MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT 2

PERSONS REPRESENTED

DON PEDRO: prince of Arragon, DON JOHN: his bastard brother, CLAUDIO: a young lord of Florence, BENEDICK: a young lord of Padua, LEONATO: governor of Messina, ANTONIO: his brother, {CONRADE, BORACHIO followers of Don John}, FRIAR FRANCIS, DOGBERRY: a constable, A Sexton, HERO: daughter to Leonato, BEATRICE: niece to Leonato, {MARGARET, URSULA gentlewomen attending on Hero}, Messengers, Watchman.

Act 2, Scene 1 a hall in Leonato’s house

[Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others]

LEONATO: Was not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIO: I saw him not.

BEATRICE: How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

HERO: He is of a very melancholy disposition.  

BEATRICE: He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATO: Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,--

BEATRICE: With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a' could get her good-will.   

LEONATO: By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

BEATRICE: Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

LEONATO: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE: What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man, 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; ' 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 pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none, 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.

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, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, 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 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]

BORACHIO: Well, I would you did like me. 

MARGARET: So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill-qualities.

BORACHIO: Which is one?

MARGARET: I say my prayers aloud.

BORACHIO: I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.

MARGARET: God match me with a good dancer!

BORACHIO: Amen.

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

BORACHIO: No more words: the clerk is answered.     

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 fools; 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. 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 not you 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 swear his affection.

BORACHIO: So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

DON JOHN: Come, let us to the banquet.    

[Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO]

CLAUDIO: The prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love:Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

[Re-enter BENEDICK]

BENEDICK: Count Claudio?

CLAUDIO: Yea, the same.

BENEDICK: Come, will you go with me?

CLAUDIO: Whither?     

BENEDICK: Even to the next willow, about your own business, county. What fashion will you wear the garland of? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.    

CLAUDIO: I wish him joy of her.

BENEDICK: Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

CLAUDIO: I pray you, leave me.     

BENEDICK: Ho! now you strike like the blind man: 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

CLAUDIO: If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit]

BENEDICK: 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! Ha? I am not so reputed. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. [Exit]

[Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO]

DON PEDRO: Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

BEATRICE: 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.

DON PEDRO: You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

BEATRICE: 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.

DON PEDRO: Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?

CLAUDIO: Not sad, my lord.

DON PEDRO: How then? sick?

CLAUDIO: Neither, my lord.     

BEATRICE: The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

DON PEDRO: 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, and 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!

LEONATO: Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an grace say Amen to it.

BEATRICE: Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUDIO: 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 away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.

BEATRICE: Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

DON PEDRO: In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.    

BEATRICE: Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIO: And so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICE: Good Lord, for alliance! I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!

DON PEDRO: Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEATRICE: I would 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.

LEONATO: Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEATRICE: I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon. [Exit]

DON PEDRO: By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.   

LEONATO: There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord.

DON PEDRO: She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATO: O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

DON PEDRO: She were an excellent wife for Benedict.

LEONATO: O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.    

DON PEDRO: Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing: but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.     

DON PEDRO: I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

HERO: I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

[Exeunt]

Act 2, Scene 2 the same

[Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO]

DON JOHN: It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIO: Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

DON JOHN: Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORACHIO: Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

DON JOHN: Show me briefly how.   

BORACHIO: I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.

DON JOHN: I remember.

BORACHIO: I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window.

DON JOHN: What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIO: The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio.

DON JOHN: What proof shall I make of that?

BORACHIO: Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?

DON JOHN: Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.

BORACHIO: Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding,--for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent,--and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

DON JOHN: Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.

BORACHIO: Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.

DON JOHN: I will presently go learn their day of marriage.   

[Exeunt]

Act 2, Scene 3 Leonato’s orchard

[Enter BENEDICK]

BENEDICK: I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man is Claudio. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.     

[Withdraws]

[Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]

DON PEDRO: Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO: Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!

DON PEDRO: See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIO: O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

[Enter Music]

 [The Song]

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leafy: Then sigh not so, &c.

DON PEDRO: Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

LEONATO: This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.

CLAUDIO: Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

LEONATO: O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?     

CLAUDIO: That.

LEONATO: O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her; 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.'

CLAUDIO: Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!'    

LEONATO: She doth indeed; my daughter says so.

DON PEDRO: It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.

CLAUDIO: To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse.

DON PEDRO: An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She's an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.

CLAUDIO: And she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDRO: In every thing but in loving Benedick.

LEONATO: I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.

DON PEDRO: I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear  what a' will say.

LEONATO: Were it good, think you?

CLAUDIO: Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness.

DON PEDRO: Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love?

CLAUDIO: Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel.

LEONATO: Nay, that's impossible: she may wear her heart out first.

DON PEDRO: Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick well; and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady.

LEONATO: My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.

 [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]

BENEDICK: [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be required. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. [Exit]

***TO be Continue Act 3 

SC :  The Bright Woman/yahya/ari