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  • Title: Much Ado About Nothing (Quarto 1, 1600)
  • Editor: Gretchen Minton
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-516-2

    Copyright Gretchen Minton. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Gretchen Minton
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Much Ado About Nothing (Quarto 1, 1600)

    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