and one, 19 Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen; Her mother, ever strong against that match Made promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests: SCENE I. [A room in the Garter Inn.] Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY. Fal. Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away! go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away! Quick. I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns. Fal. Away, I say; time wears. Hold up your head, and mince. [Exit Mrs. Quickly.] [Enter FORD.] How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the [10 matter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders. Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed? 15 Fal. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever govern'd frenzy. I will tell you. He [20 beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me. I'll tell you all, Master Brook. [25 Since I pluck'd geese, play'd truant and whipp'd top, I knew not what 't was to be beaten till lately. Follow me. I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver [so his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow. [Exeunt. SCENE II. [Windsor Park.] Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Page. Come, come; we 'll couch i' the castleditch till we see the light of our fairies. Re member, son Slender, my daughter. Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her and we have a nay-word how to know one [ another. I come to her in white, and cry mum"; she cries "budget"; and by that we know one another. 66 SCENE III. [A street leading to the Park.] Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS. Mrs. Page. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green. When you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the park; we two must go together. Caius. I know vat I have to do. Adieu. Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit Caius.] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter. But 't is no matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of heart-break. 11 Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Hugh? Mrs. Page. They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscur'd lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and [is our meeting, they will at once display to the night. Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him. Mrs. Page. If he be not amaz'd, he will be mock'd; if he be amaz'd, he will every way be mock'd. 21 Mrs. Ford. We'll betray him finely. Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters and their lechery Those that betray them do no treachery. Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt. 28 SCENE IV. [Windsor Park.] Enter SIR HUGH EVANS [disguised], and [others as] Fairies. Evans. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts. Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you. Come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt. SCENE V. [Another part of the Park.] Enter FALSTAFF with a buck's head upon him. Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love ! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast. [ You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And then another fault in the [10 semblance of a fowl; think on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can [15 blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? My doe? Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE. Mrs. Ford. Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer? Fal. My doe with the black scut! Let the [20 sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of "Green Sleeves," hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. 24 Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. Fal. Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch. I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a [30 woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! [Noise within.] Mrs. Page. Alas, what noise ? Mrs. Ford. Away, away! 35 [They run off.] 40 Fal. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, like a Satyr, and boys dressed like Fairies [PISTOL, as Hobgoblin]; MISTRESS QUICKLY, like the Queen of Fairies; they sing a song about him and afterward speak. Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. 45 Pist. Elves, list your names. Šilence, you airy toys! Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap, Where fires thou find'st unrak'd and hearths 65 In state as wholesome as in state 't is fit, 70 75 Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, 80 Evans. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set; And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree. But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth. Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh [85 fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. 90 Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end. If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. Pist. A trial, come. Evans. Come, will this wood take fire? [They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts. Fal. Oh, Oh, Oh! Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; 95 And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. THE SONG. Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out. Here they pinch FALSTAFF and sing about him. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes a boy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is made within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises up. Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SHALLOW. Page. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now. Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? See you these, husband? Do not these fairy oaks Become the forest better than the town? Ford. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of [us Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook. His horses are arrested for it, Master Brook. Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; [129 we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer. Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English. Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun and dri'd it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb [145 of frieze? T is time I were chok'd with a piece of toasted cheese. Evans. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter. 149 Fal. "Seese" and "putter"! Have I liv'd to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm. Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and [155 have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? A bag of flax? Mrs. Page. A puff'd man? 164 Page. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails? Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan? Page. And as poor as Job? Ford. And as wicked as his wife? 165 Evans. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles? 169 Fal. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me. I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me. Use me as you will. Ford. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to whom you should have been a pan- [176 der. Over and above that you have suffer'd, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction. Page. Yet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that [180 now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter. Mrs. Page. Aside.] Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife. Enter SLENDER. Slen. Whoa, ho! ho, father Page! 186 Page. Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatch'd? 189 Slen. Dispatch'd! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on 't. Would I were hang'd, la, else! Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? Slen. I went to her in white, and cried "mum," and she cri'd "budget," as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not [210 Anne, but a postmaster's boy. Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the Doctor at the deanery, and there married. 216 Fent. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. 235 The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us. The offence is holy that she hath committed; And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title, Since therein she doth exitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. 340 Ford. Stand not amaz'd; here is no remedy. In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; 245 Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd. Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! 260 What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd. MUCH Ado About Nothing was entered in the Stationers' Register on August 4 and again on August 24, 1600, and the quarto edition of the play appeared in the same year. Unless this comedy be regarded as the Love's Labour's Won of Palladis Tamia, it is not mentioned in Meres's list, and so probably did not exist in 1598. The title-page of the Quarto states that it had been already "sundry times publicly acted," so that 1599, the date most generally assigned, is not likely to be more than a year wrong either way. The text of the First Folio was taken from a copy of the Quarto, which, judging from some changes in the stage directions, seems to have been used as a prompter's copy. The present text is based on the Quarto, with some few readings from the Folio and later editions. The story of Hero and Claudio is derived from the twentieth Novel of Bandello, though it is by no means clear that Shakespeare had direct access to this, especially since there is no trace of an English translation. In Bandello the scene is laid in Messina at the close of a successful war; Don Pedro of Arragon appears as King Piero d'Aragona, and Leonato as Lionato de' Lionati; and the thread of the story is the same as in Shakespeare with these main exceptions: the villain is a disappointed lover of Hero's; there is no Margaret, the deceiving of the bridegroom, Timbreo, being accomplished merely by his being led to see a man enter a window in the heroine's home; the scene in the church, where Claudio casts off Hero, is lacking, the Italian lover sending a friend to the father to announce the breaking off of the match; Timbreo repents of his own accord of his hasty inference; and the dénouement is brought about by the remorse of the villain. Thus in Shakespeare's main plot the character and motive of Don John are quite different, the deceiving of Claudio is made more plausible, and the humors of Dogberry and Verges are introduced to undo the tangle. The French version of Bandello by Belleforest supplies nothing that is found in the English but lacking in the Italian, and there is no evidence of Shakespeare's having used the translation any more than the original. But a probable source for the scene at Hero's window has been found in the story of Ariodante and Ginevra in the fifth book of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, translated into English in 1591 by Sir John Harington, who tells us that the incident had been stated to be historical. Further, Spenser narrated it in The Faerie Queene (book II, canto iv, stanza 17), omitting, however, the window as the scene of the deception; two other English renderings of the episode are recorded; and, finally, a play on the subject was acted before Queen Elizabeth in 158%. There is, therefore, no difficulty in supposing Shakespeare to have borrowed this detail. Bandello's story forms the basis of several German and Dutch plays also, only one of which, Jacob Ayrer's Die Schoene Phaenicia, need be mentioned here. This version has come through Belleforest and probably other intermediaries, and varies from both Bandello and Shakespeare in that the deception of the hero is accomplished by a man dressed to personate the heroine. It has been attempted, but without complete success, to show that both Ayrer's play and Much Ado come from a lost English play. The presence of a humorous underplot in both, upon which stress has been laid, is deprived of significance by the marked dissimilarity of these plots and their characters. The plot in which Beatrice and Benedick are the chief actors has not so far been found elsewhere. The similarity of their mutual relation to that of Rosaline and Biron in Love's Labour's Lost shows that Shakespeare had long had their particular kind of comedy in mind, and he may have invented the underplot to give them scope and to lighten the somewhat sombre story of Hero. On the other hand, it is quite possible that their prototypes may have already appeared in some play now lost, which Shakespeare recast in the present comedy. Traces of such a play have been evident to some scholars in the presence of Hero's mother, Innogen, in two stage directions, and in hints of a previous love affair between Beatrice and Benedick. Moreover, a play called" Benedicke and Betteris" is recorded as having been acted at the Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1613, though Much Ado also occurs in the list, and no other play was given twice on that occasion. But these indications afford at most no more than a presumption in favor of the theory of an older play. |