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Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;

Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,

And she lies buried with her ancestors;

O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,

Save this of hers, framed by thy villany!

CLAUDIO My villany?

LEONATO Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.

DON PEDRO You say not right, old man.

LEONATO My lord, my lord,

I’ll prove it on his body, if he dare,

Despite his nice fence and his active practise,

His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.

CLAUDIO Away! I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child:

If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIO He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:

But that’s no matter; let him kill one first;

Win me and wear me; let him answer me.

Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me:

Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;

Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO Brother,–

ANTONIO Content yourself. God knows I loved my niece;

And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,

That dare as well answer a man indeed

As I dare take a serpent by the tongue:

Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!

LEONATO Brother Antony,–

ANTONIO Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,–

Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,

Go anticly, show outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;

And this is all.

LEONATO But, brother Antony,–

ANTONIO Come, ’tis no matter:

Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death:

But, on my honour, she was charged with nothing

But what was true and very full of proof.

LEONATO My lord, my lord,–

DON PEDRO I will not hear you.

LEONATO No? Come, brother; away! I will be heard.

ANTONIO And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO

DON PEDRO See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.

Enter BENEDICK

CLAUDIO Now, signior, what news?

BENEDICK Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part

almost a fray.

CLAUDIO We had like to have had our two noses snapped off

with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou? Had

we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICK In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came

to seek you both.

CLAUDIO We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are

high-proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten

away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICK It is in my scabbard: shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO Never any did so, though very many have been beside

their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the

minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.

DON PEDRO As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou

sick, or angry?

CLAUDIO What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat,

thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICK Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you

charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIO Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was

broke cross.

DON PEDRO By this light, he changes more and more: I think

he be angry indeed.

CLAUDIO If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

BENEDICK Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO God bless me from a challenge!

BENEDICK [Aside to CLAUDIO] You are a villain; I jest not:

I will make it good how you dare, with what you

dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will

protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet

lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me

hear from you.

CLAUDIO Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

DON PEDRO What, a feast, a feast?

CLAUDIO I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s

head and a capon; the which if I do not carve most

curiously, say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find

a woodcock too?

BENEDICK Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.

DON PEDRO I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the

other day. I said, thou hadst a fine wit: ‘True,’

said she, ‘a fine little one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a

great wit:’ ‘Right,’ says she, ‘a great gross one.’

‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit:’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it

hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman

is wise:’ ‘Certain,’ said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’

‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues:’ ‘That I

believe,’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me on

Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning;

there’s a double tongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus

did she, an hour together, transshape thy particular

virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou

wast the properest man in Italy.

CLAUDIO For the which she wept heartily and said she cared

not.

DON PEDRO Yea, that she did: but yet, for all that, an if she

did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly:

the old man’s daughter told us all.

CLAUDIO All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was

hid in the garden.

DON PEDRO But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on

the sensible Benedick’s head?

CLAUDIO Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the

married man’?

BENEDICK Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave

you now to your gossip-like humour: you break jests

as braggarts do their blades, which God be thanked,

hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank

you: I must discontinue your company: your brother

the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among

you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord

Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet: and, till

then, peace be with him.

Exit

DON PEDRO He is in earnest.

CLAUDIO In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for

the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDRO And hath challenged thee.

CLAUDIO Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his

doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

CLAUDIO He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a

doctor to such a man.

DON PEDRO But, soft you, let me be: pluck up, my heart, and

be sad. Did he not say, my brother was fled?

Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO

DOGBERRY Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she

shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance: nay,

an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.

DON PEDRO How now? two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio

one!

CLAUDIO Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO Officers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRY Marry, sir, they have committed false report;

moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily,

they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have

belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust

things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

DON PEDRO First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I

ask thee what’s their offence; sixth and lastly, why

they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay

to their charge.

CLAUDIO Rightly reasoned, and in his own division: and, by

my troth, there’s one meaning well suited.

DON PEDRO Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus

bound to your answer? this learned constable is

too cunning to be understood: what’s your offence?

BORACHIO Sweet prince, let me go no farther to mine answer:

do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have

deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms

could not discover, these shallow fools have brought

to light: who in the night overheard me confessing

to this man how Don John your brother incensed me

to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into

the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s

garments, how you disgraced her, when you should

marry her: my villany they have upon record; which

I had rather seal with my death than repeat over

to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my

master’s false accusation; and, briefly, I desire

nothing but the reward of a villain.

DON PEDRO Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

DON PEDRO But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it.

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curiosity: