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No Fear Shakespheare

Much Ado About Nothing

William Shakespeare

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Act 2, Scene 1

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Enter LEONATO,ANTONIO, HERO,BEATRICE, URSULA andMARGARET
LEONATO, ANTONIO HERO BEATRICE URSULA, and MARGARET enter.

LEONATO
Was not Count John here at supper?
 LEONATO
Wasn’t Don John at dinner tonight?

ANTONIO
I saw him not.
 ANTONIO
I didn’t see him.


BEATRICE
How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I
am heartburned an hour after.
 BEATRICE
That man always looks so sour! Just looking at him gives me heartburn.

5		 HERO
He is of a very melancholy disposition.
 HERO
He has a very gloomy attitude.




BEATRICE
He were an excellent man that were made just in the
midway between him and Benedick. The one is too like an
image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady’s
eldest son, evermore tattling.
 BEATRICE
It would be excellent if they could make a man halfway between Don John and Benedick. One of them is too much like a painting of a man—he never speaks—and the other is too much like a spoiled little boy, always chattering.

10

 LEONATO
Then half Signor Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s
mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signor
Benedick’s face—
 LEONATO
So, the man would talk half as much as Benedick and be half as serious as Don John—



15		 BEATRICE
With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough
in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the
world, if he could get her goodwill.
 BEATRICE
And if he were handsome, agile, and rich, too, he could have any woman in the world—all he’d need was her good will.


LEONATO
By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if
thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
 LEONATO
Really, niece, you’ll never get a husband if you keep saying such harsh things about people.

ANTONIO
In faith, she’s too curst.
 ANTONIO
Honestly, she is too ill-tempered.
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