MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Act 2 Scene 1

(Enter Leonato, Antonio his brother, Hero his daughter, Beatrice his niece, Margaret, and Ursula)
l1l	Leonato	 Was not Count John here at supper?
l2l	Antonio	I saw him not.
l3l	Beatrice	How tartly that gentleman looks. I never can
l4l		see him but I am heartburned an hour after.
l5l	Hero	He is of a very melancholy disposition.
l6l	Beatrice	He were an excellent man that were made just
l7l		in the midway between him and Benedick. The one is
l8l		too like an image and says nothing, and the other too
l9l		like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.
l10l	Leonato	Then half Signor Benedick’s tongue in Count
l11l		John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in
l12l		Signor Benedick’s face—
l13l	Beatrice	With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and
l14l		money enough in his purse—such a man would win
l15l		any woman in the world, if a could get her good will.
l16l	Leonato	By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a
l17l		husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
l18l	Antonio	In faith, she’s too curst.
l19l	Beatrice	Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God’s
l20l		sending that way, for it is said God sends a curst cow
l21l		short horns, but to a cow too curst he sends none.
l22l	Leonato	So, by being too curst, God will send you no
l23l		horns.
l24l	Beatrice	Just, if he send me no husband, for the which
l25l		blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning
l26l		and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with
l27l		a beard on his face. I had rather lie in the woollen.
l28l	Leonato	You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
l29l	Beatrice	What should I do with him—dress him in my
l30l		apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He
l31l		that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that
l32l		hath no beard is less than a man# and he that is more
l33l		than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a
l34l		man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take
l35l		sixpence in earnest of the bearherd and lead his apes
l36l		into hell.
l37l	Leonato	Well then, go you into hell?
l38l	Beatrice	No, but to the gate, and there will the devil
l39l		meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head,
l40l		and say, “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to
l41l		heaven. Here’s no place for you maids.” So deliver I up
l42l		my apes and away to Saint Peter fore the heavens. He
l43l		shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we
l44l		as merry as the day is long.
l45l	Antonio	(to Hero)
		 Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled
l46l		by your father.
l47l	Beatrice	Yes, faith, it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy
l48l		and say, “Father, as it please you.” But yet for all that,
l49l		cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make
l50l		another curtsy and say, “Father, as it please me.”
l51l	Leonato	Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted
l52l		with a husband.
l53l	Beatrice	Not till God make men of some other mettle
l54l		than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be
l55l		overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?—to make
l56l		an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No,
l57l		uncle, I’ll none. Adam’s sons are my brethren, and
l58l		truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
l59l	Leonato	(to Hero)
		 Daughter, remember what I told you.
l60l		If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your
l61l		answer.
l62l	Beatrice	The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be
l63l		not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too important,
l64l		tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance
l65l		out the answer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding,
l66l		and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a
l67l		cinquepace. The first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch
l68l		jig—and full as fantastical# the wedding mannerly
l69l		modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry. And
l70l		then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into
l71l		the cinquepace faster and faster till he sink into his
l72l		grave.
l73l	Leonato	Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
l74l	Beatrice	I have a good eye, uncle. I can see a church by
l75l		daylight.
l76l	Leonato	The revellers are entering, brother. Make good
l77l		room.
		(Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar, all masked, Don John, and Borachio, with a drummer)
l78l	Don Pedro	(to Hero)
		 Lady, will you walk a bout with your
l79l		friend?
l80l	Hero	So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say
l81l		nothing, I am yours for the walk# and especially when
l82l		I walk away.
l83l	Don Pedro	With me in your company?
l84l	Hero	I may say so when I please.
l85l	Don Pedro	And when please you to say so?
l86l	Hero	When I like your favour# for God defend the lute
l87l		should be like the case.
l88l	Don Pedro	 My visor is Philemon’s roof. Within the house is Jove.
l89l	Hero	Why, then, your visor should be thatched.
	Don Pedro	Speak low if you speak love.
