 
 
 CONRADE ) 
 
 DOGBERRY, Head Constable. 
 
 VERJUICE, his Partner. 
 
 GEORGE SEACOAL, Constable of the Watch. 
 
 FRANCIS SEACOAL, the Sexton. 
 
 FRIAR FRANCIS. 
 
 MESSENGER from DON PEDRO. 
 
 HERO, daughter to LEONATO. 
 
 BEATRICE, niece and ward to LEONATO. 
 
 MARGARET \ 
 
 } gentlewomen attending on HERO. 
 URSULA ) 
 
 A boy, Messenger, Watchmen, and Attendants. 
 
 SCENE MESSINA. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. A Garden ; LEG-NATO'S House behind. 
 
 Enter LEONATO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others, with a 
 
 MESSENGER. 
 
 Leonato. 
 
 LEABN from this letter that Don Pedro of 
 
 Arragon 
 Comes this night to Messina. 
 
 Mess. He is very near by this : 
 
 He was not three leagues off when I left him. 
 
 Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action ? 
 
 Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name. 
 
 Lieon. A victory is twice itself, when the achiever 
 Brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro 
 Hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine 
 Called Claudio. 
 
 Mess. Much deserved on his part, and equally 
 
 Eemembered by Don Pedro : he hath borne himself 
 Beyond the promise of his age ; doing in the figure 
 Of a lamb the feats of a lion : he hath, indeed, 
 Better bettered expectation than you must expect 
 Of me to tell you how. 
 
 Leon. He hath an uncle 
 
 Here in Messina will be very much glad of it. 
 
 Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there 
 Appears much joy in him ; even so much, that joy 
 Could not show itself modest enough without 
 A badge of bitterness. 
 
2 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT I. 
 
 Leon. Did he break out into tears ? 
 
 Mess. In great measure. 
 
 Leon. A kind overflow of kindness : 
 
 There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. 
 How much better it is 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 ? 
 
 Hero. My cousin 
 
 Means Signior Benedick of Padua. 
 
 Mess. O, he is returned ; and as pleasant as ever he was. 
 
 Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina, 
 And challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, 
 Reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged 
 Him at the bird bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed 
 And eaten in these wars ? But how many hath he killed ? 
 For, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing. 
 
 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 excellent 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 all honourable virtues. 
 
 Beat. It is so, indeed ; 
 
 He is no less than a stuffed man : but for the stuffing, 
 Well, we are all mortal. 
 
 Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece : 
 
 There is a kind of merry war betwixt 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 3 
 
 Signior Benedick and her ; they never meet 
 But there is a skirmish of wit between them. 
 
 Beat. Alas, he gets 
 
 Nothing by that I In our last conflict, four 
 Of his five wits went halting off, and now 
 Is the whole man governed with one ; so that if he have 
 
 wit enough 
 
 To keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference 
 Between himself and his horse ; for it is all the wealth 
 That he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. 
 Who is his companion now ? He hath every month 
 A new sworn brother, 
 
 Mess. Is it possible ? 
 
 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. 
 
 Beat. Lord ! he will hang upon him like a disease : 
 He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker 
 Kuns presently mad. God help the noble Claudio ! 
 If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him 
 
 A thousand pound ere he 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. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT I. 
 
 Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, 
 BALTHAZAR, and others. 
 
 D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, are you 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 ? 
 
 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 Signior 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 Bene. Then is courtesy a turn-coat. But it is certain 
 I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted : 
 
SCENE L] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 5 
 
 And I would I could find in my heart that I had not 
 A hard heart ; for, truly, I love none. 
 
 Beat. A dear 
 
 Happiness to women : they would else have been troubled 
 With a pernicious suitor. I thank God and 
 My cold blood, I am of your humour for that : 
 I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, 
 Than a man swear he loves me. 
 
 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, o' God's name ; I have done. 
 
 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 month ; and he heartily prays 
 Some occasion may detain us longer : I dare swear 
 He is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. 
 
 Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. 
 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 but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. 
 
6 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT I. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 Bene. Do you question me, as 
 
 An honest man should do, for his simple true judgment ; 
 Or would you have me speak after my custom, 
 As being a professed tyrant to their sex ? 
 
 Claud. No ; I pray thee 
 
 Speak in sober judgment. 
 
 Bene. Why, i' faith, 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. 
 
 Claud. 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 ? 
 
 Bene. Yea, and a case 
 
 To put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow ? 
 Or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us 
 Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare 
 Carpenter ? Come, in what key shall a man take you, 
 To go in the song ? 
 
 Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest 
 
 Lady that ever I looked on, 
 
 Bene. I can see yet 
 
 Without spectacles, and I see no such matter : 
 There's her cousin an she were not possessed 
 With a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as 
 The first of May doth the last of December. But 
 I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have 
 you? 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 7 
 
 Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn 
 The contrary, if Hero would be my wife. 
 
 Bene. Is it come to this i' 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 will needs thrust thy neck into a 
 
 yoke, 
 
 Wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. 
 Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you. 
 
 He-enter DON PEDRO, 
 
 D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you 
 
 followed not 
 To Leonato's ? 
 
 Bene. I would your grace would constrain me 
 
 To tell. 
 
 D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance. 
 
 Bene. You hear, Count Claudio : I can be as secret as 
 A dumb man, I would have you think so ; but on 
 My allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. 
 He is in love. With who ? now that is your grace's part, 
 Mark, how short his answer is : With Hero, Leonato's 
 Short daughter, 
 
 Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered. 
 
 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 it should be otherwise. 
 
 D. Pedro. Amen, if you 
 
 Love her ; for the lady is well 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. 
 
8 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT I. 
 
 Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke 
 mine. 
 
 Claud. That I love her, I feel. 
 
 D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know. 
 
 Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor 
 
 know 
 
 How she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire 
 Cannot melt out of me : I will die in it at the stake. 
 
 D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the 
 
 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 baldric, 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. 
 
 D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, 
 
 Look pale with love. 
 
 Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, 
 
 My lord ; not with love : prove that I ever lose 
 More blood with love than I will get again with drinking, 
 Pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, 
 And hang me up at the door of a brothel-house 
 For the sign of blind Cupid. 
 
 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; 
 
SCENE L] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 9 
 
 And he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, 
 And called Adam. 
 
 D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try : 
 
 " In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke." 
 
 Bene. The savage bull may ; but if ever the sensible 
 Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns, and 
 Set them in my forehead : and let me be vilely painted ; 
 And in such great letters as they write, " Here is 
 Good horse to hire," let them signify under my sign, 
 " Here you may see Benedick, the married man." 
 
 Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be 
 horn-mad. 
 
 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 temporise 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 me for such an ernbassage, and so 
 I commit you 
 
 Claud. To the tuition of God : 
 
 From my house, (if I had it), 
 
 D. Pedro. The sixth of July : 
 
 Your loving friend, Benedick. 
 
 Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. 
 
 The body of your discourse is sometime guarded 
 With fragments, and the guards are but slightly 
 Basted on neither : ere you flout old ends any further, 
 Examine your consciences : and so I leave you. 
 
 [Exit BENEDICK. 
 
10 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [Ad I. 
 
 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 lik'd, 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 lik'd her ere I went to wars. 
 
 D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, 
 And tire the hearer with a book of words. 
 If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it ; 
 And I will break with her, and with her father, 
 And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end, 
 That thou began'st to twist so fine a story ? 
 
 Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, 
 That know love's grief by his complexion ! 
 But lest my liking might too sudden seem, 
 I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise. 
 
 D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the 
 
 flood? 
 
 The fairest grant is the necessity : 
 Look, what will serve, is fit : 'tis once, thou iov'st ; 
 And I will fit thee with the remedy. 
 I know we shall have revelling to-night ; 
 I will assume thy part in some disguise, 
 And tell fair Hero I am Claudio ; 
 And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart, 
 
SCENE II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 11 
 
 And take her hearing prisoner with the force 
 
 And strong encounter of my amorous tale : 
 
 Then, after, to her father will I break ; 
 
 And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine. 
 
 In practice let us put it presently. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. A Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 Enter severally LEONATO and ANTONIO. 
 
