Much Ado About Nothing (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography (eBook)

Scene 1. The Inside of a Church.

[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS, CLAUDIO,
BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, &c.]
LEONATO. Come, Friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

FRIAR.
You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?
CLAUDIO.
No.
LEONATO.
To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her.
FRIAR.
Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?
HERO.
I do.
FRIAR. If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.

CLAUDIO.
Know you any, Hero?
HERO.
None, my lord.
FRIAR.
Know you any, count?
LEONATO.
I dare make his answer; none.
CLAUDIO. O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!

BENEDICK. How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha! he!

CLAUDIO. Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave: Will you with free and unconstrained soul Give me this maid, your daughter?

LEONATO.
As freely, son, as God did give her me.
CLAUDIO.
And what have I to give you back whose worth
May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?
DON PEDRO.
Nothing, unless you render her again.
CLAUDIO.
Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
There, Leonato, take her back again:
Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
Behold! how like a maid she blushes here.
O! what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal.
Comes not that blood as modest evidence
To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
All you that see her, that she were a maid,
By these exterior shows? But she is none:
She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.
LEONATO.
What do you mean, my lord?
CLAUDIO.
Not to be married,
Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.
LEONATO.
Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth,
And made defeat of her virginity,—
CLAUDIO.
I know what you would say: if I have known her,
You’ll say she did embrace me as a husband,
And so extenuate theforehand sin: No, Leonato,
I never tempted her with word too large;
But, as a brother to his sister, show’d
Bashful sincerity and comely love.
HERO.
And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?
CLAUDIO.
Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals
That rage in savage sensuality.
HERO.
Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?
LEONATO.
Sweet prince, why speak not you?
DON PEDRO.
What should I speak?
I stand dishonour’d, that have gone about
To link my dear friend to a common stale.
LEONATO.
Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?
DON JOHN.
Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.
BENEDICK.
This looks not like a nuptial.
HERO.
True! O God!
CLAUDIO.
Leonato, stand I here? Is this the prince?
Is this the prince’s brother?
Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?
LEONATO.
All this is so; but what of this, my lord?
CLAUDIO.
Let me but move one question to your daughter,
And by that fatherly and kindly power
That you have in her, bid her answer truly.
LEONATO.
I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.
HERO.
O, God defend me! how am I beset!
What kind of catechizing call you this?
CLAUDIO.
To make you answer truly to your name.
HERO.
Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
With any just reproach?
CLAUDIO.
Marry, that can Hero:
Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.
hat man was he talk’d with you yesternight
Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?
Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.
HERO.
I talk’d with no man at that hour, my lord.
DON PEDRO.
Why, then are you no maiden.
Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my honour,
Myself, my brother, and this grieved count,
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window;
Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confess’d the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.
DON JOHN.
Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord,
Not to be spoke of;
There is not chastity enough in language
Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
CLAUDIO.
O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,
If half thy outward graces had been plac’d
About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!
For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.
LEONATO.
Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?
[HERO swoons.]

BEATRICE.
Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?
DON JOHN.
Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
Smother her spirits up.
[Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN and CLAUDIO.]

BENEDICK.
How doth the lady?
BEATRICE.
Dead, I think! help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior
Benedick! Friar!
LEONATO.
O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:
Death is the fairest cover for her shame
That may be wish’d for.
BEATRICE.
How now, cousin Hero?
FRIAR.
Have comfort, lady.
LEONATO.
Dost thou look up?
FRIAR.
Yea; wherefore should she not?
LEONATO.
Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
The story that is printed in her blood?
Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;
For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life. Griev’d I, I had but one?
Chid I for that at frugal nature’s frame?
O! one too much by thee. Why had I one?
Why ever wast thou lovely in mine eyes?
Why had I not with charitable hand
Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,
Who smirched thus, and mir’d with infamy,
I might have said, ‘No part of it is mine;
This shame derives itself from unknown loins?’
But mine, and mine I lov’d, and mine I prais’d,
And mine that I was proud on, mine so much
That I myself was to myself not mine,
Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallen
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
And salt too little which may season give
To her foul-tainted flesh.
BENEDICK.
Sir, sir, be patient.
For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,
I know not what to say.
BEATRICE.
O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!
BENEDICK.
Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?
BEATRICE. No, truly, not; although, until last night I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.

LEONATO.
Confirm’d, confirm’d! O! that is stronger made,
Which was before barr’d up with ribs of iron.
Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,
Who lov’d her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
Wash’d it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.
FRIAR.
Hear me a little;
For I have only been silent so long,
And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have mark’d
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire,
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;
Trust not my reading nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenure of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.
LEONATO.
Friar, it cannot be.
Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left
Is that she will not add to her damnation
A sin of perjury: she not denies it.
Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse
That which appears in proper nakedness?
FRIAR.
Lady, what man is he you are accus’d of?
HERO.
They know that do accuse me, I know none;
If I know more of any man alive
Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!
Prove you that any man with me convers’d
At hours unmeet, or...