		(They move aside)
l90l	[Balthasar]	(to Margaret)
		 Well, I would you did like me.
l91l	Margaret	So would not I, for your own sake, for I have
l92l		many ill qualities.
l93l	[Balthasar]	Which is one?
l94l	Margaret	I say my prayers aloud.
l95l	[Balthasar]	I love you the better—the hearers may cry
l96l		amen.
l97l	Margaret	God match me with a good dancer.
l98l	Balthasar	Amen.
l99l	Margaret	And God keep him out of my sight when the
l100l		dance is done. Answer, clerk.
l101l	Balthasar	No more words. The clerk is answered.
		(They move aside)
l102l	Ursula	(to Antonio)
		 I know you well enough, you are
l103l		Signor Antonio.
l104l	Antonio	At a word, I am not.
l105l	Ursula	I know you by the waggling of your head.
l106l	Antonio	To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
l107l	Ursula	You could never do him so ill-well unless you
l108l		were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down.
l109l		You are he, you are he.
l110l	Antonio	At a word, I am not.
l111l	Ursula	Come, come, do you think I do not know you by
l112l		your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum,
l113l		you are he. Graces will appear, and there’s an end.
		(They move aside)
l114l	Beatrice	(to Benedick)
		 Will you not tell me who told you
l115l		so?
l116l	Benedick	No, you shall pardon me.
l117l	Beatrice	Nor will you not tell me who you are?
l118l	Benedick	Not now.
l119l	Beatrice	That I was disdainful, and that I had my good
l120l		wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales—well, this was
l121l		Signor Benedick that said so.
l122l	Benedick	What’s he?
l123l	Beatrice	I am sure you know him well enough.
l124l	Benedick	Not I, believe me.
l125l	Beatrice	Did he never make you laugh?
l126l	Benedick	I pray you, what is he?
l127l	Beatrice	Why, he is the Prince’s jester, a very dull fool.
l128l		Only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None
l129l		but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is
l130l		not in his wit but in his villainy, for he both pleases
l131l		men and angers them, and then they laugh at him,
l132l		and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he
l133l		had boarded me.
l134l	Benedick	When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what
l135l		you say.
l136l	Beatrice	Do, do. He’ll but break a comparison or two on
l137l		me, which peradventure not marked, or not laughed
l138l		at, strikes him into melancholy, and then there’s a
l139l		partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper
l140l		that night.
		(Music)
l141l		We must follow the leaders.
l142l	Benedick	In every good thing.
l143l	Beatrice	Nay, if they lead to any ill I will leave them at
l144l		the next turning.
		(Dance. Exeunt all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio)
l145l	Don John	(aside to Borachio)
		 Sure my brother is amorous
l146l		on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with
l147l		him about it. The ladies follow her, and but one visor
l148l		remains.
l149l	Borachio	(aside to Don John)
		 And that is Claudio. I know
l150l		him by his bearing.
l151l	Don John	Are not you Signor Benedick?
l152l	Claudio	You know me well. I am he.
l153l	Don John	Signor, you are very near my brother in his
l154l		love. He is enamoured on Hero. I pray you dissuade
l155l		him from her. She is no equal for his birth. You may
l156l		do the part of an honest man in it.
l157l	Claudio	How know you he loves her?
l158l	Don John	I heard him swear his affection.
l159l	Borachio	So did I, too, and he swore he would marry
l160l		her tonight.
l161l	Don John	Come, let us to the banquet.
		(Exeunt all but Claudio)
l162l	Claudio	 Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
l163l		But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
l164l		’Tis certain so, the Prince woos for himself.
l165l		Friendship is constant in all other things
l166l		Save in the office and affairs of love.
l167l		Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
l168l		Let every eye negotiate for itself,
l169l		And trust no agent# for beauty is a witch
l170l		Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
l171l		This is an accident of hourly proof,
l172l		Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero.
