SCENE II. LEONATO'S garden. Much Ado About Nothing  Shakespeare homepage  |  Much Ado About Nothing  | Act 5, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. LEONATO'S garden. 

 Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting  BENEDICK  Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at 

 my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice. 

 MARGARET  Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty? 

 BENEDICK  In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living 

 shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou 

 deservest it. 

 MARGARET  To have no man come over me! why, shall I always 

 keep below stairs? 

 BENEDICK  Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches. 

 MARGARET  And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, 

 but hurt not. 

 BENEDICK  A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a 

 woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give 

 thee the bucklers. 

 MARGARET  Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own. 

 BENEDICK  If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the 

 pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids. 

 MARGARET  Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs. 

 BENEDICK  And therefore will come. 



 Exit MARGARET 

 Sings  The god of love, 

 That sits above, 

 And knows me, and knows me, 

 How pitiful I deserve,-- 

 I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good 

 swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and 

 a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers, 

 whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a 

 blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned 

 over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I 

 cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find 

 out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent 

 rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for, 

 'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous 

 endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, 

 nor I cannot woo in festival terms. 



 Enter BEATRICE  Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? 

 BEATRICE  Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. 

 BENEDICK  O, stay but till then! 

 BEATRICE  'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere 

 I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with 

 knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio. 

 BENEDICK  Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee. 

 BEATRICE  Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but 

 foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I 

 will depart unkissed. 

 BENEDICK  Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, 

 so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee 

 plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either 

 I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe 

 him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for 

 which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? 

 BEATRICE  For them all together; which maintained so politic 

 a state of evil that they will not admit any good 

 part to intermingle with them. But for which of my 

 good parts did you first suffer love for me? 

 BENEDICK  Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love 

 indeed, for I love thee against my will. 

 BEATRICE  In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! 

 If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for 

 yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates. 

 BENEDICK  Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. 

 BEATRICE  It appears not in this confession: there's not one 

 wise man among twenty that will praise himself. 

 BENEDICK  An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in 

 the lime of good neighbours. If a man do not erect 

 in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live 

 no longer in monument than the bell rings and the 

 widow weeps. 

 BEATRICE  And how long is that, think you? 

 BENEDICK  Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in 

 rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the 

 wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no 

 impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his 

 own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for 

 praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is 

 praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin? 

 BEATRICE  Very ill. 

 BENEDICK  And how do you? 

 BEATRICE  Very ill too. 

 BENEDICK  Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave 

 you too, for here comes one in haste. 



 Enter URSULA  URSULA  Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old 

 coil at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been 

 falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily 

 abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is 

 fed and gone. Will you come presently? 

 BEATRICE  Will you go hear this news, signior? 

 BENEDICK  I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be 

 buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with 

 thee to thy uncle's. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Much Ado About Nothing  | Act 5, Scene 2 

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