Much Ado About Nothing | Act I, Scene I - Page 2
- BEATRICE:
-
A dear happiness to women! They would else have
been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and
my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather(110)
hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves
me.
- BENEDICK:
-
God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some
gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratched
face.(115)
- BEATRICE:
-
Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such
a face as yours were.
- BENEDICK:
-
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
- BEATRICE:
-
A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
- BENEDICK:
-
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue,(120)
and so good a continuer. But keep your way, a God's
name! I have done.
- BEATRICE:
-
You always end with a jade's trick. I know you of
old.
- DON PEDRO:
-
That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio(125)
and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath
invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a
month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain
us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from
his heart.(130)
- LEONATO:
-
If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.
[To Don John]
Let me bid you welcome, my lord. Being reconciled
to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.
- DON JOHN:
-
I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank
you.(135)
- LEONATO:
-
Please it your Grace lead on?
- DON PEDRO:
-
Your hand, Leonato. We will go together.
Exeunt [all but] Benedick and Claudio.
- CLAUDIO:
-
Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior
Leonato?
- BENEDICK:
-
I noted her not, but I looked on her.(140)
- CLAUDIO:
-
Is she not a modest young lady?
- BENEDICK:
-
Do you question me, as an honest man should do,
for my simple true judgment? or would you have me
speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to
their sex?(145)
- CLAUDIO:
-
No. I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
- BENEDICK:
-
Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great
praise. Only this commendation I can afford her, that were
she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no(150)
other but as she is, I do not like her.
- CLAUDIO:
-
Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly
how thou likest her.
- BENEDICK:
-
Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?
- CLAUDIO:
-
Can the world buy such a jewel?(155)
- BENEDICK:
-
Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with
a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid
is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come,
in what key shall a man take you to go in the song?
- CLAUDIO:
-
In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.(160)
- BENEDICK:
-
I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such
matter. There's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a
fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth
the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn
husband, have you?(165)
- CLAUDIO:
-
I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the
contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
- BENEDICK:
-
Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man
but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a
bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith! An thou wilt(170)
needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and
sigh away Sundays. Look; Don Pedro is returned to seek
you.
Enter Don Pedro.
- DON PEDRO:
-
What secret hath held you here, that you followed
not to Leonato's?(175)
- BENEDICK:
-
I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.
- DON PEDRO:
-
I charge thee on thy allegiance.
- BENEDICK:
-
You hear, Count Claudio. I can be secret as a dumb
man, I would have you think so; but, on my allegiance—
mark you this—on my allegiance! he is in love. With who?(180)
Now that is your Grace's part. Mark how short his answer is:
With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.
- CLAUDIO:
-
If this were so, so were it uttered.
- BENEDICK:
-
Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not
so; but indeed, God forbid it should be so!'(185)
- CLAUDIO:
-
If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should
be otherwise.
- DON PEDRO:
-
Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well
worthy.
- CLAUDIO:
-
You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.(190)
- DON PEDRO:
-
By my troth, I speak my thought.
- CLAUDIO:
-
And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
- BENEDICK:
-
And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke
mine.
- CLAUDIO:
-
That I love her, I feel.(195)
- DON PEDRO:
-
That she is worthy, I know.
- BENEDICK:
-
That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor
know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire
cannot melt out of me. I will die in it at the stake.
- DON PEDRO:
-
Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite(200)
of beauty.
- CLAUDIO:
-
And never could maintain his part but in the force
of his will.
- BENEDICK:
-
That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks;(205)
but that I will have a recheate winded in my forehead,
or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women
shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to
mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and
the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a(210)
bachelor.
- DON PEDRO:
-
I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.
- BENEDICK:
-
With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord;
not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love
than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes(215)
with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of
a brothel house for the sign of blind Cupid.
- DON PEDRO:
-
Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
wilt prove a notable argument.
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