		(Enter Benedick)
l173l	Benedick	 Count Claudio?
l174l	Claudio	Yea, the same.
l175l	Benedick	Come, will you go with me?
l176l	Claudio	Whither?
l177l	Benedick	Even to the next willow, about your own
l178l		business, County. What fashion will you wear the
l179l		garland of? About your neck, like an usurer’s chain?
l180l		Or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must
l181l		wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.
l182l	Claudio	I wish him joy of her.
l183l	Benedick	Why, that’s spoken like an honest drover# so
l184l		they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would
l185l		have served you thus?
l186l	Claudio	I pray you leave me.
l187l	Benedick	Ho, now you strike like the blind man—’twas
l188l		the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.
l189l	Claudio	If it will not be, I’ll leave you.
		(Exit)
l190l	Benedick	 Alas, poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into
l191l		sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know me,
l192l		and not know me! The Prince’s fool! Ha, it may be I
l193l		go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I
l194l		am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is
l195l		the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice that puts
l196l		the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well,
l197l		I’ll be revenged as I may.
		(Enter Don Pedro the Prince)
l198l	Don Pedro	 Now, signor, where’s the Count? Did you see
l199l		him?
l200l	Benedick	Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady
l201l		Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a
l202l		warren. I told him—and I think I told him true—that
l203l		your grace had got the good will of this young lady,
l204l		and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either
l205l		to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind
l206l		him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.
l207l	Don Pedro	To be whipped—what’s his fault?
l208l	Benedick	The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being
l209l		overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his
l210l		companion, and he steals it.
l211l	Don Pedro	Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The
l212l		transgression is in the stealer.
l213l	Benedick	Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been
l214l		made, and the garland too, for the garland he might
l215l		have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed
l216l		on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest.
l217l	Don Pedro	I will but teach them to sing, and restore them
l218l		to the owner.
l219l	Benedick	If their singing answer your saying, by my faith
l220l		you say honestly.
l221l	Don Pedro	The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The
l222l		gentleman that danced with her told her she is much
l223l		wronged by you.
l224l	Benedick	O, she misused me past the endurance of a
l225l		block. An oak but with one green leaf on it would have
l226l		answered her. My very visor began to assume life and
l227l		scold with her. She told me—not thinking I had been
l228l		myself—that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was duller
l229l		than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest with such
l230l		impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man
l231l		at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She
l232l		speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath
l233l		were as terrible as her terminations, there were no
l234l		living near her, she would infect to the North Star. I
l235l		would not marry her though she were endowed with
l236l		all that Adam had left him before he transgressed. She
l237l		would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and
l238l		have cleft his club to make the fire, too. Come, talk not
l239l		of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good
l240l		apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure
l241l		her, for certainly, while she is here a man may live as
l242l		quiet in hell as in a sanctuary, and people sin upon
l243l		purpose because they would go thither, so indeed all
l244l		disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.
		(Enter Claudio and Beatrice, and Leonato with Hero)
l245l	Don Pedro	 Look, here she comes.
l246l	Benedick	Will your grace command me any service to
l247l		the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now
l248l		to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I
l249l		will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the furthest
l250l		inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John’s
l251l		foot, fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard, do
l252l		you any embassage to the pigmies, rather than hold
l253l		three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no
l254l		employment for me?
l255l	Don Pedro	None but to desire your good company.
l256l	Benedick	O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not. I cannot
l257l		endure my Lady Tongue.
