Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare [e book reader free TXT] 📗

swear his affection. Borachio So did I too; and he swore he would marry her tonight. Don John Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt Don John and Borachio. Claudio

Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
’Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

Re-enter Benedick. Benedick Count Claudio? Claudio Yea, the same. Benedick Come, will you go with me? Claudio Whither? Benedick Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like a usurer’s chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero. Claudio I wish him joy of her. Benedick Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus? Claudio I pray you, leave me. Benedick Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post. Claudio If it will not be, I’ll leave you. Exit. Benedick Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince’s fool! Ha? It may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may. Re-enter Don Pedro. Don Pedro Now, signior, where’s the count? did you see him? Benedick Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren: I told him, and I think I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped. Don Pedro To be whipped! What’s his fault? Benedick The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. Don Pedro Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Benedick Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest. Don Pedro I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner. Benedick If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly. Don Pedro The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you. Benedick O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! an oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Don Pedro Look, here she comes. Enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero, and Leonato. Benedick Will your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? Don Pedro None, but to desire your good company. Benedick O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. Exit. Don Pedro Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beatrice Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. Don Pedro You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. Beatrice So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. Don Pedro Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad? Claudio Not sad, my lord. Don Pedro How then? sick? Claudio Neither, my lord. Beatrice The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil