MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. INTRODUCTION. THIS comedy shows the lighter and brighter side of Shakespeare's mind in the early years of perfected manhood. It was written about 1599, and was first printed in quarto in 1600, when he was thirty-five or thirty-six years old. The plot and the gentlefolks among the personages came from a story by Bandello, an Italian novelist, who died in 1561, and whose works were never Englished. But the very names in Shakespeare's comedy and the Italian story are the same, and so are the principal incidents. Shakespeare may have read Bandello; but I am much disposed to believe that there was a writer, narrative or dramatic, between the English playwright and the Italian novelist, and that the comedy is an adaptation of another man's constructive work, enriched by Shakespeare's poetry and charactermaking. But it is essentially his from beginning to end, the traces of another hand being few and slight. The name of the play and the significance of the name depend upon a pun not so plain in our day as it was in Shakespeare's. For then th was pronounced t, or dth, as the Irish now pronounce it, for example, in murdther; and noting and nothing had consequently much the same sound. See the following passage in this play :Balth. There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Don P. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks; Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. See also in the Winter's Tale, Act IV. Scene 3: "No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and the nothing of it." The play is made up of much ado about noting, that is, watching, observing. All the personages are constantly engaged in noting or watching each other. Hero's sufferings come from noting, - by her uncle's servant, by Claudio, and by Don Pedro; her release and her happiness by the noting of the Watch; and Benedick and Beatrice are brought together by secretly noting what their friends plot that they should note; and yet the principal serious incident, the accusation of Hero, about which there is so much ado, rests upon nothing. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. ACT I. SCENE I. Before LEONATO's house. - goo of messina Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger. goo of Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Mess. He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him. Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio. 9 Mess. Much deserv'd on his part and equally rememb❜red by Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bett'red expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness. Leon. Did he break out into tears? Mess. In great measure. 20 Leon. A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces truer than those that are so wash'd. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping! Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return'd from the wars or no? Mess. I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort. Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece? Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua. Mess. O, he's return'd; and as pleasant as ever he was. 30 Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina and challeng'd Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscrib'd for Cupid, and challeng'd him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he kill'd and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he kill'd? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he 'll be meet with you, I doubt it not. 40 Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach. Mess. And a good soldier too, lady. 1 Beat. And a good soldier to a lady but what is he to a lord? Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuff'd with all honourable virtues. Beat. It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuff'd man: but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal. 49 Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. Beat. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man govern'd with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. Mess. Is 't possible? your books. 60 Beat. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block. Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in Beat. No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the Devil? Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. Beat. 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, it will cost him a thousand pounds ere he be cur'd. Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady. Beat. Do, good friend. Leon. You will never run mad, niece. 33 flight; bird-bolt. Flight was long shot in archery; bird-bolt, short. 71 65 squarer. Boys now about to fight square off at each other; but perhaps S. wrote 'young squire." |