SCENE III. LEONATO'S orchard. Much Ado About Nothing  Shakespeare homepage  |  Much Ado About Nothing  | Act 2, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE III. LEONATO'S orchard. 

 Enter BENEDICK  BENEDICK  Boy! 



 Enter Boy  Boy  Signior? 

 BENEDICK  In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither 

 to me in the orchard. 

 Boy  I am here already, sir. 

 BENEDICK  I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again. 



 Exit Boy  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. I have known when there was no music 

 with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he 

 rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known 

 when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a 

 good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, 

 carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to 

 speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man 

 and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his 

 words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many 

 strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with 

 these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not 

 be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but 

 I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster 

 of me, he shall never make me such a fool. 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 BALTHASAR with Music  DON PEDRO  Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. 

 BALTHASAR  O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice 

 To slander music any more than once. 

 DON PEDRO  It is the witness still of excellency 

 To put a strange face on his own perfection. 

 I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more. 

 BALTHASAR  Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; 

 Since many a wooer doth commence his suit 

 To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, 

 Yet will he swear he loves. 

 DON PEDRO  Now, pray thee, come; 

 Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, 

 Do it in notes. 

 BALTHASAR  Note this before my notes; 

 There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. 

 DON PEDRO  Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks; 

 Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. 



 Air  BENEDICK  Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it 

 not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out 

 of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when 

 all's done. 



 The Song  BALTHASAR  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  By my troth, a good song. 

 BALTHASAR  And an ill singer, my lord. 

 DON PEDRO  Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. 

 BENEDICK  An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, 

 they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad 

 voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the 

 night-raven, come what plague could have come after 

 it. 

 DON PEDRO  Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee, 

 get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we 

 would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window. 

 BALTHASAR  The best I can, my lord. 

 DON PEDRO  Do so: farewell. 



 Exit BALTHASAR  Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of 

 to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with 

 Signior Benedick? 

 CLAUDIO  O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did 

 never think that lady would have loved any man. 

 LEONATO  No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she 

 should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in 

 all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor. 

 BENEDICK  Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? 

 LEONATO  By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think 

 of it but that she loves him with an enraged 

 affection: it is past the infinite of thought. 

 DON PEDRO  May be she doth but counterfeit. 

 CLAUDIO  Faith, like enough. 

 LEONATO  O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of 

 passion came so near the life of passion as she 

 discovers it. 

 DON PEDRO  Why, what effects of passion shows she? 

 CLAUDIO  Bait the hook well; this fish will bite. 

 LEONATO  What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard 

 my daughter tell you how. 

 CLAUDIO  She did, indeed. 

 DON PEDRO  How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I 

 thought her spirit had been invincible against all 

 assaults of affection. 

 LEONATO  I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially 

 against Benedick. 

 BENEDICK  I should think this a gull, but that the 

 white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, 

 sure, hide himself in such reverence. 

 CLAUDIO  He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up. 

 DON PEDRO  Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? 

 LEONATO  No; and swears she never will: that's her torment. 

 CLAUDIO  'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: 'Shall 

 I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him 

 with scorn, write to him that I love him?' 

 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: and the 

 ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter 

 is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage 

 to herself: it is very true. 

 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  O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender 

 a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath 

 the victory. 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  She doth well: if she should make tender of her 

 love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the 

 man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit. 

 CLAUDIO  He is a very proper man. 

 DON PEDRO  He hath indeed a good outward happiness. 

 CLAUDIO  Before God! and, in my mind, very wise. 

 DON PEDRO  He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. 

 CLAUDIO  And I take him to be valiant. 

 DON PEDRO  As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of 

 quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he 

 avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes 

 them with a most Christian-like fear. 

 LEONATO  If he do fear God, a' must necessarily keep peace: 

 if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a 

 quarrel with fear and trembling. 

 DON PEDRO  And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, 

 howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests 

 he will make. 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. 

 CLAUDIO  If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never 

 trust my expectation. 

 DON PEDRO  Let there be the same net spread for her; and that 

 must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The 

 sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of 

 another's dotage, and no such matter: that's the 

 scene that I would see, which will be merely a 

 dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. 



 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 requited. I hear how I am censured: 

 they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive 

 the love come from her; they say too that she will 

 rather die than give any sign of affection. I did 

 never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy 

 are they that hear their detractions and can put 

 them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a 

 truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis 

 so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving 

 me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor 

 no great argument of her folly, for I will be 

 horribly in love with her. I may chance have some 

 odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, 

 because I have railed so long against marriage: but 

 doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat 

 in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. 

 Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of 

 the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? 

 No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would 

 die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I 

 were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! 

 she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in 

 her. 



 Enter BEATRICE  BEATRICE  Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. 

 BENEDICK  Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. 

 BEATRICE  I took no more pains for those thanks than you take 

 pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would 

 not have come. 

 BENEDICK  You take pleasure then in the message? 

 BEATRICE  Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's 

 point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, 

 signior: fare you well. 



 Exit  BENEDICK  Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in 

 to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that 'I took 

 no more pains for those thanks than you took pains 

 to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains 

 that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do 

 not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not 

 love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. 



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