 Leon. How now, brother ? Where is my cousin, your 
 
 son? 
 Hath he provided this music ? 
 
 Ant. He is very 
 
 Busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you 
 Strange news, that you yet dreamed not of. 
 
 Leon. Are they good ? 
 
 Ant. As the event stamps them ; but they have a good 
 
 cover, 
 
 'They show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, 
 Walking in a thick-pleached alley ofmy orchard, 
 Were thus much overheard by a man of mine : 
 The prince discovered to Claudio that he loved 
 My niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it 
 This night in a dance ; and if he found her accordant, 
 He meant to take the present time by the top, 
 And instantly break with you of it. 
 
 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 but a dream, till it appears 
 Itself : but I will acquaint my daughter withal, 
 That she may be better prepared for an answer, 
 
 If peradventure, this be true. 
 
 [Several persons cross the staged] 
 
12 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT I. 
 
 Go you, and tell her of it. Cousins, you know 
 What you have ,to do. 0, I cry you mercy, friend ; 
 Go you with me and I will use your skill ; 
 Good cousin, have a care this busy time. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. Another Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE. 
 
 Con. What the good-year, my lord ! why are you out of 
 
 measure 
 Sad? 
 
 D. John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds it; 
 Therefore the sadness is without limit. 
 
 Con. You should hear reason. 
 
 D. John. And when I have heard it, what blessing 
 bringeth it ? 
 
 Con. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance. 
 
 I). John. 1 wonder that thou, being (as thou say'st thou 
 
 art) 
 
 Born under Saturn, goest about to apply 
 A moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. 
 I cannot hide what I am : I must be sad 
 When I have cause, and smile at no man's jests ; 
 Eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure ; 
 Sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business ; 
 Laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. 
 
 Con. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this, 
 Till you may do it without controlment. You have 
 Until of late stood out against your brother, 
 And he hath ta'en you newly into his grace ; 
 Where it is impossible you should take true root, 
 But by the fair weather, that you make yourself : it is 
 Needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. 
 
 D. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose 
 in his grace ; 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 13 
 
 And it better fits my blood to be disdained of all, 
 Than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any. In this, 
 Though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, 
 It must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. 
 I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog ; 
 Therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had 
 My mouth, I would bite ; if I had my liberty, I would do 
 
 my liking : 
 
 In the meantime let me be that I am, and seek not to 
 alter me. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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. 
 
 D. John. A proper squire ! and who, and who ? which 
 
 way looks he ? 
 
 Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. 
 D. John. A very forward March chick ! how came you 
 
 to this ? 
 
 Bora. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking 
 A musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, 
 Hand in hand, in sad conference ; I whipt me behind 
 The arras ; and there heard it agreed upon, that 
 
14 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT I. 
 
 The prince should woo Hero 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. 
 
 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. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 15 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I, A Hall in LEONATO'S House. 
 Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others. 
 
 Leonato. 
 JAS 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's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy 
 In Signior Benedick's face, 
 
 Beat. With a good leg, 
 
 And a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, 
 Such a man would win any woman in the world, 
 If he could get her goodwill. 
 
 Leon. By my troth, niece, 
 
 Thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so 
 Shrewd of thy tongue. 
 
 Ant. In faith, she is too curst. 
 
 Beat. Too curst is more than curst : I shall lessen God's 
 
 sending 
 
 That way ; for it is said, " God sends a curst cow 
 Short horns ;" but to a cow too curst he sends none. 
 
16 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 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 
 
 bearward, 
 And lead his apes into hell. 
 
 Leon. Well, then, go you into hell ? 
 
 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 St. Peter for the heavens ; 
 He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there 
 Live we as merry as the day is long. 
 
 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 courtesy, and say, 
 " Father, as it please you :" but yet, for all that, cousin, 
 Let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another 
 Courtesy, and say, " Father as it please me." 
 
 Leon. Well, niece, 
 
 I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 17 
 
 Beat. Not till God make men of some other rnetal 
 Than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be 
 Overmastered with a piece of valiant dust ? to make 
 An account of her life to a clod of wayward marl ? 
 No, uncle, I'll none : Adam's sons are my brethren ; 
 And, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. 
 
 Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the 
 
 prince 
 Do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. 
 
 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 a 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. 
 
 Leon. The revellers are entering; brother, make good 
 room! 
 
 [They all mask. 
 
 Enter DON PEDEO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR, 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, 
 
 c 
 
18 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 I am yours for a 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 lute should be like the case ! 
 
 D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof ; within the house 
 is Jove. 
 
 Hero. Why then your visor should be thatched. 
 
 D. Pedro, Speak low, if you speak love. 
 
 [Takes her aside. 
 
 Bcdtli. Well, I would you did like me. 
 
 Marg. So would not I, 
 
 For your own sake ; for I have many ill qualities. 
 
 Bcdtli. Which is one ? 
 
 Marg. I say my prayers aloud. 
 
 Bcdth. I love you the better ; the hearers may cry Amen. 
 
 Mary. God match me with a good dancer ! 
 
 Baltli. Amen. 
 
 Marg. And God keep him out of my sight when the 
 
 dance is done ! 
 Answer, clerk ! 
 
 Baltli. No more words : the clerk is answered. 
 
 Urs. I know you well enough ; you are Signior Antonio. 
 
 Ant. At a word, I am not. 
 
 Marg. I know you by the waggling of your head. 
 
 Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him. 
 
 Marg. 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. 
 
SCENE L] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 19 
 
 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. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 Beat. Why he's 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 villainy ; 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 '11 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. We must 
 
 follow 
 
 The leaders. [Music within. 
 
 Bene. In every good thing. 
 
 Beat. Nay, if they lead 
 
 To any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. 
 
 [Dance : then exeunt all but DON JOHN, 
 BOKACHIO, and CLAUDIO. 
 c 2 
 
20 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 .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 you not Signior Benedick ? 
 
 Claud. You know me well ; 
 
 I am he. 
 
 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. 
 
 [Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO. 
 
 Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, 
 But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. 
 'Tis certain so : the prince woos for himself. 
 Friendship is constant in all other things, 
 Sa,ve 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. 
 
 Bene. Count Claudio ? 
 
 Claud. Yea, the same. 
 
 Bene. Come, will you go with me ? 
 
 Claud. Whither ? 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 21 
 
 Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, 
 
 Count. 
 
 What fashion will you wear the garland of it ? 
 About your neck, like an usurer's chain ? or under 
 Your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf ? You must wear it 
 One way, for the prince hath got your Hero. 
 
 Claud. I wish him joy of her. 
 
 Bene. Why, that's spoken like 
 
 An honest drover ; 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 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 nought but 
 The bitter disposition of Beatrice, 
 That puts the world into her person, and so 
 Gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. 
 
 D. Pedro. Now, Signior, where's the Count ? Did you see 
 him? 
 
 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. 
 
22 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IT. 
 
 D. Pedro. To be whipped ! What's his fault ? 
 
 Bern. The flat transgression 
 
 Of a schoolboy ; 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. 
 
 Bene. Yet it had not been amiss 
 
 The rod had been made and the garland too ; for the 
 
 garland, 
 
 He might have worn it himself ; and the rod he might 
 Have bestow'd 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. 
 
 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, and that I was duller than 
 A great thaw ; huddling jest upon jest, with such 
 Impossible conveyance, upon me, that I stood 
 Like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. 
 She speaks poniards, and every word stabs : if her 
 Breath were as terrible as her terminations, 
 There were no living near her ; she would infect 
 To the north star. I would not marry her, 
 Though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 23 
 
 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, follow her. 
 
 Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO. 
 
 1). Pedro. Look, here she comes. 
 
 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 tooth-picker now from the furthest inch 
 Of Asia ; bring you the length of Prester John's foot ; 
 Fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard ; do you any 
 
 Embassage to the Pigmies, rather 
 Than hold three words conference with this harpy. 
 You have no employment for me ? 
 
 D. Pedro. None, but to desttt*four 
 
 Good company. * 
 
 Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I Ipy&not ; 
 
 I cannot endure my lady Tongue. [Exit. 
 
 D. Pedro. Come lady, come ; 
 
 You have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. 
 
