Much Ado About Nothing

less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.

Leonato
Well, then, go you into hell?


Beatrice
No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids:” so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.


Antonio
To Hero. Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.


Beatrice
Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and say “Father, as it please you.” But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say “Father, as it please me.”


Leonato
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.


Beatrice
Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.


Leonato
Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.


Beatrice
The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.


Leonato
Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.


Beatrice
I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.


Leonato
The revellers are entering, brother: make good room. All put on their masks.



Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don John, Borachio, Margaret, Ursula, and others, masked.


Don Pedro
Lady, will you walk about with your friend?


Hero
So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.


Don Pedro
With me in your company?


Hero
I may say so, when I please.


Don Pedro
And when please you to say so?


Hero
When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!


Don Pedro
My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.


Hero
Why, then, your visor should be thatched.


Don Pedro
Speak low, if you speak love. Drawing her aside.


Balthasar
Well, I would you did like me.


Margaret
So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.


Balthasar
Which is one?


Margaret
I say my prayers aloud.


Balthasar
I love you the better: the hearers may cry Amen.


Margaret
God match me with a good dancer!


Balthasar
Amen.


Margaret
And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.


Balthasar
No more words: the clerk is answered.


Ursula
I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.


Antonio
At a word, I am not.


Ursula
I know you by the waggling of your head.


Antonio
To tell you true, I counterfeit him.


Ursula
You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.


Antonio
At a word, I am not.


Ursula
Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there’s an end.


Beatrice
Will you not tell me who told you so?


Benedick
No, you shall pardon me.


Beatrice
Nor will you not tell me who you are?


Benedick
Not now.


Beatrice
That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the “Hundred Merry Tales:”⁠—well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.


Benedick
What’s he?


Beatrice
I am sure you know him well enough.


Benedick
Not I, believe me.


Beatrice
Did he never make you laugh?


Benedick
I pray you, what is he?


Beatrice
Why, he is the prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me.


Benedick
When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.


Beatrice
Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. Music. We must follow the leaders.


Benedick
In every good thing.


Beatrice
Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. Dance. Then exeunt all except Don John, Borachio, and Claudio.


Don John
Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.


Borachio
And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.


Don John
Are you not Signior Benedick?


Claudio
You know me well; I am he.


Don John
Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured 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.


Claudio
How know you he loves her?


Don John
I heard him