		(Exit)
l258l	Don Pedro	 Come, lady, come, you have lost the heart of
l259l		Signor Benedick.
l260l	Beatrice	Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while, and I
l261l		gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one.
l262l		Marry, once before he won it of me, with false dice.
l263l		Therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.
l264l	Don Pedro	You have put him down, lady, you have put
l265l		him down.
l266l	Beatrice	So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest
l267l		I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought
l268l		Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
l269l	Don Pedro	Why, how now, Count, wherefore are you
l270l		sad?
l271l	Claudio	Not sad, my lord.
l272l	Don Pedro	How then? Sick?
l273l	Claudio	Neither, my lord.
l274l	Beatrice	The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry,
l275l		nor well, but civil count, civil as an orange, and
l276l		something of that jealous complexion.
l277l	Don Pedro	I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true,
l278l		though I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false.
l279l		Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair
l280l		Hero is won. I have broke with her father and his good
l281l		will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give
l282l		thee joy.
l283l	Leonato	Count, take of me my daughter, and with her
l284l		my fortunes. His grace hath made the match, and all
l285l		grace say amen to it.
l286l	Beatrice	Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.
l287l	Claudio	Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but
l288l		little happy if I could say how much.
		(To Hero)
		 Lady,
l289l		as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for
l290l		you, and dote upon the exchange.
l291l	Beatrice	(to Hero)
		 Speak, cousin. Or, if you cannot, stop
l292l		his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak, neither.
l293l	Don Pedro	In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
l294l	Beatrice	Yea, my lord, I thank it. Poor fool, it keeps on
l295l		the windy side of care.—My cousin tells him in his ear
l296l		that he is in her heart.
l297l	Claudio	And so she doth, cousin.
l298l	Beatrice	Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to
l299l		the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a
l300l		corner and cry “Heigh-ho for a husband”.
l301l	Don Pedro	Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
l302l	Beatrice	I would rather have one of your father’s getting.
l303l		Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father
l304l		got excellent husbands if a maid could come by them.
l305l	Don Pedro	Will you have me, lady?
l306l	Beatrice	No, my lord, unless I might have another for
l307l		working days. Your grace is too costly to wear every
l308l		day. But I beseech your grace, pardon me. I was born
l309l		to speak all mirth and no matter.
l310l	Don Pedro	Your silence most offends me, and to be merry
l311l		best becomes you# for out o’ question, you were born
l312l		in a merry hour.
l313l	Beatrice	No, sure, my lord, my mother cried. But then
l314l		there was a star danced, and under that was I born.
l315l		(To Hero and Claudio)
		 Cousins, God give you joy.
l316l	Leonato	Niece, will you look to those things I told you
l317l		of?
l318l	Beatrice	I cry you mercy, uncle.
		(To Don Pedro)
		 By your
l319l		grace’s pardon.
		(Exit Beatrice)
l320l	Don Pedro	 By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.
l321l	Leonato	There’s little of the melancholy element in her,
l322l		my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not
l323l		ever sad then# for I have heard my daughter say she
l324l		hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself
l325l		with laughing.
l326l	Don Pedro	She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.
l327l	Leonato	O, by no means. She mocks all her wooers out
l328l		of suit.
l329l	Don Pedro	She were an excellent wife for Benedick.
l330l	Leonato	O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married
l331l		they would talk themselves mad.
l332l	Don Pedro	County Claudio, when mean you to go to
l333l		church?
l334l	Claudio	Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till
l335l		love have all his rites.
l336l	Leonato	Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence
l337l		a just sevennight, and a time too brief, too, to have all
l338l		things answer my mind.
l339l	Don Pedro	Come, you shake the head at so long a
l340l		breathing, but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall
l341l		not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one
l342l		of Hercules’ labours, which is to bring Signor Benedick
l343l		and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection
l344l		th’ one with th’ other. I would fain have it a match, and
l345l		I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but
l346l		minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.
l347l	Leonato	My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten
l348l		nights’ watchings.
l349l	Claudio	And I, my lord.
l350l	Don Pedro	And you too, gentle Hero?
l351l	Hero	I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
l352l		cousin to a good husband.
l353l	Don Pedro	And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband
l354l		that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble
l355l		strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I
l356l		will teach you how to humour your cousin that she
l357l		shall fall in love with Benedick, and I, with your two
l358l		helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of
l359l		his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in
l360l		love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer
l361l		an archer# his glory shall be ours, for we are the only
l362l		love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.
		(Exeunt)