 Beat. Indeed, my lord, 
 
 He lent it me awhile ; and I gave him use for it, 
 A double heart for his single one : marry, once before, 
 He won it of me with false dice ; therefore your grace 
 May well say I have lost it. 
 
 D. Pedro. You have put him down lady, you 
 
 Have put him down. 
 
24 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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. 
 
 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 witli her my fortunes : his grace hath made the 
 
 match, 
 And all grace say Amen to it ! 
 
 Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. 
 
 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 him not 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. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 25 
 
 Claud. And so she doth, cousin. 
 
 Beat. Good lord, for alliance ! 
 
 Thus goes every one to the world but I, 
 And I am sunburn'd ; 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 ? 
 
 Beat. No, my lord, unless 
 
 I might have another for working days : your grace 
 Is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech 
 Your grace, pardon me : I was born to speak all mirth 
 And no matter. 
 
 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 I was born t Cousins, God give you joy ! 
 
 Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of ? 
 
 Beat. I cry your mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon. 
 
 [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. 
 
26 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 D. Pedro. She were an excellent wife 
 
 For Benedick. 
 
 Leon. Lord, my lord, if they were 
 
 But a week married, they would talk themselves mad. 
 
 D. Pedro. Count 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. 
 
 D. Pedro. Come, you shake the head, 
 
 At so long a breathing ; but I warrant thee, Claudio, 
 The time shall not go dully by us. I will, in the interim, 
 Undertake one of Hercules' labours ; which is, 
 To bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice 
 Into a mountain of affection, the one with the other. 
 I would fain have it a match ; and I doubt not but to 
 
 fashion it, 
 
 If you three will but minister such assistance 
 As I shall give you direction. 
 
 Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me 
 
 Ten nights' watchings. 
 
 Claud. And I too, my lord. 
 
 D. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero ? 
 
 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, 
 
SCENE II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 27 
 
 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. Another Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 Enter DON JOHN and BOEACHIO, 
 
 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, 
 Eanges 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. 
 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. 
 
 Bora. I can, at any unseasonable 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 ? 
 
 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 
 
28 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 D. John. Only to despite them, 
 
 I will endeavour anything. 
 
 Bora. Go then ; find me a meet hour 
 
 To draw Don Pedro and Count Claudio alone : 
 Tell them that you know Hero loves me ; intend 
 A kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, 
 As, in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this 
 
 match, 
 And his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened 
 
 with 
 
 The semblance of a maid, that you have discovered thus. 
 They will scarcely believe this without trial : offer them 
 
 instances ; 
 
 Which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me 
 At her chamber-window; hear me call Margaret, Hero ; 
 Hear Margaret call 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 assu- 
 rance, 
 And all the preparation overthrown. 
 
 D. John. Grow this to what 
 
 Adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. 
 Be cunning in the working of this, and thy fee is 
 A thousand ducats. 
 
 Bora. Be you constant in the accusation ; 
 
 And my cunning shall not shame me. 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 29 
 
 D. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. LEONATO'S Garden. 
 Enter BENEDICK and a BOY. 
 
 Bene. Boy, 
 
 Boy. Signior ? 
 
 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 behaviours 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 afoot 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 turn'd 
 Orthographer ; 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 
 
 
30 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 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. Eich 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 pleases God. Ha ! the prince and monsieur Love ! 
 I will hide me in the arbour. 
 
 [ Withdraws into the arbour. 
 
 Enter DON PEDRO, LEONATO, CLAUDIO, and BALTHAZAR 
 
 with instrument. 
 
 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. 0, very well, my lord : the music ended, 
 We'll fit the hid fox with a pennyworth. 
 
 D. Pedro. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that song again. 
 
 O O 
 
 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. 
 
 Baltli. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing ; 
 Since many a wooer doth commence his suit 
 To her he thinks not worthy ; yet he woos ; 
 Yet will he swear, he loves. 
 
 D. Pedro. Nay, pray thee, come ; 
 
 Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, 
 Do it in notes. 
 
 Balth. Note this before my notes, 
 
 There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 31 
 
 D. Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks ; 
 Note, notes, forsooth, and noting ! [Music. 
 
 Bene. [Aside.'] Now, divine air ! now is his soul ravish'd ! 
 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. 
 
 BALTHAZAR sings. 
 
 Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, 
 
 Men were deceivers ever ; 
 One foot in sea, and one on shore : 
 To one thing constant never : 
 Tlien sigh not so, 
 But let them go, 
 And be you blithe and bonny ; 
 Converting all your sounds of woe 
 Into, Hey nonny, nonny. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Sing no more ditties, sing no mo 
 Of dumps so dull and heavy ; 
 The fraud of men was ever so, 
 Since summer first was leavy. 
 Then sigh not so, &c. 
 
 D. Pedro. By my troth, a good song. 
 
 Balth. And an ill singer, my lord. 
 
 D. Pedro. Ha ? no, no, faith ; thou singest well enough 
 For a shift. 
 
 Bene. [Aside.'] 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. 
 
32 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 D. Pedro. [To CLAUDIO.] Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, 
 
 Balthazar ? 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. 
 
 D. Pedro. Do so ; farewell, 
 
 [Exit BALTHAZAR. 
 
 Come hither, Leonato : what was it you told me of 
 To-day that your niece Beatrice was in love 
 With Signior Benedick ? 
 
 Claud. 0, ay : [Aside to PEDRO.] Stalk on, stalk on ; 
 The fowl sits. [Aloud.] 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. 
 
 Bene. [AsideJ] 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. 
 
 Leon. O God ! counterfeit ! 
 
 There was never counterfeit of passion came 
 So near the life of passion as she discovers it. 
 
 D. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she ? 
 
 Claud. [AsideJ] 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. 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 33 
 
 D. Pedro. How, how, I pray you ? You amaze me : 
 I would have thought her spirits had been invincible 
 Against all assaults of affection. 
 
 Leon. I would have sworn 
 
 It had, rny lord ; especially against Benedick. 
 
 Bene. [Aside.] I should think this a gull, but that 
 
 The white-bearded fellow speaks it : knavery 
 Cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. 
 
 Claud. [Aside.] He hath ta'en the infection : hold it up. 
 
 D. Pedro. Hath she made 
 
 Her affection known to Benedick ? 
 
 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 shell 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. 
 
 Claud. Now you talk of a sheet 
 
 Of paper, I remember a pretty jest 
 Your daughter told us of. 
 
 Leon. ! when she had writ it, 
 
 And was reading it over, she found Benedick 
 And Beatrice between the sheet ! 
 
 Claud. That. 
 
 Leon. ! 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." 
 
 D 
 
34 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 Claud. Then down upon 
 
 Her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears 
 
 her hair, prays ; 
 Cries, " 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 sometimes afraid 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 but make a sport of it, and torment 
 The poor lady worse. 
 
 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, 
 
 D. Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me : 
 I would have daffed all other respects and made her 
 Half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, 
 And hear what he 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. 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 35 
 
 D. Pedro. She doth 
 
 Well ; if she should make tender of her love, 
 'Tis very possible hell 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. Tore God, 
 
 And in my mind, very wise. 
 
 D. Pedro. He doth indeed 
 
 Show some sparks that are like wit. 
 
 Leon. 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. 
 
 Leon. If he do fear God, he must necessarily 
 Keep peace ; if he break the peace he ought to enter into 
 A quarrel with fear and trembling. 
 
 D. Pedro. And so he will 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, mv lord ; 
 
 Let her wear it out with good counsel. 
 
 Leon. Nay, that's impossible ; 
 
 She may wear her heart out first. 
 
 D. Pedro. Well, we'll 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. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 
 
 Claud. [Aside.] If he do not dote on her upon this, 
 I will never trust my expectation. 
 
 D. Pedro. [Aside.] Let there be 
 
 The same net spread for her ; and that must your daughter 
 And her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, 
 When they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, 
 And no such matter : that's the scene that I would 
 See, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her 
 To call him in to dinner. 
 
 [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO. 
 
 BENEDICK advancing from the Arbour. 
 
