Hero - Much Ado About Nothing LInes (Edited Script)

Leonato - What is he that you ask for, niece?

My cousin means Signior Benedick

Don Pedro- Your hand, Leonato; we will go together

exit

Act 2, Scene 1- enter

.

Beatrice- How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

He is of a very melancholy disposition.

Don Pedro- Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.

Don Pedro- With me in your company?

I may say so, when I please

Don Pedro- And when please you to say so?

When I like your favor; for God defend the lute should look like the case!

Don Pedro- My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.

Why, then, your visor should be that’d.

Don Pedro- Speak low, if you speak love.

Go aside

Benedick- …had left him before he trangressed.

Enter

Don Pedro- And you too, gentle Hero? Ursula?

I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

Don Pedro- Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

exit

Act 3, Scene 1

Good Margret, run thee to the parlour; THere shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the Prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse is all of her; say that thou overhd’st us, And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honey-suckles, ripen’d by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter; There will she hide her, To listen our porpose. This is thy office; Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

Margaret- I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, as we do trace this alley up and down, our talk must only be of Benedick: When I do name him, let it be thy part to praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to the must be how Benedick is sick in love with Beatrice: of this matter is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Beatrice Enters] Now begin; For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

Urusula- The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish cut with her golden oars the silver stream, and greedily devour the treacherous bait:

Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know her spirits are as coy and wild as haggards of the rock.

Urusula- But are you sure that benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord.

Urusula- and did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

They did entreat me to acquaint her of it; But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick, to wish him wrestle with affection, and never to let Beatrice know of it.

Urusula- Why idd you so? Doth not ht egentleman deserve as full as fortunate a bed as ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

O god of love! I know he doth deserve as much as may be yielded to a man; but Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart of prouder stuff that that of Beatrice; Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, misprising what they look on, and her wit values itself so highly, that to her all matter else seems weak. She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project of affection, she is so self-endear’d.

Urusula- Sue I think so; and therefor certaintly it were not good she knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, how wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur’d. But she would spell him backward:

Urusula- Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

No; not to be so odd, and from all fashions, as Beatrice is, cannot be commendable. But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, she would mock me into air: O! she would laugh me out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire, COnsume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death thatn die with mocks, Which is as bad as die with tickling.

Urusula- Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.

No; rather I will go to benedick, and counsel him to fight against his passion.

Urusula- O! do not do your cousin such a wrong. So rare a gentleman as signor benedick.

He is the only man of Italy, always excepted my dear Claudio.

Urusula-For shape, for bearing, argument and valour, goes foremost in report through Italy.

Indeed, he halth and excellent good name.

Urusula- His excellence did earn it, ere he had it. When are you married, madam?

Why, everday, tomorrow. COme, go in: I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel which is the best to furnish me tomorrow.

Urusula- She’s lim’d, I warrant you, we have caught her, madam.

If it prove so, then loving goes by haps: some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. [exit]

Act 3, Scene 4 - enter

Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise.

Ursula- I will, lady

And bid her come hither.

Margaret- Troth, I think your other rebato were better.

No, pray thee, good Meg, I’ll wear this.

Margaret- By my troth’s not so good; and I warrant your cousin will say so.

My cousin’s a fool, and thou art another: I’ll wear none but this.

Margaret- I saw the Duchess od Milan’s gown that they praise so.

O! that exceeds, they say.

Margaret- but for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on’t.

God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.

Margaret- ‘Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?

[enter Beatrice]

Good morrow, coz.

Beatrice- Good morrow, sweet Hero.

Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?

Margaret- Nothing I; but God send everyone their heart’s desire!

These gloves the count sent me; they are an excellent perfume.

Margaret- Get you some of this distilled Carduus benedictus, and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.

There thou prickst her with a thistle.

Ursula- Madam, withdraw: the prince, the countm Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to church.

Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula. [exit]

Act 4, scene 1

enter

Friar- Lady, you come hither to be married to this Count?

I do.

Claudio- Know you any, Hero?

None, my lord.

Claudio- But as a brother to his sister show’d Bashful sincerity and comely love.

and seem’d I ever otherwise to you?

Claudio- Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals that rage in savage sensuality.

Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

Benedick- This looks not like a nuptial.

True! O God!

Leonato- I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.

O, God defend me! how am I beset! What kind of catechizing call you this?

Claudio- To make you answer truely to your name.

Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name with any just reproach?

Claudio- Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one? Now, if you are a main, answer to this.

I talk’d with no man at that hour, my lord.

Leonato- Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?

[Faint]

Friar-Lady, what man is he you are accus’d of?

They know that do accuse me, I know none; O, my father! Prove you that any man with me convers’d at hours unmeet, or that I yesternight maintaine’d the change of words with any creature, refuse me, hate me, tourture me to death.

Frair-have patience and endure.

exit

Act 5, scene 4,

enter

Leonato- The Prince and Claudio promis’dby this hour to visit me.

exit

Claudio- Which is the lady I must seize upon?

enter

Claudio- Give me your hand: before this holy friar, I am your husband, if you like of me.

And when I liv’d, I was your other wife: And when you lov’d, you were my other husband.

Claudio- Another Hero!

Nothing certainer: One Hero died defil’d, but I do live, and surely as I live, I am a maid.

Claudio- A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, Fashion’d to Beatrice.

And here’s another, writ my cousin’s hand, stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto Benedick.