William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado Act 1 Scene 1 Lines 158 - 283”
SCENE I. Before LEONATO'S house.

...

Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO

CLAUDIO
Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK
I noted her not; but I looked on her.

CLAUDIO
Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK
Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for
my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak
after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIO
No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
BENEDICK
Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
for a great praise: only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she
were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I
do not like her.

CLAUDIO
Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me
truly how thou likest her.

BENEDICK
Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

CLAUDIO
Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICK
Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this
with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack,
to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a
rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take
you, to go in the song?

CLAUDIO
In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
looked on.
BENEDICK
I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such
matter: there's her cousin, an she were not
possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty
as the first of May doth the last of December. But I
hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

CLAUDIO
I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the
contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENEDICK
Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world
one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?
Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?
Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck
into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away
Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Re-enter DON PEDRO

DON PEDRO
What secret hath held you here, that you followed
not to Leonato's?

BENEDICK
I would your grace would constrain me to tell.
DON PEDRO
I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICK
You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb
man; I would have you think so; but, on my
allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is
in love. With who? now that is your grace's part.
Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's
short daughter.

CLAUDIO
If this were so, so were it uttered.

BENEDICK
Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor
'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be
so.'

CLAUDIO
If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it
should be otherwise.

DON PEDRO
Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUDIO
You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

DON PEDRO
By my troth, I speak my thought.

CLAUDIO
And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

BENEDICK
And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

CLAUDIO
That I love her, I feel.

DON PEDRO
That she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICK
That I neither feel how she should be loved nor
know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that
fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.

DON PEDRO
Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite
of beauty.

CLAUDIO
And never could maintain his part but in the force
of his will.

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.

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: prove that ever I lose more blood
with love than I will get again with drinking, pick
out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me
up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO
Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
wilt prove a notable argument.

BENEDICK
If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot
at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on
the shoulder, and called Adam.

DON PEDRO
Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull
doth bear the yoke.'

BENEDICK
The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible
Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set
them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,
and in such great letters as they write 'Here is
good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign
'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'

CLAUDIO
If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

DON PEDRO
Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in
Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENEDICK
I look for an earthquake too, then.

DON PEDRO
Well, you temporize with the hours. In the
meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to
Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will
not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made
great preparation.

BENEDICK
I have almost matter enough in me for such an
embassage; and so I commit you--

CLAUDIO
To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,--

DON PEDRO
The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK
Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.

He exits