With hands as pale as milk;
Lay them in gore,
Since you have shore
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With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word:
Come, trusty sword,
Come, blade, my breast imbrue! [Stabs herself.]
And farewell, friends;
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Thus Thisbe ends:
Adieu, adieu, adieu! [Dies.]
THESEUS Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the
dead.
DEMETRIUS Ay, and Wall too.
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BOTTOM [starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down
that parted their fathers. [Flute rises.] Will it please you
to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance
between two of our company?
THESEUS No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs
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no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all
dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that
writ it had played Pyramus, and hanged himself in
Thisbe’s garter, it would have been a fine tragedy –
and so it is, truly, and very notably discharged. But
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come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.
Enter QUINCE, SNUG, SNOUT and STARVELING
two of whom dance a bergamask. Then exeunt
handicraftsmen, including Flute and Bottom.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.
I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn
As much as we this night have overwatch’d.
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This palpable-gross play hath well beguil’d
The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
A fortnight hold we this solemnity
In nightly revels and new jollity. Exeunt.
Enter PUCK.
PUCK Now the hungry lion roars,
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And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
370
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite
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In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
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Now are frolic; not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallow’d house.
I am sent with broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.
Enter OBERON and TITANIA, the King and
Queen of Fairies, with all their train.
OBERON Through the house give glimmering light
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By the dead and drowsy fire;
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from briar;
And this ditty after me
Sing, and dance it trippingly.
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TITANIA First rehearse your song by rote,
To each word a warbling note;
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.
[Oberon leading, the Fairies sing and dance.]
OBERON Now, until the break of day,
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Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
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So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be;
And the blots of Nature’s hand
Shall not in their issue stand:
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
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Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait,
410
And each several chamber bless
Through this palace with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest,
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
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Meet me all by break of day.
Exeunt all but Puck.
PUCK [to the audience]
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
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And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
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If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call.
So, goodnight unto you all.
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Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. Exit.
Much Ado About Nothing
A Quarto edition of Much Ado About Nothing appeared in 1600, and the play was not reprinted until it was included in the First Folio in 1623 in a text based on the Quarto. A number of relatively minor inconsistencies in the text have been variously explained as errors in transmission or authorial loose ends. The title-page of the Quarto claims that the play had been ‘sundry times publicly acted’ by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s regular company. Unless it is identified with the mysterious Love’s Labour’s Won, it does not occur in Francis Meres’s list of Shakespeare’s comedies in 1598; this has caused scholars to believe that it was written in the second half of 1598 or 1599. It cannot have been written later than 1599 as the Quarto sometimes uses the name of Will Kemp instead of Dogberry in speech-headings, and this famous comic actor left the company in that year. It probably came after A Midsummer Night’s Dream and before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Although we do not have records of early performances of the play, allusions to it indicate that it must have been well known, and it was revived for a Court performance at Whitehall before King James I’s daughter Princess Elizabeth and her husband the Elector Palatine in May 1613.
The plot of the play combines the tragicomic story of the courtship of Hero and Claudio (in scenes written mainly in verse) with the witty sparring of Beatrice and Benedick (in scenes written mainly in prose). The latter pair are tricked into acknowledging that their posture of disliking each other conceals their love. Leonard Digges referred to the popularity of Beatrice and Benedick in his prefatory tribute to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s poems, and King Charles I wrote ‘Benedik and Betrice’ as a kind of alternative title in his copy of the 1632 Second Folio; the ‘merry war’ between these two characters (reminiscent of that between Berowne and Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost) usually dominates productions. Much Ado is also, however, of particular interest in that it contains Shakespeare’s earliest version of the more serious story of the man who mistakenly believes his partner has been unfaithful to him. This story is an ancient one, and Shakespeare could have used a number of Renaissance versions as his source(s). The triangle of Don John (deceiving villain), Claudio (credulous lover or husband) and Hero (slandered fiancée or wife) reappears in Iago, Othello and Desdemona and again in Iachimo, Posthumus and Imogen (in Cymbeline). Like Othello and Posthumus, Claudio is held responsible for the death (or apparent death) of the woman, although he at least does not mean
to kill her. Not surprisingly recent critics, especially feminists, have found it difficult to forgive such behaviour.
In the Restoration William Davenant amalgamated parts of Much Ado with parts of Measure for Measure to produce an adaptation called The Law Against Lovers (1662), and Shakespeare’s play was performed only sporadically until David Garrick’s acclaimed revival in 1748. Thereafter it continued to be popular on stage with actors such as Charles Kemble, Henry Irving and John Gielgud starring as Benedick, partnered respectively by Helen Faucit, Ellen Terry and Peggy Ashcroft as Beatrice. Not a text which had previously attracted many film-makers, it received a boost in its recent fortunes with the 1993 version directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Branagh and Emma Thompson.
The Arden text is based on the 1600 Quarto.
LIST OF ROLES
DON PEDRO
Prince of Aragon
DON JOHN
his bastard brother
CLAUDIO
a young lord of Florence
BENEDICK
a young lord of Padua
LEONATO
governor of Messina
ANTONIO
his brother
BALTHASAR
a singer, attendant on Don Pedro
followers of Don John
FRIAR FRANCIS
DOGBERRY
master constable
VERGES
a headborough
FIRST WATCHMAN
SECOND WATCHMAN
SEXTON
BOY
LORD
HERO
daughter to Leonato
BEATRICE
niece to Leonato
gentlewoman attending on Hero
Messengers, Musicians, Watchmen, Attendants, etc.
1.1 Enter LEONATO, Governor of Messina, HERO, his
daughter, and BEATRICE, his niece, with a Messenger.
LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of
Aragon comes this night to Messina.
MESSENGER He is very near by this, he was not three
leagues off when I left him.
LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this
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action?
MESSENGER But few of any sort, and none of name.
LEONATO 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
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called Claudio.
MESSENGER Much deserved on his part, and equally
remembered 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
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bettered expectation than you must expect of me to
tell you how.
LEONATO He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very
much glad of it.
MESSENGER I have already delivered him letters, and
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there appears much joy in him, even so much that joy
could not show itself modest enough without a
badge of bitterness.
LEONATO Did he break out into tears?
MESSENGER In great measure.
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LEONATO A kind overflow of kindness: there are no
faces truer than those that are so washed. How much
better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!
BEATRICE I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned
from the wars or no?
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MESSENGER I know none of that name, lady, there was
none such in the army of any sort.
LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece?
HERO My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.
MESSENGER O, he’s returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.
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BEATRICE He set up his bills here in Messina and
challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool,
reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and
challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many
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hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many
hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his
killing.
LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too
much, but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.
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MESSENGER He hath done good service, lady, in these
wars.
BEATRICE You had musty victual, and he hath holp to
eat it: he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an
excellent stomach.
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MESSENGER 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 honourable virtues.
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BEATRICE It is so indeed, he is no less than a stuffed
man; but for the stuffing – well, we are all mortal.
LEONATO 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
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between them.
BEATRICE Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last
conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now
is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have
wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a
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difference between himself and his horse, for it is all
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 399