Much Ado About Nothing | Page 4

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 trencher-man; 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. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of
merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but
there's a skirmish of wit between them.
BEATRICE. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of
his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with
one! so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it
for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth
that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
MESSENGER. Is't possible?
BEATRICE. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion
of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
MESSENGER. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
BEATRICE. No;an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you,
who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a
voyage with him to the devil?
MESSENGER. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
BEATRICE. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner
caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help
the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a
thousand pound ere a' be cured.
MESSENGER. I will hold friends with you, lady.
BEATRICE. Do, good friend.
LEONATO. You will never run mad, niece.
BEATRICE. No, not till a hot January.
MESSENGER. Don Pedro is approached.
[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK,
BALTHAZAR, and Others.]
DON PEDRO. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your
trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
LEONATO. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your
Grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you
depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.
DON PEDRO. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is
your daughter.

LEONATO. Her mother hath many times told me so.
BENEDICK. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?
LEONATO. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.
DON PEDRO. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what
you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for
you are like an honourable father.
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 shallscape 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.
DON PEDRO. That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and