 Bene. This can be no trick ; the conference 
 
 Was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. 
 They seem to pity the lady ; it seems her affections 
 Have their full bent. Love me ! why it must be requited. 
 I hear how I am censured : they say I will bear myself 
 
 proudly, 
 
 If I perceive the love came from her : they say too, 
 That she will rather die than give any sign of 
 Affection. I did never think to marry : I must not seem 
 Proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions, and 
 Can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair, 
 'Tis a truth, I can bear them witness ; and virtuous, 'tis 
 
 so, 
 
 I cannot reprove it ; and wise, but for loving me : 
 By my troth, it is no addition to her wit ; 
 Nor no great argument of her folly ; for I 
 Will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have 
 
 some odd 
 
 Quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because 
 I have railed so long against marriage : but doth not the 
 
 appetite 
 
 Alter ? A man loves the meat in his youth that 
 He cannot endure in his age. Shall quips, sentences, and 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 37 
 
 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 BEATEICE. 
 
 Beat. Against my will 
 
 I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. 
 
 Bene. Fair Beatrice, 
 
 I thank you for your pains. 
 
 Beat. I took no more pains for 
 
 Those thanks than you took pains to thank me : if it had 
 Been painful, I would not have come. 
 
 Bene. You took pleasure, then, 
 
 In the message ? 
 
 Beat. Yea, 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. 
 
38 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I. LEONATO'S Garden. 
 Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA. 
 
 Hero. 
 
 OOD Margaret, run thee to the parlour ; 
 There shall 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 propose. This is thy office, 
 Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone. 
 
 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. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 39 
 
 Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish 
 Cut with their golden oars the silver stream, 
 And greedily devour the treacherous bait : 
 So angle we for Beatrice ; who even now 
 Is couched in the woodbine coverture. 
 Fear you not my part of the dialogue. 
 
 Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing 
 Of the false sweet bait, that we lay for it. 
 
 \_They advance to 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-troth ed lord. 
 
 Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam ? 
 
 Hero. They did entreat me to acquaint her of it ; 
 But I persuaded them, if they lov'd 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. God of love ! I know he doth deserve 
 As much as may be yielded to a man : 
 But nature never fram'd 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. 
 
40 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 Hero. Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, 
 How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, 
 But she would spell him backward : if fair-faced, 
 She'd swear the gentleman should be her sister ; 
 If black, why, nature, drawing of an antic, 
 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'd mock me into air : 0, 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. 0, 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 priz'd 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 
 
SCENE II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 41 
 
 Speaking my fancy : Signior Benedick, 
 
 For shape, for bearing, argument, and valour, 
 
 Goes foremost in report through Italy. 
 
 Hero. Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. 
 
 Urs. His excellency 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. 
 
 Urs. [Aside.] She's lim'd, I warrant you : we have 
 caught her, madam. 
 
 Hero. [Aside.] If it prove so, then loving goes by haps : 
 Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. 
 
 [Exeunt HERO and URSULA. 
 
 BEATRICE advances. 
 
 Beat. What fire is in mine ears ? Can this be true ? 
 
 Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much ? 
 Contempt, farewell ! and maiden pride, adieu ! 
 
 No glory lives behind the back of such. 
 And, Benedick, love on : I will requite thee, 
 
 Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand. 
 If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee 
 
 To bind our loves up in a holy band ; 
 For others say thou dost deserve, and I 
 Believe it better than reportingly. [Exit. 
 
 SCENE II. A Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 
 Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO, 
 
 D. Pedro. I do but stay till your marriage be consum- 
 mate, 
 And then go I toward Arragon. 
 
 Claud. I'll bring you 
 
 Thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me. 
 
42 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 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 bowstring, and 
 The little hangman dare not shoot at him ; he hath 
 A heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper ; 
 For what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks. 
 
 Bene. Gallants, 
 
 I am not as I have been. 
 
 Leon. So say I ; 
 
 Methinks you are sadder. 
 
 Claud. I hope he be in love. 
 
 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. 
 
 Bene. Well, every man 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 is 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 downward, all slops ; 
 And a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet. 
 Unless he hath a fancy to this foolery, 
 
SCENE II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 43 
 
 As it appears he hath, he is no fool 
 
 For fancy, as you would have it appear he is. 
 
 Claud. If he be not 
 
 In love with some woman, there is no believing old signs : 
 He 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. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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 lutestring, and now governed by stops. 
 
 D. Pedro. Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him. Con- 
 clude, 
 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. 
 
 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 : 
 
44 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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. 
 
 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 dear- 
 ness 
 
 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 hath been too long 
 A talking of), the lady is disloyal. 
 
 Claud. Who ? Hero ? 
 
SCENE IT.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 45 
 
 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 wickedness : I could say she were worse ; think you 
 Of a worse title and I will fit her to it. 
 Wonder not till further warrant : go but with me to-night, 
 You shall see her chamber- window entered, even the 
 Night before her wedding-day : if you love her then, 
 To-morrow wed her ; but it would better fit your honour 
 To change your mind. 
 
 Claud. May this be so ? 
 
 D. Pedro. I will not think it. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 but coldly till midnight, 
 And let the issue show itself. 
 
 D. Pedro. day 
 
 Untowardly turned ! 
 
 Claud. mischief, strangely thwarting ! 
 
 D. John. plague right well prevented ! 
 So will you say when you have seen the sequel. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
46 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 SCENE III. Night. A Street. 
 Enter DOGBERRY and VERJUICE, with the WATCH. 
 Dogb. Are you good men and true ? 
 Verj. Yea, or else it were pity 
 
 But they should suffer salvation, body and soul. 
 
 Dogb. Nay that punishment were too good for them 
 If they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen 
 For the prince's watch. 
 
 Verj. Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry. 
 Dogb. First, who think you the most desartless man to 
 
 be constable ? 
 
 Watch. Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal ; for they 
 Can write and read. 
 
 Dogb. Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. 
 
 God hath blessed you with a good name ; to be 
 A well-favoured man is the gift of fortune ; 
 But to read and write comes by nature. 
 
 Seacoal. Both which, master constable, 
 
 Dogb. You have ; I knew it would be your answer. Well, 
 
 For your favour, sir, give God thanks, and make no boast 
 
 of it; 
 And for your writing and reading, let that appear 
 
 When there is no need for such vanity. 
 You are thought 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. 
 Seacoal. How if a' will not stand ? 
 
 Dogb. 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. 
 
 Verj. If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none 
 Of the prince's subjects. 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 47 
 
 Dogb. True, and they are to meddle 
 
 With none but the prince's subjects. You shall also 
 Make no noise in the streets ; for, for the watch to 
 Babble and talk is most tolerable and not to be endured. 
 Watch. We will rather sleep than talk ; we know what 
 
 belongs 
 To a watch. 
 
 Dogb. Why, you speak like an ancient and 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. 
 Seacoal. How, if they will not ? 
 
 Dogb. 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. 
 
 Seacoal. Well, sir ? 
 
 Dogb. 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 ? 
 Dogb. Truly, by your office you may ; but I think they 
 
 that touch 
 Pitch will be denied ; 
 
 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. 
 Verj. You have been always called a merciful man, 
 
 partner. 
 Dogb. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will ; much 
 
 more 
 A man, who hath any honesty in him. 
 
48 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 Verj. If you 
 
 Hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse, 
 And bid her still it. 
 
 Seacoal. How if the nurse be asleep 
 
 And will not hear us ? 
 
 Dogb. Why then depart in peace, 
 
 And let the child wake her with crying ; 
 For the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes, 
 Will never answer a calf when he bleats. 
 
 Verj. Tis very 
 
 True. 
 
 Dogb. 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. 
 
 Verj. Nay, by 'r lady, 
 
 That I think a' cannot. 
 
 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. 
 
 Verj. By'r lady, I think it be so. 
 
 Dogb. Ha, ha, ha ! Well, masters, good-night : an there be 
 Any matter of weight chances, call up me : 
 Keep your fellows' counsels and your own ! and good 
 night. 
 
 Come, neighbour. 
 
 Seacoal. Well, masters, we hear our charge : let us go sit 
 
 here 
 Upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed. 
 
 Dogb. 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 VERJUICE. 
 
