Much Ado About Nothing | Act II, Scene I
Scene I
[A Hall in Leonato's House]
Enter Leonato; his brother, [Antonio], Hero, his daughter; and Beatrice, his niece and a kinsman.
- LEONATO:
-
Was not Count Don 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.(5)
- 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 Don(10)
John's mouth, and half Count Don 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.(15)
- 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(20)
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.(25)
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(30)
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?(35)
- 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(40)
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 courtesy(45)
and say, ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all that,
cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make
another courtesy, and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’
- LEONATO:
-
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a
husband.(50)
- BEATRICE:
-
Not till God make men of some other metal than
earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered
with a piece 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(55)
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(60)
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
cinquepace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig—and
full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a(65)
measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace
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(70)
daylight.
- LEONATO:
-
The revellers are entering, brother. Make good room.
Enter Prince [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.(75)
- DON PEDRO:
-
With me in your company?
- HERO:
-
I may say so when I please.
- DON PEDRO:
-
And when please you to say so?
- 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.
[Draws her aside.]
- BALTHASAR:
-
Well, I would you did like me.(85)
- 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.(90)
- MARGARET:
-
God match me with a good dancer!
- BALTHASAR:
-
Amen.
- BALTHASAR:
-
No more words. The clerk is answered.(95)
[Takes her aside.]
- 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(100)
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(105)
he. Graces will appear, and there's an end.
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