Much Ado About Nothing
Written: 1598 Texts: Quarto 1600, First Folio 1623 (Comedy)
Source: Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533). Orlando Furioso (1516)(The English translation by John Harington in 1591); Bandello, Matteo (1485-1561) Novelle (1554-73) 22th story; Edmund Spenser (c.1552-99). The Faerie Queene (1590); Francois de Belleforest (1530-83). Histories Tragiques (1568) Book 3; Whetstone, George The Roke of Regard (1576) – Clauido’s rejuction of Hero at her own wedding; Castiglione, Baldassare (1478-1529) The Book of the Courtier (1528)
Characters: Leonato, Claudio, Don Pedro, Benedick, Hero, Beatrice, Friar Francis, Dogberry, Don John, Borachio, Antonio, Ursala
Setting: Messina
Time: Undetermined
Xxx xxx
He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age
Read the QuoteMuch 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
bettered expectation than you must expect of me to
tell you how.
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How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping
Read the QuoteHow much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!Antimetabole
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Are you come to meet your trouble?
Read the QuoteAre you come to meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
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Speak low if you speak love.
Read the QuoteSpeak low if you speak love.
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Friendship is constant in all other things
Read the QuoteFriendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.Hendiadys
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.Synecdoche
Let every eye negotiate for itself,Synecdoche
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into bloodMetaphor.
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Ho, now you strike like the blind man
Read the QuoteHo, now you strike like the blind man. ‘Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.Metaphor
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Silence is the perfectest heralt of joy
Read the QuoteSilence is the perfectest heralt of joy; I were but little happy, if I could say how much!
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There’s little of the melancholy element in her
Read the QuoteThere’s little of the melancholy element in
her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps,
and not ever sad then, for I have heard my daughter
say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and
waked herself with laughing.
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No, sure, my lord, my mother cried
Read the QuoteNo, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there was a star danc’d, and under that was I born.
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Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.
Read the Quote Time goes on crutches till love have all his ritesPersonification.
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