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Much Ado About Nothing: Act 1 Scene 1

Scene: Messina.

Scene I Before LEONATO'S house.

[Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a

Messenger]

LEONATO

I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon

comes this night to Messina.

MESSENGER

He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off

when I left him.

LEONATO

How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

MESSENGER

But few of any sort, and none of name.

LEONATO

A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings

home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath

bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

MESSENGER

Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by

Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the

promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb,

the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better

bettered expectation than you must expect of me to

tell you how.

LEONATO

He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much

glad of it.

MESSENGER

I have already delivered him letters, and there

appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could

not show itself modest enough without a badge of

bitterness.

LEONATO

Did he break out into tears?

MESSENGER

In great measure.

LEONATO

A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces

truer than those that are so washed. How much

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

BEATRICE

I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the

wars or no?

MESSENGER

I know none of that name, lady: there was none such

in the army of any sort.

LEONATO

What is he that you ask for, niece?

HERO

My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

MESSENGER

O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE

He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged

Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading

the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged

him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he

killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath

he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

LEONATO

Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much;

but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

MESSENGER

He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

BEATRICE

You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it:

he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an

excellent stomach.

MESSENGER

And a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICE

And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord?

MESSENGER

A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all

honourable virtues.

BEATRICE

It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man:

but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal.

LEONATO

You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a

kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her:

they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit

between them.

BEATRICE

Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last

conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and

now is the whole man governed with one: so that if

he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him

bear it for a difference between himself and his

horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left,

to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his

companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

MESSENGER

Is't possible?

BEATRICE

Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as

the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the

next block.

MESSENGER

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

BEATRICE

No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray

you, who is his companion? Is there no young

squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

MESSENGER

He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

BEATRICE

O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he

is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker

runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if

he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a

thousand pound ere a' be cured.

MESSENGER

I will hold friends with you, lady.

BEATRICE

Do, good friend.

LEONATO

You will never run mad, niece.

BEATRICE

No, not till a hot January.

MESSENGER

Don Pedro is approached.

[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK,

and BALTHASAR]

DON PEDRO

Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your

trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid

cost, and you encounter it.

LEONATO

Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of

your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should

remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides

and happiness takes his leave.

DON PEDRO

You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this

is your daughter.

LEONATO

Her mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICK

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

LEONATO

Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

DON PEDRO

You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this

what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers

herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an

honourable father.

BENEDICK

If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not

have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as

like him as she is.

BEATRICE

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior

Benedick: nobody marks you.

BENEDICK

What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

BEATRICE

Is it possible disdain should die while she hath

such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?

Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come

in her presence.

BENEDICK

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I

am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I

would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard

heart; for, truly, I love none.

BEATRICE

A dear happiness to women: they would else have

been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God

and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I

had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man

swear he loves me.

BENEDICK

God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some

gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate

scratched face.

BEATRICE

Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such

a face as yours were.

BENEDICK

Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

BEATRICE

A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

BENEDICK

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and

so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's

name; I have done.

BEATRICE

You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

DON PEDRO

That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio

and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath

invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at

the least a month; and he heartily prays some

occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no

hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEONATO

If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.

[To DON JOHN]

Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to

the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

DON JOHN

I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank

you.

LEONATO

Please it your grace lead on?

DON PEDRO

Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

[Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO]

CLAUDIO

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK

I noted her not; but I looked on her.

CLAUDIO

Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK

Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for

my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak

after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIO

No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

BENEDICK

Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high

praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little

for a great praise: only this commendation I can

afford her, that were she other than she is, she

were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I

do not like her.

CLAUDIO

Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me

truly how thou likest her.

BENEDICK

Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

CLAUDIO

Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICK

Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this

with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack,

to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a

rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take

you, to go in the song?

CLAUDIO

In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I

looked on.

BENEDICK

I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such

matter: there's her cousin, an she were not

possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty

as the first of May doth the last of December. But I

hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

CLAUDIO

I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the

contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENEDICK

Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world

one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?

Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?

Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck

into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away

Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

[Re-enter DON PEDRO]

DON PEDRO

What secret hath held you here, that you followed

not to Leonato's?

BENEDICK

I would your grace would constrain me to tell.

DON PEDRO

I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICK

You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb

man; I would have you think so; but, on my

allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is

in love. With who? now that is your grace's part.

Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's

short daughter.

CLAUDIO

If this were so, so were it uttered.

BENEDICK

Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor

'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be

so.'

CLAUDIO

If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it

should be otherwise.

DON PEDRO

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

CLAUDIO

You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

DON PEDRO

By my troth, I speak my thought.

CLAUDIO

And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

BENEDICK

And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

CLAUDIO

That I love her, I feel.

DON PEDRO

That she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICK

That I neither feel how she should be loved nor

know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that

fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.

DON PEDRO

Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite

of beauty.

CLAUDIO

And never could maintain his part but in the force

of his will.

BENEDICK

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she

brought me up, I likewise give her most humble

thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my

forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,

all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do

them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the

right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which

I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

DON PEDRO

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

BENEDICK

With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,

not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood

with love than I will get again with drinking, pick

out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me

up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of

blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO

Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou

wilt prove a notable argument.

BENEDICK

If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot

at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on

the shoulder, and called Adam.

DON PEDRO

Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull

doth bear the yoke.'

BENEDICK

The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible

Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set

them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,

and in such great letters as they write 'Here is

good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign

'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'

CLAUDIO

If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

DON PEDRO

Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in

Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENEDICK

I look for an earthquake too, then.

DON PEDRO

Well, you temporize with the hours. In the

meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to

Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will

not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made

great preparation.

BENEDICK

I have almost matter enough in me for such an

embassage; and so I commit you--

CLAUDIO

To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,--

DON PEDRO

The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK

Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your

discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and

the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere

you flout old ends any further, examine your

conscience: and so I leave you.

[Exit]

CLAUDIO

My liege, your highness now may do me good.

DON PEDRO

My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,

And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUDIO

Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

DON PEDRO

No child but Hero; she's his only heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

CLAUDIO

O, my lord,

When you went onward on this ended action,

I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,

That liked, but had a rougher task in hand

Than to drive liking to the name of love:

But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts

Have left their places vacant, in their rooms

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,

All prompting me how fair young Hero is,

Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.

DON PEDRO

Thou wilt be like a lover presently

And tire the hearer with a book of words.

If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,

And I will break with her and with her father,

And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end

That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?

CLAUDIO

How sweetly you do minister to love,

That know love's grief by his complexion!

But lest my liking might too sudden seem,

I would have salved it with a longer treatise.

DON PEDRO

What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity.

Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest,

And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know we shall have revelling to-night:

I will assume thy part in some disguise

And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,

And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart

And take her hearing prisoner with the force

And strong encounter of my amorous tale:

Then after to her father will I break;

And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.

In practise let us put it presently.

[Exeunt]