SCENE III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 49 
 
 Enter BORACHIO and CONRADE. 
 
 Bora. What, Conrade ! 
 
 Seacoal. [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. 
 
 Con. I will owe thee an answer for that ; 
 
 And now forward with thy tale. 
 
 Bora. Stand thee close, then, 
 
 Under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain ; 
 And I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee. 
 
 Seacoal. [Aside.'] Some treason, masters ; yet stand close. 
 
 Bora. Therefore know 
 
 I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats. 
 
 Con. Is it possible that any villainy should be 
 So dear ? 
 
 Bora. Thou shouldst rather ask, if it were possible 
 Any villainy 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. Tush ! 
 
 I may as well say the fool's the fool. But seest thou not 
 What a deformed thief this fashion is ? 
 
 Watch. 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 ? 
 
50 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 Con. No ; 'twas the vane on the house. 
 
 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 ? 
 Sometime, fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers 
 In the reechy painting ; sometime, like god Bel's priests 
 In the old church window ; sometime, like the shaven 
 
 Hercules, 
 
 In the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his cod-piece 
 Seems as massy as his club ? 
 
 Con. All this I see ; and 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 ? 
 
 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 of her mistress' 
 Chamber-window ; bids me a thousand times 
 Good night. I tell this tale vilely : I should first tell 
 
 thee 
 
 How the prince, Claudio, and my master, planted 
 And placed and possessed by my master, Don John, 
 Saw afar off in the orchard this amiable 
 Encounter. 
 
 Con. And thought they, Margaret was Hero ? 
 
 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 villainy, 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 
 
SCENE IV.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 51 
 
 With what he saw over-night, and send her home again 
 Without a husband. 
 
 Watch. We charge you in the prince's name, stand. 
 
 Seacoal. Call up the right master constable : we have 
 
 here recovered 
 
 The most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known 
 In the commonwealth. 
 
 Watch. And one Deformed is one of them ; I 
 
 know him, 
 He wears a lock. 
 
 Con. Masters, masters ! 
 
 Watch. You'll be made to bring Deformed 
 
 Forth, I warrant you. 
 
 Con. Masters ! 
 
 Seacoal. Never speak we charge you, 
 
 Let us obey you to go with us. 
 
 Bora. We are likely to prove a goodly 
 
 Commodity, being taken up of these men's bills. 
 
 Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, 
 we'll obey you. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IV. A Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 Enter HERO, MARGARET, an$ URSULA. 
 
 Hero. Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and 
 Desire her to rise. 
 
 Urs. I will, lady. 
 
 Hero. And bid her come hither. 
 
 Urs. Well. 
 
 [Exit URSULA. 
 
 Marg. Troth, I think your other rabato were better. 
 
 Hero. No pray thee, 
 
 Good Meg, I'll wear this. 
 
 Marg. By my troth's not so good ; 
 
 And I warrant your cousin will say so. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 Hero. My cousin's a fool, 
 
 And thou art another ; I'll wear none but this. 
 
 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. 0, that exceeds, they say. 
 
 Marg. By my troth's but a night gown in respect 
 Of yours : cloth of gold and cuts and laced with silver ; 
 Set with pearls down sleeves ; side sleeves and skirts 
 
 round 
 
 Underborne with a blueish tinsel ; but for a 
 Fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, 
 Yours is worth ten on't. 
 
 Hero. God give me joy to wear it, 
 
 For my heart is exceeding heavy. 
 
 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 honourable 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, coz. 
 
 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. 
 
SCENE IV.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 53 
 
 Marg. Clap us into " Light o' love ; " 
 
 That goes without a burden ; do you sing it, 
 And I'll dance it. 
 
 Beat. Yea, Light o' love with your heels ? 
 
 Then if your husband have stables enough, you'll see 
 He shall lack no barns. 
 
 Mary. 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 ? 
 
 Marg. Nothing I ; but God send every one 
 
 Their heart's desire ! 
 Hero. These gloves the Count sent me ; they are an 
 
 excellent 
 Perfume. 
 
 Beat. I am stuffed, cousin ; I cannot smell. 
 
 Marg. A maid and stuffed ! there's goodly catching of 
 
 cold. 
 
 Beat. 0, God help me ! God help me ! How long have you 
 Professed apprehension ? 
 
 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. 
 
54 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 Hero. There thou prick'st her with a thistle. 
 
 Beat. Benedictus ! 
 
 Why benedictus ? You have some moral in this 
 Benedictus. 
 
 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 ; 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. 
 
 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 coz, good Meg. 
 
 good Ursula. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
SCENE V.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 55 
 
 SCENE V. Another Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 
 Enter LEONATO with DOGBERRY and VERJUICE. 
 
 Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour ? 
 
 Dogb. Marry, sir. 
 
 I would have some confidence with you, that decerns you 
 nearly. 
 
 Leon. Brief, I pray you ; for you see, it is a busy time 
 with me. 
 
 Dogb. Marry, this it is, sir. 
 
 Verj. Yes, in truth it is, sir. 
 
 Leon. What is it, my good friends ? 
 
 Dogb. Goodman Verjuice, sir, speaks a little off the 
 
 matter : 
 
 An old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt, 
 As, God help, I w r ould desire they were ; but, in faith, 
 Honest as the skin between his brows. 
 
 Verj. Yes, I thank God, 
 
 I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man, 
 And none honester than I, 
 
 Dogb. Comparisons are odorous : palalras, 
 
 Neighbour Verjuice. 
 
 Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious, 
 
 Dogb. 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 in my heart to bestow it all of your worship. 
 
 Leon. All thy 
 
 Tediousness on me, ha ? 
 
 Dogl. 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. 
 
56 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT III. 
 
 Verj. And so am I. 
 
 Leon. I would fain know what you have to say. 
 
 Verj. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your 
 
 worship's presence, 
 
 Have ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina. 
 Dogb. A good old man, sir ; he will be talking : 
 
 As they say, when the age is in, 
 The wit is out. God help us ! it is a world to see ! 
 Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verjuice ! 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. 
 Dogb. Gifts, that God gives. 
 Leon. I must leave you. 
 
 Dogb. One word, sir ; our watch, sir, 
 
 Hath indeed comprehended 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. 
 Dogb. 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. 
 
 Leon. I will wait upon them ; I am ready. 
 
 [Exeunt LEONATO and MESSENGER. 
 
 Dogb. Go, good partner, go ; get you to Francis Seacoal. 
 Bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol : we are now 
 
SCENE V.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 57 
 
 To examination these men. 
 
 Verj. And we must do it wisely. 
 
 Dogl). We will spare for no wit, I warrant you ; here's 
 
 that 
 
 Shall drive some of them to a non com : only get 
 The learned writer to set down our excommunication, 
 
 And meet me at the gaol. 
 [Exeunt. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [Ad 1 IV. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. TJie Inside of a Church. 
 
 Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS, 
 CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, and others. 
 
 Leonato. 
 JOME, 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 the 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. 
 
 Claud. 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 ! 
 
 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 ? 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 59 
 
 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 ! 
 0, 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. Not to be married ; not to knit my soul 
 
 To an approved wanton. 
 
 Leon. Dear my lord, 
 
 If you in your own proof 
 
 Have vanquished 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, 
 As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown ; 
 But you are more intemperate in your blood 
 Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals 
 That rage in savage sensuality. 
 
 Hero. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide ? 
 
60 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 
 
 Leon. Sweet prince, why speak not you ? 
 
 D. Pedro. What should I speak ? 
 
 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. True 10 God ! 
 
 Claud. Leonato, stand I here ? 
 
 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 catechizing call you this ? 
 
 Claud. To make you answer truly to your name. 
 
 Hero. Is it not Hero ? Who can blot that name 
 With any just reproach ? 
 
 Claud. Marry, that can Hero : 
 
 Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue. 
 What man was he talk'd with you yesternight 
 Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one ? 
 Now, if you are a maid, answer to this. 
 
 Hero. I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord. 
 
 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, 
 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. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 61 
 
 D. John. Fie, fie ! they are not to be nam'd, my lord ; 
 
 Not to be spoken of ; 
 There is not chastity enough in language, 
 Without offence, to utter them. Thus, pretty lady, 
 I am sorry for thy much misgovernment. 
 
