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Much Ado About Nothing: Act II, Scene 2

Much Ado About Nothing
Act II, Scene 2

Another room in Leonato’s house.

  1. Enter Don John and Borachio.

Don John

1 - 2
  1. It is so, the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of
  2. Leonato.

Borachio

3
  1. Yea, my lord, but I can cross it.

Don John

4 - 7
  1. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med’cinable to
  2. me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes
  3. athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst
  4. thou cross this marriage?

Borachio

8 - 9
  1. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty
  2. shall appear in me.

Don John

10
  1. Show me briefly how.

Borachio

11 - 12
  1. I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in
  2. the favor of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero.

Don John

13
  1. I remember.

Borachio

14 - 15
  1. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her
  2. to look out at her lady’s chamber-window.

Don John

16
  1. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

Borachio

17 - 21
  1. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the
  2. Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath
  3. wrong’d his honor in marrying the renown’d Claudiowhose
  4. estimation do you mightily hold upto a contaminated stale,
  5. such a one as Hero.

Don John

22
  1. What proof shall I make of that?

Borachio

23 - 24
  1. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo
  2. Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?

Don John

25
  1. Only to despite them, I will endeavor any thing.

Borachio

26 - 40
  1. Go then, find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count
  2. Claudio alone, tell them that you know that Hero loves me,
  3. intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudioas in
  4. love of your brother’s honor, who hath made this match, and
  5. his friend’s reputation, who is thus like to be cozen’d with
  6. the semblance of a maidthat you have discover’d thus. They
  7. will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them
  8. instances, which shall bear no less likelihood than to see
  9. me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear
  10. Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the
  11. very night, before the intended weddingfor in the mean time
  12. I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absentand
  13. there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty,
  14. that jealousy shall be call’d assurance, and all the
  15. preparation overthrown.

Don John

41 - 43
  1. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in
  2. practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a
  3. thousand ducats.

Borachio

44 - 45
  1. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not
  2. shame me.

Don John

46
  1. I will presently go learn their day of marriage.
  1. Exeunt.
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