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Home : Much Ado About Nothing : Act 5, scene i : page 190 Read the Study Guide: Much Ado About Nothing
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Much Ado About Nothing
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 LEONATO
  Some haste, my lord! Well, fare you well, my lord.
  Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.
LEONATO
A bit of a hurry, my lord! Well then, good bye, my lord. You're in a hurry, are you? Well then, don't bother.
 DON PEDRO
50 Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.
DON PEDRO
Come on, don't quarrel with us, good old man.
 ANTONIO
  If he could right himself with quarreling,
  Some of us would lie low.
ANTONIO
If it's fighting he is after, some of us here should run and hide.
 CLAUDIO
                                  Who wrongs him?
CLAUDIO
Who has wronged him?
 LEONATO
  Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou.
  Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword.
55 I fear thee not.
LEONATO
Indeed, you have wronged me, you liar. Don't bother trying to intimidate me by putting your hand on your sword. I'm not scared of you.
 CLAUDIO
                  Marry, beshrew my hand
  If it should give your age such cause of fear.
  In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.
CLAUDIO
Curse my hand if it ever threatened an old man like you. Really, I had no intention of going for my sword.
 LEONATO
  Tush, tush, man, never fleer and jest at me.
  I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
60 As under privilege of age to brag
  What I have done being young, or what would do
  Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
  Thou hast so wronged mine innocent child and me
  That I am forced to lay my reverence by,
65 And with gray hairs and bruise of many days
  Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
  I say thou hast belied mine innocent child.
  Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
  And she lies buried with her ancestors,
70 Oh, in a tomb where never scandal slept
  Save this of hers, framed by thy villainy.
LEONATO
Damn you, don't mock and sneer at me. I'm not a doddering old fool who brags about the things he did when he was young, and what he would do now if he weren't so old. Claudio, I'm telling you right to your face that you have wronged me and my innocent child. I am forced to lay aside my old man's respectability, and with my gray hairs and my aching body I challenge you to a duel. You have ruined my innocent child. Your slander has broken her heart, and now she lies buried with her ancestors in a tomb—ancestors who had never been tainted by scandal until you caused one with your wickedness.
 CLAUDIO
  My villainy?
CLAUDIO
My wickedness?

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