Much Ado About Nothing Page #2

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Amen, if you love her;

for the lady is very well worthy.

You speak this to fetch me in.

- By my troth, I speak my thought.

- And in faith, my lord, I speak mine.

By my two faiths and troths,

my lord, I speak mine.

- That I love her, I feel.

- That she is worthy, I know.

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 at the stake.

Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic

in the despite of beauty.

And never could maintain his part

but in the force of his will.

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.

I shall see thee, ere I die,

look pale with love.

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.

Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith,

thou wilt prove a notable argument.

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

and shoot at me;

Well, as time shall try -

"In time, the savage bull

doth bear the yoke. "

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 a good horse to hire."

Let them signify under my sign, "Here

you may see Benedick the married man."

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.

I have almost matter enough in me

for such an embassage;

- and so I commit you...

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

"The sixth of July:

Your loving friend, 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.

My liege, your highness

now may do me good.

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.

Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

No child but Hero. She's his only heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

My lord, when you went onward

on this ended action,

I looked 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 returned 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.

Thou wilt be like a lover presently, and

tire the hearer with a book of words.

If thou dost love fair Hero,

cherish it.

I will break with her and her father,

and thou shalt have her.

Was't not to this end that thou

began'st to twist so fine a story?

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.

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 reveling tonight.

I will assume thy part in some disguise,

and tell fair Hero that 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 practice

let us put it presently.

How now, wife! Where is Balthasar?

Hath he provided the music?

He is very busy about it.

But, husband, I can tell

you news that you yet dreamt not of.

- Are they good?

- They show well outward.

I overheard the prince discover to Claudio

that he loved our daughter,

and meant to acknowledge it

this night in a dance:

The prince!

If he founds her accordant,

he means to take the present time by the top

and instantly break with you of it.

We will hold it as a dream

till it appear itself:

but I will acquaint our daughter withal,

that she may be the better prepared for an answer,

if peradventure this be true.

Go you and tell her of it.

Balthasar, you know what you have to do.

I cry you mercy; go you with me,

and I will use your skill.

Have a care this busy time.

What the good-year, my lord.

Why are you thus out of measure sad?

There is no measure in the occasion

that breeds,

therefore the sadness is without limit.

You should hear reason.

If when I have heard it,

what blessing brings it?

If not a present remedy,

at least a patient sufferance.

I wonder that thou 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 humor.

Yea... but you must not

make full show of this

till you may do so without controlment.

You have of late stood out

against your brother,

and he hath ta'en you

newly into his grace,

where it is impossible you should take root

by the fair weather that you make yourself.

It is needful that you frame the season

for your own harvest.

I had rather be a canker in a hedge

than a rose in his grace!

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.

Can you make no use of your discontent?

I make all use of it, for I use it only.

Who comes here?

What news, Borachio?

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.

Will it serve for any model

to build mischief on?

What is he for a fool

that betroths himself to unquietness?

Marry, it is your brother's right hand.

- Who? The most exquisite Claudio?

- Even he.

A proper squire! And who, and who?

which way looks he?

Marry, on Hero, the daughter

and heir of Leonato.

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