Much Ado About Nothing Page #3

Are not you

Signior Benedick?

You know me well,

I am he.

Signior, you are very near

my brother in his love.

He is enamored 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.

How know you he loves her?

I heard him

swear his affection.

So did I too, and he swore

he would marry her to-night.

Come, let us

to the banquet.

'Tis certain so,

the prince woos for himself.

Friendship is constant

in all other things

save in the offices

and affairs of love,

for beauty is a witch against whose charms

faith melteth into blood.

Count Claudio?

Yea, the same.

Come, go with me.

The prince hath got your Hero.

I wish him joy of her.

Did you think the prince

would have used you thus?

I pray you, leave me.

Ho! Now you strike

like the blind man.

'Twas the boy that stole your meat,

and you will beat the post.

If it will not be,

I'll leave you.

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?

It may be I go under that title

because I am merry.

Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong,

I am not so reputed.

It is the base, though bitter,

disposition of Beatrice

that puts the world into her person

and so gives me out.

Well, I will be revenged

as I may.

Now, signior, where's the count?

Did you see him?

Troth, my lord, I found him 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 here.

The Lady Beatrice

hath a quarrel to you.

The gentleman

that danced with her

told her she is much

wronged by you.

O, she misused me past the endurance

of a block!

She told me, not thinking

I had been myself,

that I was

the prince's jester.

That I was duller

than a great thaw,

huddling jest upon jest with

such impossible conveyance

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 would

be 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

before he transgressed.

Come, talk not of her.

I would to God some scholar

would conjure her.

For certainly, while she is here,

all disquiet, horror,

and perturbation follows her.

Look, here she comes.

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

from the furthest inch

of Asia,

bring 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?

None, but to desire

your good company.

O God, sir,

here is a dish I love not.

I cannot endure

my Lady Tongue.

Come, lady, come.

You have lost the heart

of Signior Benedick.

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.

But you have put him down, lady,

you have put him down.

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.

Why, how now, Claudio!

Wherefore are you sad?

Not sad, my lord.

How then? Sick?

Neither, my lord.

The count is neither sad,

nor sick, nor merry, nor well,

but civil count,

civil as an orange,

and something

of that jealous complexion.

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.

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!

Count, take of me my daughter

and with her my fortune.

His grace hath made the match

that all grace say "Amen" to it.

Speak, Count,

'tis your cue.

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 myself for you and dote

upon the exchange.

Speak, cousin, or, if you cannot,

stop his mouth with a kiss

and let him

not speak neither.

In faith, lady,

you have a merry heart.

Yea, my lord.

I thank it, poor fool,

it keeps me on

the windy side of care.

My cousin tells him in his ear

he is in her heart.

And so she doth, cousin.

Oh, good Lord,

for alliance!

Thus goes every one into the world but I,

and I am sunburnt.

I will sit in a corner and cry,

"Heigh-ho for a husband!"

Lady Beatrice,

I will get you one.

I'd 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.

Will you have me, lady?

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.

Your silence most offends me,

to be merry best becomes you,

for, out of question,

you were born in a merry hour.

No, sure, my lord,

my mother cried,

but then a star danced,

and under that was I born.

Cousins,

God give you joy!

By my troth,

a pleasant-spirited lady.

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.

She cannot endure

to hear tell of a husband.

O, by no means.

She mocks all her

wooers out of suit.

She were an excellent

wife for Benedick.

O Lord, my lord, if they were but

a week married,

they would talk

themselves mad.

County Claudiy,

when mean you to go to church?

To-morrow, my lord.

Time goes on crutches

till love have all his rites.

Not till Monday, dear son,

which is hence

a just seven-night,

and a time too brief, too,

to have all things

answer my mind.

I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall

not go dully by us.

I will in the interim undertake

one of Hercules' labors,

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

minister assistance.

My lord, I am for you,

though it cost me 10 nights' watchings.

And I, my lord.

And you too, gentle Hero?

I will do any

modest office, my lord,

to help my cousin

to a good husband.

Benedick is not the unhopefullest

husband that I know.

Thus far can I praise him,

he is of a noble strain,

of approved valor

and confirmed honesty.

I will teach you

how to humor your cousin,

that she shall fall

in love with Benedick,

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