SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO'S house. Much Ado About Nothing  Shakespeare homepage  |  Much Ado About Nothing  | Act 2, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. 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. 

 ANTONIO  In faith, she's too curst. 

 BEATRICE  Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's 

 sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst 

 cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none. 

 LEONATO  So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. 

 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: and he that is more than 

 a youth is not for me, and he that is 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 pierce 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 every thing 

 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 villany; 

 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 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  Thus answer I in the name of Benedick, 

 But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. 

 'Tis certain so; 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? 

 about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under 

 your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? 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? 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'll be revenged as I may. 



 Re-enter DON PEDRO  DON PEDRO  Now, signior, where's the count? did you see him? 

 BENEDICK  Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. 

 I found him here 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; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree, 

 either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or 

 to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped. 

 DON PEDRO  To be whipped! What's his fault? 

 BENEDICK  The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being 

 overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his 

 companion, and he steals it. 

 DON PEDRO  Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The 

 transgression is in the stealer. 

 BENEDICK  Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, 

 and the garland too; for the garland he might have 

 worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on 

 you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' nest. 

 DON PEDRO  I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to 

 the owner. 

 BENEDICK  If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, 

 you say honestly. 

 DON PEDRO  The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the 

 gentleman that danced with her told her she is much 

 wronged by you. 

 BENEDICK  O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! 

 an oak but with one green leaf on it would have 

 answered her; my very visor began to assume life and 

 scold with her. 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 upon me 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 were no living near her; she would infect to 

 the north star. I would not marry her, though she 

 were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before 

 he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have 

 turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make 

 the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find 

 her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God 

 some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while 

 she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a 

 sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they 

 would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror 

 and perturbation follows her. 

 DON PEDRO  Look, here she comes. 



 Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO  BENEDICK  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 now from the 

 furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of 

 Prester John's foot, fetch 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? 

 DON PEDRO  None, but to desire your good company. 

 BENEDICK  O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot 

 endure my Lady Tongue. 



 Exit  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! Thus goes every one to the 

 world but I, and I am sunburnt; 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. 

 DON PEDRO  Will you have me, lady? 

 BEATRICE  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. 

 DON PEDRO  Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best 

 becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in 

 a merry hour. 

 BEATRICE  No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there 

 was a star danced, and under that was I born. 

 Cousins, God give you joy! 

 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: 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. 

 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  County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? 

 CLAUDIO  To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love 

 have all his rites. 

 LEONATO  Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just 

 seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all 

 things answer my mind. 

 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 the interim undertake one of 

 Hercules' labours; 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 but minister such assistance as I 

 shall give you direction. 

 LEONATO  My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten 

 nights' watchings. 

 CLAUDIO  And I, my lord. 

 DON PEDRO  And you too, gentle Hero? 

 HERO  I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my 

 cousin to a good husband. 

 DON PEDRO  And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that 

 I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble 

 strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. 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. If we can do this, 

 Cupid is no longer an archer: hi s glory shall be 

 ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, 

 and I will tell you my drift. 



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