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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.

Much Ado About Nothing (Quarto 1, 1600)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Grechen Minton
Not Peer Reviewed

Much adoe
Beleeue it better then reportingly.
exit.
Enter Prince, Claudio, Benedicke, and Leonato.
Prince I doe but stay til your mariage be consummate, and
1210then go I toward Arragon.
Claud. Ile bring you thither my lord, if youle vouchsafe
me.
Prince Nay that would be as great a soyle in the new glosse
of your marriage, as to shew a child his new coate and forbid
1215him to weare it, I wil only be bold with Benedick for his com-
pany, for from the crowne of his head, to the sole of his foot,
he is al mirth, he hath twice or thrice cut Cupides bow-string,
and the little hang-man dare not shoot at him, he hath a heart
as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper, for what his
1220heart thinkes, his tongue speakes.
Bene. Gallants, I am not as I haue bin.
Leo. So say I, me thinkes you are sadder.
Clau. I hope he be in loue.
1225Prince Hang him truant, theres no true drop of bloud in
him to be truly toucht with loue, if he be sadde, he wantes mo-
ney.
Bene. I haue the tooth-ach.
Prince Draw it.
1230Bene. Hang it.
Clau. You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.
Prince What? sigh for the tooth-ach.
Leon. Where is but a humour or a worme.
Bene. Wel, euery one cannot master a griefe, but he that
1235has it.
Clau. Yet say I, he is in loue.
Prince There is no appeerance of fancie in him, vnlesse it
be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises, as to be a Dutch-
man to day, a French-man to morrow, or in the shape of two
countries at once, as a Germaine from the waste downward,
all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip vpward, no dublet: vn-
1240lesse he haue a fancie to this foolery, as it appeares he hath,
he is no foole for fancy, as you would haue it appeare he
is.
Clau.