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American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
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Much Ado About Nothing (Quarto 1, 1600)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Grechen Minton
Not Peer Reviewed
Much adoe
Gods sending that way, for it is saide, God sends a curst cow
short hornes, but to a cow too curst, he sends none.
Leonato So, by being too curst, God will send you no
hornes.
440Beatrice Iust, if he send me no husband, for the which bles-
sing, I am at him vpon my knees euery morning and euening:
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, dresse him in my ap-
parell and make him my waiting gentlewoman? he that hath a
beard, is more then a youth: and he that hath no beard, is lesse
then a man: and he that is more then a youth, is not for me, and
450he that is lesse then a man, I am not for him, therefore I will
euen take sixpence in earnest of the Berrord, and leade his
apes into hell.
Leonato Well then, go you into hell.
Beatrice No but to the gate, and there will the diuell meete
455me like an old cuckold with hornes on his head, and say, get
you to heauen Beatrice, get you to heauen, heeres no place for
you maids, so deliuer I vp my apes and away to saint Peter: for
the heauens, he shewes me where the Batchellers sit, and there
liue we as mery as the day is long.
brother Well neece, I trust you will be rulde by your fa-
ther.
Beatrice Yes faith, it is my cosens duetie to make cursie and
say, father, as it please you: but yet for all that cosin, let him be a
465handsome fellow, or else make an other cursie, and say, father,
as it please me.
Leonato Well neece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a
husband.
Beatrice Not til God make men of some other mettal then
470earth, would it not grieue a woman to be ouer-masterd with
a peece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod
of waiward marle? no vnckle, ile none: Adams sonnes are my
brethren, and truely I holde it a sinne to match in my kin-
red.
Leonato