Much Ado About Nothing

Beatrice

I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

Messenger

I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort.

Leonato

What is he that you ask for, niece?

Hero

My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

Messenger

O, he’s returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

Beatrice

He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

Leonato

Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

Messenger

He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

Beatrice

You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.

Messenger

And a good soldier too, lady.

Beatrice

And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord?

Messenger

A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

Beatrice

It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing⁠—well, we are all mortal.

Leonato

Benedick

If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

Beatrice

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.

Benedick

What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beatrice

Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.

Benedick

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

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 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.

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, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.

Beatrice

You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat 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 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 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.

Benedick

If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.

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: 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 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?

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 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

Beatrice

A very even way, but no such friend.

Benedick

May a man do it?

Beatrice

It is a man’s office, but not yours.

Benedick

I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?

Beatrice

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

Benedick

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

Beatrice

Do not swear, and eat it.

Benedick

I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

Beatrice

Will you not eat your word?

Benedick

With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.

Beatrice

Why, then, God forgive me!

Benedick

What offence, sweet Beatrice?

Beatrice

You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.

Benedick

And do it with all thy heart.

Beatrice

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.