 Claud. 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 ? 
 
 [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 
 The story that is printed in her blood ? 
 Do not live, Hero ; do not not ope thine eyes : 
 For did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, 
 Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, 
 
62 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 
 
 Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, 
 Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one ? 
 Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame ? 
 0, 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 lov'd, and mine I prais'd, 
 And mine that I was proud on ; mine so much 
 That I myself was to myself not mine, 
 Valuing of her ; why, she 0, 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 attir'd in wonder, 
 I know not what to say. 
 
 Beat. 0, 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 ! 0, that is stronger made, 
 Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron ! 
 Would the two princes lie ? and Claudio lie, 
 Who lov'd 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 been silent so long, 
 And given way unto this course of fortune, 
 By noting of the lady : I have mark'd 
 A thousand blushing apparitions start 
 Into her face ; a thousand innocent shames 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 63 
 
 In angel whiteness beat away those blushes ; 
 And in her eyes 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 observation, 
 Which with experimental seal doth warrant 
 The tenor of my book ; trust not my age, 
 My reverence, calling, nor divinity, 
 If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here 
 Under some biting error. 
 
 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 accus'd of ? 
 
 Hero. They know, that do accuse me ; I know none. 
 If I know more of any man alive, 
 Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant, 
 Let all my sins lack mercy ! O, my father ! 
 Prove you that any man with me convers'd 
 At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight 
 Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, 
 Eefuse 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 wisdom be misled in this, 
 The practice of it lives in John the bastard, 
 Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies. 
 
 Leon. I know not. If they speak but truth of her, 
 These hands shall tear her ; if they wrong her honour, 
 The proudest of them shall well hear of it. 
 Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, 
 Nor age so eat up my invention, 
 Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, 
 
64 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 
 
 Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, 
 But they shall find, awak'd in such a cause, 
 Both strength of limb, and policy of mind, 
 Ability in means, and choice of friends, 
 To quit me of them thoroughly. 
 
 Friar. Pause a while, 
 
 And let my counsel sway you in this case. 
 Your daughter, here, the princes left for dead : 
 Let her awhile be secretly kept in, 
 And publish it that she is dead indeed ; 
 Maintain a mourning ostentation ; 
 And on your family's old monument 
 Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites 
 That appertain unto a burial. 
 
 Leon. What shall become of this ? What will this do ? 
 
 Friar. Marry, this, well carried, shall on her behalf 
 Change slander to remorse ; that is some good : 
 But not for that dream I on this strange course, 
 But on this travail look for greater birth. 
 She dying, as it must be so maintain'd, 
 Upon the instant that she was accus'd, 
 Shall be lamented, pitied, and excused, 
 Of every hearer : for it so falls out, 
 That what we have we prize not to the worth, 
 Whiles we enjoy it ; but being lack'd and lost, 
 Why, then we rack the value, then we find 
 The virtue, that possession would not show us 
 Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio : 
 When he shall hear she died upon his words, 
 The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
 Into his study of imagination ; 
 And every lovely organ of her life 
 Shall come apparell'd into more precious habit, 
 More moving, delicate, and full of life, 
 Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
 Than when she liv'd indeed : then shall he mourn, 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 65 
 
 (If ever love had interest in his liver) 
 And wish he had not so accused her ; 
 No, though he thought his accusation true; 
 Let this be so, and doubt not but success 
 Will fashion the event in better shape 
 Than I can lay it down in likelihood. 
 But if all aim but this be levell'd false* 
 The supposition of the lady's death 
 Will quench the wonder of her infamy ; 
 And, if it sort not well, you may conceal her 
 (As best befits her wounded reputation) 
 In some reclusive and religious life, 
 Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries. 
 
 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. 
 
 [Exeunt FRIAR, HERO, and LEONATO. 
 
 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. 
 
 Beat. Ah ! how much might the man deserve of me, 
 That would right her ! 
 
 Bene. Is there any way to show sach friendship ? 
 
 F 
 
66 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV' 
 
 Seat. A very even way, but no such friend. 
 
 Bene. May a man do it ? 
 
 Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours. 
 
 Bene. I do love nothing in the world so well 
 As you ; is not that strange ? 
 
 Beat. As strange as a 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 niy cousin. 
 
 Bene. By my sword, 
 
 Beatrice, thou lovest me. 
 
 Beat. Do not swear by it and eat it. 
 
 Bene. I will swear by it that thou love me ; and I will 
 Make him eat it, that says, I love you not. 
 
 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 staid me in a happy hour ; I was about 
 To protest I loved you* 
 
 Bene. And do it with all thy heart. 
 
 Beat. I love thee with so much of my heart, that none 
 Is left to protest. 
 
 Bene. Come, bid me do anything for thee. 
 
 Beat. Kill Claudio. 
 
 Bern. 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 i- 
 , I pray you, let me go. 
 
 Bene. Beatrice, 
 
 Beat. In faith, I will c'o. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 67 
 
 Bene. We'll be friends first. 
 
 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 ? 0, that I were a man ! 
 What ! bear her in hand until they came 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 ; 
 
 Beat. Talk with a man out of a window ! a proper saying ! 
 
 Bene. Nay, but Beatrice ; 
 
 Beat. Sweet Hero ! 
 
 She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone. 
 
 Bene, Beat 
 
 Beat. Princes and counties ! Surely a princely testimony, 
 A goodly Count, Count Confect ; a sweet gallant, 
 Surely ! that I were a man for his sake 1 
 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. 
 
 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 leave you. By this hand, 
 Claudio shall render me a dear account. 
 
G8 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 
 
 As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your 
 
 cousin ; 
 I must say she is dead ; and so farewell. 
 
 SCENE II. A Prison. 
 
 Enter DOGBERRY, VERJUICE, and SEXTON, in gowns ; and 
 the WATCH with CONRADE and BORACHIO. 
 
 Dogb. Is our whole dissembly appeared ? 
 
 Verj. 0, a stool and a cushion for the sexton ! 
 
 Sexton. Which be the malefactors ? 
 
 Dogb, Marry, that am I and my partner. 
 
 Verj. Nay, that's certain ; we have the exhibition to 
 examine. 
 
 Sexton. But which are the offenders that are to be 
 
 examined ? 
 Let them come before master constable. 
 
 Dogb. Yea, marry ; 
 
 Let them come before me. What is your name, friend ? 
 
 Bora. Borachio. 
 
 Dogb. Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah ? 
 
 Con. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade. 
 
 Dogb, Write down master gentleman Conrade. 
 
 Masters, 
 Do you serve God ? 
 
 Con. Bora. Yes, sir, we hope; 
 
 Dogb. 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. 
 
 Dogl. A marvellous 
 
SCENE II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 60 
 
 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 
 
 It is thought you are false knaves. 
 
 Bora. Sir, I say to you, we are none. 
 
 Dogb. Well, stand aside, 'Fore God, they are both in a 
 tale. 
 
 Have you writ down that they are none ? 
 Sexton. Master constable, you go not the way to 
 
 examine ; 
 
 You must call forth the watch that are their accusers. 
 Dogb. Yea, marry, that's the eftest way : Let the watch 
 
 come forth. 
 Masters, I charge you, in the prince's name, accuse these 
 
 men. 
 Seacoal. This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince's 
 
 brother, 
 Was a villain. 
 
 Dogb. Write down Prince John a villain.-^Why this is 
 Flat perjury, to call a prince's brother villain. 
 
 Bora. Master constable, 
 
 Dogb. Pray thee, fellow, peace ; I do not like thy look, 
 I promise thee, 
 
 Sexton. What heard you him say else ? 
 
 Seacoal. Marry, that h 
 
 Had received a thousand ducats of Don John, 
 For accusing the lady Hero wrongfully. 
 
 Dogb. Flat burglary, as ever was committed. 
 Verj. Yea, by the mass, that it is. 
 
 Sexton, What else, fellow ? 
 
 Seacoal. And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his 
 
 words, 
 
 To disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and 
 Not marry her. 
 
 Dogb. villain ! thou wilt be condemned 
 
 Into everlasting redemption for this. 
 
