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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    Not Peer Reviewed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
    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
    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-
    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
    Clau.