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Page. And as poor as Job?
Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Evans. And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will.

Ford. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

Page. Yet be cheerful, knight thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter.

Mrs. Page. [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

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Slen. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

Slen. I went to her in white, and cried ་ mum,' and she cried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.

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In love the heavens themselves do guide the

state;

Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.

Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

250 What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all.

Ford. Let it be so. Sir John, To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word; For he to-night shall lie with Mistress Ford. [Exeunt

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

(WRITTEN ABOUT 1598.)

INTRODUCTION.

Much Ado About Nothing was entered on the Stationer's register, August 23, 1600, and a wellprinted quarto edition appeared in the same year. The play is not mentioned by Meres, who wrote in 1598, and it is probable therefore that it was written at some time in the interval between 198 and 1600. For the graver portion of the play-the Claudio and Hero story-Shakespeare had an original, perhaps Belleforest's translation in his Histoires Tragiques of Bandello's 22nd Novella. The story of Ariodante and Genevra in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (canto v.) is substantially the same. This episode had been translated twice into English before Harrington's complete translation of the Orlando Furioso appeared in 1591; and it had formed the subject of a play acted before the Queen in 1582-83; the story was also told, in a somewhat altered form, by Spenser (Faerie Queen, II., 4). No original has been found for the merrier portion of the play, and Benedick and Beatrice were probably creations of Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing was popular on the stage in Shakespeare's day, and has sustained its reputation. Its variety, ranging from almost burlesque to almost tragedy, and from the euphemistic speech of courtiers to the blundering verbosity of clowns, has contributed to the success of the play. The chief persons, Hero and Claudio, Beatrice and Benedick, are contrasted pairs. Hero's character is kept subdued and quiet in tone, to throw out the force and color of the character of Beatrice; she is gentle, affectionate, tender, and if playful, playful in a gentle way. If our interest in Hero were made very strong, che pain of her unmerited shame and suffering would be too keen. And Claudio is far from being a lover like Romeo; his wooing is done by proxy, and he does not sink under the anguish of Hero's disgrace and supposed death. Don John, the villain of the piece, is a melancholy egoist, who looks sourly on all the world, and has a special grudge against his brother's young favorite Claudio. The chief force of Shakespeare in the play comes out in the characters of Benedick and Beatrice. They have not a touch of misanthropy, nor of sentimentality, but are thoroughly healthy and hearty human creatures; at first a little too much self-pleased, but framed by-and-by to be entirely pleased with one another. The thoughts of each from the first are pre-occupied with the other, but neither will put self-esteem to the hazard of a rebuke of making the first advances in love; it only needs, however, that this danger should be removed for the pair to admit the fact that nature has made them over against one another-as their significant names suggest-for man and wife. Dogberry and Verges, as well as Beatrice and Benedick, are creations of Shakespeare. The blundering watchmen of the time are a source of fun with several Elizabethan playwrights; but Dogberry and goodman Verges are the princes of blundering and incapable officials. It is a charming incongruity to find, while Leonato rages and Benedick offers his challenge, that the solemn ass Dogberry is the one to unravel the tangled threads of their fate.

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HERO, daughter to Leonato.

BEATRICE, niece to Leonato.

MARGARET, gentlewoman attending o

URSULA,

Hero.

Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c.

SCENE: Messina.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Before LEONATO's house.

Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger.

Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Peter 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.

Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honor on a young Florentine called Claudio.

Mess. Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.

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.

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 is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

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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's 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 trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.

Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.

Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man ; stuffed with all honorable virtues.

Beat. It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal. 60

Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them.

Beat. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last 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't 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. Hs is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

Beat. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a' be cured.

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.

Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR.

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D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. Leon. Her mother hath many times told

me so.

Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

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,

Beat. And a good soldier to a lady: but lady; for you are like an honorable father. what is he to a lord?

Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she

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Beat. A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pericious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humor 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.

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Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done. 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. [To Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

Leon. Please it your grace lead on? 160 D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

[Exeunt all except Benedick and Claudio. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her. Claud. Is she not a modest young lady? Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? 170 Claud. No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation i can afford her,that were she other

than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her. 180 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.

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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?

Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

Bene. Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look ; Don Pedro is returned to seck you.

Re-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 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.' 220

Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought. [mine. Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke Bene. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

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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.

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D. Pedro. Thou wost ever an obstinate neretic 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 baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. 250

Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argu

ment.

Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam. 261

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.' 270 Cland. 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 temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.

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Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit

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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.

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Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
Claud.
O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love :
But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saving, I liked her ere I went to wars.

b Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently

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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 you do minister to love,

That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salved it with a longer treatise.
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

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SCENE II. A room in LEONATO's house. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting. 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 dreamt 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 in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and if he found

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