70 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 
 
 Sexton. What else ? 
 
 Seacoal. This is all. 
 
 Sexton. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. 
 Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away ; 
 Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner 
 
 refused, 
 
 And upon the grief of this suddenly died. Master con- 
 stable, 
 
 Let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato's ; 
 I will go before, and show him their examination. [Exit. 
 Dogb, Come, let them be opinioned. 
 
 Verj. Let them be in the 
 
 Con, Hands off ! coxcomb ! 
 
 Dogl. God's my life ! where 's the sexton ? let him write 
 
 down 
 The princes officer, coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou 
 
 naughty varlet ! 
 
 Con, Away ! you are an ass, you are an ass. 
 Dogb, Dost thou not suspect 
 
 My place ? Dost thou not* suspect my years ? 0, that he 
 
 were here 
 
 To write me down an ass ! but masters, remember 
 That I am an ass ; though it be not written down, yet for- 
 get 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 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 everything handsome about him. 
 Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 71 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 SCENE I. Before, LEONATO'S House. 
 Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO. 
 
 Antonio. 
 
 F 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 lov'd 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 ; 
 Cry sorrow, wag ! and 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. 
 
72 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 pish 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. 
 
 Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO. 
 
 Ant. Here come the prince and Claudio hastily. 
 
 D. Pedro. Good den, good den. 
 
 Claud. Good day to both of you. 
 
 Leon. Hear you, my lords, 
 
 D. Pedro. We have some haste, Leonato. 
 
 Leon. Some haste, my lord; well, fare you well, my 
 
 lord :- 
 Are you so hasty now ? welj, all is one. 
 
 D. Pedro. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. 
 
 Ant. If he could right himself with quarrelling, 
 
 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. 
 
SCENE L] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 73 
 
 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 f Know, Claudio, to thy head, 
 Thou hast so wrong'd my innocent child and me, 
 That I am forc'd 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 has gone through and through her heart, 
 And she lies buried with her ancestors, 
 ! in a tomb where never scandal slept, 
 Save this of hers fram'd by thy villainy. 
 Claud. My villainy ! 
 
 Leon. Thine, Claudio ; thine, I say. 
 
 D. Pedro. You say not right, old man. 
 Leon. My lord, my lord, 
 
 I'll prove it on his body, if he dare ; 
 Despite his nice fence, and his active practice, 
 His May of youth, and bloom of lustyhood. 
 
 Claud. Away ! I will not have to do with you. 
 Leon. Canst thou so daff me ? Thou hast kill'd my child ; 
 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 gentlemen, I will. 
 
 Leon. Brother, 
 
 Ant. Content yourself : God knows, I lov'd my niece ; 
 And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains ; 
 
74 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [Ad V. 
 
 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, outfacing, fashion-mong'ring boys, 
 That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander, 
 Go anticly, and 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. Come, 'tis no matter ; 
 
 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 charg'd 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. 
 
 Enter BENEDICK. 
 
 D. Pedro. See, see ; here comes the man we went to seek. 
 
 Claud. Now, signior, 
 
 What news ? 
 
 Bene. Good day, my lord. 
 
 D. Pedro. Welcome, signior : you 
 
 Are almost come to part almost a fray. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 75 
 
 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 you both. 
 
 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 did any so ; 
 
 Though very many have been beside their wit. 
 I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels ; draw 
 To pleasure us. 
 
 D. Pedro. As I am an honest man, 
 
 He looks pale. Art thou sick or angry ? 
 
 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 good word in your ear ? [ Whispers him. 
 
 Claud. God bless me from a challenge ! 
 
 Bene. You are a villain ; I jest not : I will make it 
 good 
 
76 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V 
 
 How you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. 
 Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. 
 You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall 
 Fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you. 
 
 Claud. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. 
 
 D. Pedro. What, a feast ? a feast ? 
 
 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," says she, 
 " A fine little one." '" No," said I, " a great wit ; " 
 " Eight," says she, " a great gross one." " Nay," said I, 
 " A good wit ;" " Just," says she, "it hurts nobody/' 
 "Nay," said I, "the gentleman is wise;" "Certain," 
 
 said she, 
 " A wise gentleman." <f Nay," said I, " he hath the 
 
 tongues;" 
 
 " That I believe/' said she, " for he swore a thing to me on 
 Monday night which he forswore on Tuesday morning ; 
 There's a double tongue; there's two tongues." Thus did 
 
 she, 
 
 An hour together, trans-shape thy particular virtues ; 
 Yet at last, she concluded with a sigh, thou wast 
 The properest man in Italy. 
 
 Claud, For the which 
 
 She wept heartily, and said she cared not. 
 
 D. Pedro. Yea, 
 
 That she did ; but yet, for all that, an if 
 She did not hate him deadly she would love him 
 Dearly : the old man's daughter told us all. 
 
 Claud. All, all ; and moreover, God saw him when he 
 
 Was hid in the garden. 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 77 
 
 D. Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on 
 The sensible Benedick's head ? 
 
 Claud. Yea, and the text 
 
 Underneath, " Here dwells Benedick, the married man." 
 
 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 discontinue your company : your brother, the 
 
 bastard, 
 
 Is fled from Messina : you have among you killed 
 A sweet and innocent lady : for my lord Lackbeard there, 
 He and I shall meet ; and till then, peace be with him. 
 
 [Exit BENEDICK. 
 
 D. Pedro. He is in earnest, 
 
 Claud. In most profound earnest ; and 
 
 I'll warrant you for the love of Beatrice. 
 
 D. Pedro. And hath challenged thee. 
 
 Claud. Most sincerely. 
 
 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, VERJUICE, and the WATCH, with 
 CONRADE and BORACHIO bound. 
 
 Dogb. Come you, sir ; if justice cannot tame you, 
 
 She shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance. 
 
78 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 D. Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done ? 
 
 Dogb. Marry, sir, they have committed false report ; 
 Moreover, they have spoken untruths ; 
 Secondarily, they are slanders ; 
 Sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady ; 
 Thirdly, they have verified unjust things ; 
 And, to conclude, they are lying knaves. 
 
 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. 
 
 Claud. Kightly reasoned, and in his own division ; 
 And, by my troth, there's one meaning well suited. 
 
 D. Pedro. Whom 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 ? 
 
 Bora. Sweet prince, let me go no further to mine answer : 
 Do you hear me, and let this Count kill me. 
 I have deceived even your very eyes : 
 What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools 
 Have brought to light ; who in the night overheard me 
 Confessing to this man, how Don John, your brother, 
 Incensed me to slander the lady Hero ; how you 
 Were brought into the orchard, and saw me court Margaret 
 In Hero's garments ; how you disgraced her when you 
 Should marry her : my villainy they have upon record, 
 Which I had rather seal with my death, than repeat 
 Over to my shame : the lady is dead upon mine 
 And my master's false accusation; and briefly 
 
SCENE I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 79 
 
 I desire nothing but the reward of a villain. 
 
 D. Pedro. Kims not this speech like iron through your 
 blood ? 
 
 Claud. I have drunk poison, whiles he uttered 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 this villainy. 
 
 Claud. Sweet Hero ! now thy image doth appear 
 In the rare semblance that I loved it first. 
 
 Dogb. 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. 
 
 Verj. Here, here comes 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. 
 
 Leon. Art thou the slave, that with thy breatli hast kill'd 
 Mine 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 ; 
 Kecord 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 sm : yet sinn'cl I not, 
 But in mistaking. 
 
80 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 
 
 D. Pedro. By my soul, nor I ; 
 
 And yet, to satisfy this good old man, 
 I would bend under any heavy weight 
 That he'll enjoin me to. 
 
 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. 0, noble sir ! 
 
 Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me ? 
 I do embrace your offer ; and dispose 
 For henceforth of poor Claudio. 
 
 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 pact in all this wrong, 
 ttir'd 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 anything that I do know by her. 
 
 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 
 
SCENE IL] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 81 
 
 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. 
 Dogb. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and 
 
 reverend 
 Youth ; and I praise God for you. 
 
 Leon. There's for thy pains. 
 
 Dogb. God save the foundation ! 
 
