Much Ado about Nothing (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)

by William Shakespeare

It has been accepted for a long time that the only authoritative text for Much Ado About Nothing is the quarto of 1600:

the bleak prospect of her marriage to such a man as Claudio, so easily swayed by prejudice.

Ralph Fiennes, anticipating in Claudio the handsome but callous, emotionally tortured males he has since portrayed on stage and screen,

Sarah Bernardt gave her Hamlet at fifty-five.

In Branagh’s film, surely the most influential version in recent years,

In 2002 Gregory Doran directed a very successful RSC production in which Beatrice was played by the 52-year-old Harriet Walter,

the ‘honest slanders’ fed to Benedick and Beatrice

the ‘slanderous tongues’ that (almost) kill Hero.

Beatrice’s

Rather, she is almost an honorary man,

Beatrice

I will assume thy part in some disguise,

I told him, and I think I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady,

Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

Let there be the same *net spread for her,

Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it:

She’s *limed I warrant you, we have caught her, madam.

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Hero and *Margaret

but I think they that *touch pitch will be defiled:

1 Henry IV. Falstaff to Hal

but know that I have tonight wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero:

And thought they Margaret was Hero?

but the devil my master knew she was Margaret,

away went Claudio enraged,

we have here 135 *recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery,

Myself, my brother, and this grievèd count Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night, Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,

And in her eye there hath appeared a fire, 155 To burn the errors that these princes hold Against her maiden truth:

If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here, Under some *biting error.

The *practice of it lives in John the *bastard, Whose spirits toil *in frame of villainies.

Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it, that she is dead indeed:

Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged 310 Hero?

Enough, I am engaged, I

Marry that he had received a thousand ducats of Don 40 John, for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.

Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and upon the grief of this, suddenly died:

My soul doth tell me, Hero is belied,

Marry *thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou:

know, Claudio, *to thy head, Thou hast so wronged mine innocent child and me,

I say thou hast *belied mine innocent child.

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death: But on my honour she was charged with nothing But what was true, and very full of proof.

you have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you: let me hear from you.

your 170 brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady:

for my Lord Lack-beard there, he and I shall meet,

did he not say my brother was fled?

DON PEDRO How now, two of my brother’s men bound? Borachio one.

they have belied a lady,

I have deceived even your very eyes:

what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools 205 have brought to light,

how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero,

saw me court *Margaret in Hero’s garments,

But did my brother set thee on to this?