Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (reading list .txt) 📕

child? Borachio Yea, even I alone. Leonato

No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
Here stand a pair of honourable men;
A third is fled, that had a hand in it.
I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death:
Record it with your high and worthy deeds:
’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

Claudio

I know not how to pray your patience;
Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
Impose me to what penance your invention
Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn’d I not
But in mistaking.

Don Pedro

By my soul, nor I:
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight
That he’ll enjoin me to.

Leonato

I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
That were impossible: but, I pray you both,
Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died; and if your love
Can labour aught in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
And sing it to her bones, sing it tonight:
Tomorrow morning come you to my house,
And since you could not be my son-in-law,
Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,
And she alone is heir to both of us:
Give her the right you should have given her cousin,
And so dies my revenge.

Claudio

O noble sir,
Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
I do embrace your offer; and dispose
For henceforth of poor Claudio.

Leonato

Tomorrow then I will expect your coming;
Tonight I take my leave. This naughty man
Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I believe was pack’d in all this wrong,
Hired to it by your brother.

Borachio

No, by my soul, she was not,
Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me,
But always hath been just and virtuous
In anything that I do know by her.

Dogberry Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say he wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath used so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God’s sake: pray you, examine him upon that point. Leonato I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. Dogberry Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth; and I praise God for you. Leonato There’s for thy pains. Dogberry God save the foundation! Leonato Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. Dogberry I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour. Exeunt Dogberry and Verges. Leonato Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell. Antonio Farewell, my lords: we look for you tomorrow. Don Pedro We will not fail. Claudio Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero. Leonato

To the Watch. Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk with Margaret,
How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. Exeunt, severally.

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 book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, 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