 Leon. Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank 
 
 thee. 
 
 Dogb. I leave an arrant knave with your worship ; which 
 I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the 
 Ex ample of others. God keep your worship ! I wish 
 Your worship well ; God restore you to health ! I humbly 
 Give you leave to depart ; and if a merry meeting 
 May be wished, God prohibit it ! Come, neighbour. 
 
 [Exeunt DOGBERRY, VERJUICE, and WATCH. 
 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. 
 
 [Exeunt DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO. 
 
 Leon. Bring you these fellows on ; we'll talk with 
 
 Margaret, 
 How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 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. 
 
82 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 
 
 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 them below stairs ? 
 
 Bene. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's 
 
 Mouth, it catches. 
 
 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. 
 
 Marg. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who 
 I think hath legs. 
 
 Bene. And therefore will come. 
 
 [Exit MARGARET. 
 [Singing.] The god of love 
 
 That sits above 
 And knows me, and knows me, 
 
 How pitiful I deserve, 
 I mean in singing ; but in loving, 
 Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first 
 Employer of panders, and a whole book-full 
 Of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet 
 Eun 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 ; 
 
SCENE II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 83 
 
 For "scorn," " horn/' a hard rhyme; for "school," "fool," 
 A baubling rhyme ; very ominous endings : no, 
 I was not born under a rhyming planet, 
 Nor I cannot woo in festival terms. 
 
 Enter BEATRICE. 
 
 Sweet Beatrice, 
 Wouldst thou come when I called thee ? 
 
 Beat. Yea, signior, 
 
 A.nd depart when you bid me, 
 
 Bene. 0, stay but till then ! 
 
 Beat. "Then" 
 
 Is spoken ; fare you well now : and yet, ere I go, 
 Let me go with that I canie for ; which is, with knowing 
 What hath passed between you and Claudio. 
 
 Bene. Only foul words ; and thereupon I will kiss you. 
 
 Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is 
 But foul breath, and foul breath is noisome ; therefore 
 I will depart unkissed. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 
 
 Bene. Thou and I are too wise to love peaceably. 
 
 Beat. It appears not by 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 the 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 ? 
 
 Bene. Question ! 
 
 Why an hour in clamour, and a quarter in rheum : 
 Therefore it is 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. 
 
 UTS. Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder'sold 
 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.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 85 
 
 SCENE III. The Inside of a Church. 
 Enter DON PEDKO, CLAUDIO, and ATTENDANTS, with 
 
 Music and Tapers. 
 
 Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato ? 
 Atten. It is, my lord, 
 
 Claud. [Beads from a scroll.'] 
 
 Done to death ~by slanderous tongues 
 
 Was the Hero that here lies : 
 Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, 
 
 Gives her fame which never dies. 
 So the life, that died with shame, 
 Lives in death with glorious fame. 
 Hang thou there upon the tomb, 
 
 [Affixing the scroll. 
 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 ! 
 Till death be uttered, 
 Graves yawn, and yield your dead, 
 
 Heavenly, heavenly. 
 Claud. Now, unto thy bones good-night ! 
 
 Yearly, will I do this rite. 
 
 D. Pedro. Good-morrow, masters ; put your torches out : 
 The wolves have prey'd ; and look, the gentle day, 
 Before the wheels of Phcebus, round about 
 
 Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey. 
 Thanks to you all, and leave us ; fare you well. 
 
 Claud. Good-morrow, masters ; each his several way, 
 
86 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [Ad V. 
 
 D. Pedro. Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds ; 
 And then to Leonato's we will go. 
 
 Claud. And, Hymen, now with luckier issue speeds, 
 Than this, for whom we render'd up this woe ! 
 
 [Exeunt, 
 
 SCENE IV. A Room in LEONATO'S House. 
 
 Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, MARGARET, 
 URSULA, FRIAR, and HERO. 
 
 Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent ? 
 
 Leon. So are the prince and Claudio, who accus'd 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 enforc'd 
 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 masked : 
 The prince and Claudio promis'd 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. [Exeunt ladies. 
 
 Ant. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. 
 
 Bene. Friar; I must entreat your pains, I think. 
 
 Friar. 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. 
 
 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 ? 
 
SCENE IV.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 87 
 
 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 estate of honourable marriage ; 
 In which, good friar, I shall desire your help. 
 
 Leon. My heart is with your liking. 
 
 Friar. And my help. 
 
 Here come the prince and Claudio. 
 
 Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, with Attendants. 
 
 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 Ethiop. 
 
 Leon. Call her forth, brother, here's the friar ready. 
 
 [Exit ANTONIO. 
 
 D. Pedro. Good-morrow, Benedick. Why what's the 
 
 matter, 
 
 That you have such a February face, 
 So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness ? 
 
 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. 
 
 Ee-enter ANTONIO, with the ladies masked. 
 Claud. For this I owe you : here come other reckonings. 
 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 : Sweet, let me see your 
 face. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 defil'd"; 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. \Unmaskiny.] I answer to that name. What is 
 your will ? 
 
 Bene. Do not you love me ? 
 
 Beat. Why, no ; no more than reason. 
 
 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, 
 
SCENE IV.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 89 
 
 A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, 
 Fashion'd to Beatrice. 
 
 Hero. And here's another 
 
 Writ in my cousin's hand, stol'n from her pocket, 
 Containing her affection unto Benedick. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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 purpose to 
 Marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that 
 The world can say against it ; and therefore never 
 Flout at me for what I have said against it ; for 
 Man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. 
 For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee ; 
 But in that thou art like to be my kinsman, 
 Live unbruised, and love my cousin. 
 
 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, 
 
90 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 And our wives' heels. 
 
 Leon. We'll have dancing afterward. 
 
 Bern. First, o' 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. 
 
 Bene. Think not on him till to-morrow ; I'll devise thee 
 Brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers ! 
 
 [Dance. Exeunt. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 THE single quarto edition of " Much Ado about Nothing " was 
 entered in the Stationers' Eegister in August, 1600 ; the play is 
 not included in the enumeration of the poet's works by Meres in 
 1598, and we are thus led to the very probable inference that it was 
 first produced in the intermediate twelvemonth in Shakespeare's 
 35th year. 
 
 This quarto is the primary authority for the text ; the printers 
 of the folio of 1623 are convicted of having used it, and carelessly 
 enough, by their reproduction of its press errors some score they 
 added at least thirty more of their own. In moderate compen- 
 sation, they plausibly inserted two monosyllables in a line of 
 Beatrice (IV, 1) 
 
 " Do not swear by it, and eat it," 
 
 substituted, as plausibly, "heavenly, heavenly," for "heavily, 
 heavily," as the last line of the dirge (V, 3) ; and, guided by rhyme, 
 restored the word dumb a few lines above, in place of the usurping 
 and impossible dead. 
 
 The not unsatisfactory division of Acts appears first in the folio. 
 
 The variations from the text of the quarto for which I have 
 assumed responsibility are the following : 
 
 For the impossible reading (II, 1) 
 
 " It is the base though bitter disposition of Beatrice " 
 I substitute, " It is nought but the," &c. An accidental transposition 
 "It is the but nought" would very easily induce a clumsy 
 attempt at correction, producing the nonsense which we have to 
 rnend as we can. 
 
 I transpose the lines of the dirge 
 " Till death be uttered 
 
 Graves yawn and yield their dead," 
 
 as an improvement at least on the unintelligible ; but I withhold 
 from substituting "your dead," for "their dead." 
 
 It is also with some effort that I abstain from printing Don 
 Pedro's protest against a wordy preamble (I, 1) 
 
 " Thou wilt be like a lawyer presently, 
 And tire the hearer with a book of words." 
 
 In reading cause for kind (IV, 1), I adopt a suggestion which 
 Collier only made to renounce in making it. 
 
 In other cases my judgment as to corrections or corruptions by 
 previous editors will be sufficiently indicated to the critics of text 
 by the readings which, after full consideration always, I do or do 
 not adopt. 
 
LONDON : 
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14 DAY USF 
 
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 LOAN DEPT. 
 
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 are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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 LD 21A-50m-ll '62 
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 .General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
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