Much Ado About Nothing

Beatrice:
Then there was a star danced and under that was I born.

Benedick:
O, she misused me past the endurance of a block. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the North star. So indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

Don Pedro:
Look, here she comes.

Benedick:
Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather then hold three words conference with this Harpy. You have no employment for me?

Don Pedro:
None but to desire your good company.

Benedick:
O God, sir, here's a dish I love not. I cannot endure my lady Tongue.

Benedick:
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue.

Beatrice:
I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.

Benedick:
What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beatrice:
Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.

Benedick:
Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

Beatrice:
A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

Benedick:
God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

Beatrice:
Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.

Benedick:
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

Beatrice:
A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

Benedick:
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done.

Beatrice:
You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

Benedick:
He is in love. With who? Now that is your grace's part. With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

Leonato:
You will never run mad, niece.

Beatrice:
No, not till a hot January.

Benedick:
That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

Benedick:
An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him

Benedick:
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? No. The world must be peopled.

Don Pedro:
I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

Benedick:
With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord. Not with love.

Claudio:
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.

Don Pedro:
Will you have me, lady?

Beatrice:
No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days. Your grace is too costly to wear everyday.

Claudio:
Friendship is constant in all other things, save in the office and affairs of love.

Claudio:
Done to death by slanderous tongues, was the Hero that here lies: Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, gives her fame which never dies. So the life that died with shame lives in death with glorious fame.

Beatrice:
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never. Then sigh not so but let them go and be you blithe and bonny, converting all your sounds of woe into hey nonny nonny.

Beatrice:
I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you.

Benedick:
What, my dear Lady Disdain. Are you yet living?

Beatrice:
Is't possible Disdain should die whilst she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to Disdain when you come in her presence.

Friar Francis:
Come, lady: die to live.

Beatrice:
Against my will, I am sent to bid you come into dinner.

Benedick:
Fair Beatrice, thank you for your pains.

Beatrice:
I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.

Benedick:
You take pleasure then in the message?

Beatrice:
Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point. You have no stomach, signor? Fare you well.

Benedick:
Ha. "Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner." There's a double meaning in that.

Beatrice:
I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

Don John:
I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace... If I had my mouth, I WOULD BITE. If I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am and SEEK NOT TO ALTER ME.

Don Pedro of Aragon:
Officers, what offense have these men done?

Dogberry:
Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly; they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

Dogberry:
Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.

Dogberry:
Are you good men and true?

Dogberry:
Being chosen for the Prince's watch. This is your charge: You are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name.

Francis Seacole:
How if a' will not stand?

Dogberry:
Why, then take no note of him, but let him go.

Verges:
If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the prince's subjects.

Dogberry:
True. and we are to meddle with none but the prince's subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets.

George Seacole:
We will rather sleep than talk.

Dogberry:
Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend.

Beatrice:
My cousin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

Claudio:
And so she does, cousin.

Benedick:
Do not you love me?

Beatrice:
Why no; no more than reason.

Benedick:
Why then your uncle, the Prince and Claudio have been deceived; they swore you did.

Beatrice:
Do not you love me?

Benedick:
Why no; no more than reason.

Beatrice:
Why then my cousin, Margaret and Ursula are much deceived, for they did swear you did.

Benedick:
They swore you were almost sick for me.

Beatrice:
They swore you were well-nigh dead for me.

Benedick:
'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?

Beatrice:
No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

Claudio:
Can the world buy such a jewel?

Benedick:
Yea, and a case to put it into.

Don Pedro:
Thou wilt be like a lover presently, and tire the hearer with a book of words.

Beatrice:
He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. And he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man - I am not for him.

Beatrice:
Good Lord for alliance. Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sun burnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband.

Benedick:
Hah. The Prince, and Monsieur Love.

Benedick:
They say the lady is fair, 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous, 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me - by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly; for I will be horribly in love with her.

Hero:
Nature never framed a woman's heart of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice - disdain and scorne ride sparkling in her eyes.

Leonato:
Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?

Leonato:
Being that I flow in grief, the smallest twine may lead me.

Benedick:
By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

Beatrice:
Do not swear by it and eat it.

Benedick:
I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

Beatrice:
O God, that I were a man. I would eat his heart in the market-place.

Beatrice:
Why then, God forgive me.

Benedick:
What offence, sweet Beatrice?

Beatrice:
You have stayed me in a happy hour, I was about to protest I loved you.

Benedick:
And do it, with all thy heart.

Beatrice:
I love you with so much of my heart, that none is left to protest.

Conrade:
You are an ass, you are an ass.

Dogberry:
Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass. But masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.

Benedick:
I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

Beatrice:
For them all together, which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them: but for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

Benedick:
Suffer love. a good epithet, I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

Beatrice:
In spite of your heart, I think. Alas poor heart, if you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend hates

Benedick:
Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

Benedick:
A miracle. Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity.

Beatrice:
I would not deny you, but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

Benedick:
Peace. I will stop your mouth.

Benedick:
Is it not strange that sheeps guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?

Beatrice:
I pray you, who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

Messenger:
He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

Beatrice:
O lord, he will hang upon him like a disease. He is sooner caught than the pestilence and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio. If he have caught the Benedick, 'twill cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.

Messenger:
He has done good service, and a good soldier too, lady.

Beatrice:
And a good soldier TO a lady. But what is he to a lord?

Messenger:
A lord to a lord, a man to a man, stuffed with all honorable virtues.

Beatrice:
'Tis so indeed. He is no less than a stuffed man.

Beatrice:
Get thee to heaven, Beatrice, get thee to heaven. Hell's no place for maids.

Beatrice:
Kill Claudio!

Leonato:
For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the tooth-ache patiently.

Benedick:
Serve God, Love me, and mend.

Dogberry:
And Master, sir, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall assert, that I am an ass.

"For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?"