Much Ado About Nothing | Page 5

Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell
him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays some
occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but
prays from his heart.
LEONATO. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To
DON JOHN] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to

the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.
DON JOHN. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.
LEONATO. Please it your Grace lead on?
DON PEDRO. Your hand, Leonato;we will go together.
[Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO.]
CLAUDIO. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?
BENEDICK. I noted her not; but I looked on her.
CLAUDIO. Is she not a modest young lady?
BENEDICK. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my
simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as
being a professed tyrant to their sex?
CLAUDIO. No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
BENEDICK. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too
brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only this
commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she
were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.
CLAUDIO. Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how
thou likest her.
BENEDICK. Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?
CLAUDIO. Can the world buy such a jewel?
BENEDICK. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a
sad brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good
hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a
man take you, to go in the song?
CLAUDIO. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.
BENEDICK. I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter:
there's her cousin an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as
much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I
hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?
CLAUDIO. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn to the
contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
BENEDICK. Is't come to this, i' faith? Hath not the world one man but
he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of
threescore again? Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into
a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look! Don Pedro is
returned to seek you.
[Re-enter DON PEDRO.]

DON PEDRO. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to
Leonato's?
BENEDICK. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.
DON PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance.
BENEDICK. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man;
I would have you think so; but on my allegiance mark you this, on my
allegiance: he is in love. With who? now that is your Grace's part. Mark
how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato's short daughter.
CLAUDIO. If this were so, so were it uttered.
BENEDICK. Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 'twas not so;
but indeed, God forbid it should be so.'
CLAUDIO. If my passion change not shortly. God forbid it should be
otherwise.
DON PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.
CLAUDIO. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.
DON PEDRO. By my troth, I speak my thought.
CLAUDIO. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
BENEDICK. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.
CLAUDIO. That I love her, I feel.
DON PEDRO. That she is worthy, I know.
BENEDICK. That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know
how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of
me: I will die in it at the stake.
DON PEDRO. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of
beauty.
CLAUDIO. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his
will.
BENEDICK. 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