Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
Emma Thompson: Beatrice
Photos
Quotes
-
Beatrice : He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. And he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man - I am not for him.
-
Beatrice : O God, that I were a man. I would eat his heart in the market-place.
-
Benedick : A miracle. Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity.
Beatrice : I would not deny you, but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.
Benedick : Peace. I will stop your mouth.
-
Beatrice : I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.
Benedick : What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Beatrice : Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.
Benedick : Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice : A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
Benedick : God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.
Beatrice : Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.
Benedick : Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
Beatrice : A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
Benedick : I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done.
Beatrice : You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.
-
Beatrice : Kill Claudio.
Benedick : Not for the wide world.
Beatrice : You kill me to deny it. Fare thee well.
Benedick : Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
Beatrice : I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I pray you, let me go.
Benedick : Beatrice!
Beatrice : In faith, I will go.
Benedick : We'll be friends first.
Beatrice : You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.
Benedick : Is Claudio thine enemy?
Beatrice : [Yelling/sobbing] Is he not approved in the height of a villain that hath slandered, scorned, dishonored my kinswoman? O, that I were a man! What bear her in hand until they come to take hands and then, with public accusation uncovered slander,
[pushes table over]
Beatrice : unmitigated rancor... O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace!
Benedick : Hear me, Beatrice.
Beatrice : Talk with man out at a window. A proper saying!
Benedick : Nay, but, Beatrice...
Beatrice : Sweet Hero. She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone!
Benedick : Beatrice!
Beatrice : He is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.
[Falls to knees]
Beatrice : I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.
Benedick : By this hand, I love thee.
Beatrice : Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.
Benedick : Think you in your soul that Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?
Beatrice : Yea. As sure as I have a thought or a soul.
Benedick : Enough. I am engaged. I will challenge him. Go. Comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead. And so, farewell.
-
Beatrice : Against my will, I am sent to bid you come into dinner.
Benedick : Fair Beatrice, thank you for your pains.
Beatrice : I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.
Benedick : You take pleasure then in the message?
Beatrice : Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point. You have no stomach, signor? Fare you well.
Benedick : Ha. "Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner." There's a double meaning in that.
-
Beatrice : I pray you, who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
Messenger : He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
Beatrice : O lord, he will hang upon him like a disease. He is sooner caught than the pestilence and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio. If he have caught the Benedick, 'twill cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.
-
[first lines]
Beatrice : Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never. Then sigh not so but let them go and be you blithe and bonny, converting all your sounds of woe into hey nonny nonny.
-
Benedick : I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
Beatrice : For them all together, which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them: but for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?
Benedick : Suffer love. a good epithet, I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.
Beatrice : In spite of your heart, I think. Alas poor heart, if you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend hates
Benedick : Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
-
Beatrice : Is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?
Messenger : I know none of that name, lady.
Hero : My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.
Messenger : Oh, he's returned and as pleasant as ever he was.
Beatrice : I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.
Messenger : He hath done good service and a good soldier too, lady.
Beatrice : And a good soldier to a lady. But what is he to a lord?
Messenger : A lord to a lord. A man to a man, stuffed with all honorable virtues.
Beatrice : It is so, indeed. He is no less than a stuffed man.
Leonato : You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet, but there's a skirmish of wit between them.
Beatrice : Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
Messenger : He is most in the company of the right and noble Claudio.
Beatrice : O lord! He will hang upon him like a disease. He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.
Messenger : I will keep friends with you, lady.
Beatrice : [Chuckles] Do, good friend.
Leonato : You will never run mad, niece.
Beatrice : No, not till a hot January.
-
Ursula : Madam!
Benedick : Here comes one in haste.
Ursula : You must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home. It is proved my lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come, presently?
Beatrice : Will you go hear this news, signior?
Benedick : I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap and be buried in thy eyes, and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle's.
Beatrice : [laughs]
-
Benedick : Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?
Beatrice : [Pushed out of crowd by Antonio. Removes veil, clears throat] I answer to that name.
[Appraoches Benedick]
Beatrice : What is your will?
Benedick : Do not you love me?
Beatrice : Why, no. No more than reason.
Benedick : Well, then your Uncle, the prince and Claudio have been deceived. They swore you did.
Beatrice : Do not you love me?
Benedick : Why, no. No more than reason.
Beatrice : Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula are much deceived for they swear you did.
Benedick : They swore you were almost sick for me.
Beatrice : They swore you well nigh dead for me.
Benedick : 'Tis no such matter. Then... you... do not love me?
Beatrice : No, truly, but in friendly recompense.
[Shakes Benedick's hand]
Leonato : Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.
Claudio : I'll be sworn upon he loves her, for here's a paper written in his hand a halting sonnet of his own pure brain, fashioned to Beatrice.
Hero : And here's another...
Beatrice : No!
[Slaps Hero's hand]
Hero : ...writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket containing her affection unto Benedick.
Benedick : A miracle! Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee. But, by this light, I take thee for pity.
Beatrice : I would not deny you. But, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.
Benedick : Peace! I will stop your mouth.
[Kisses Beatrice]
-
Beatrice : I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
-
Benedick : Do not you love me?
Beatrice : Why no; no more than reason.
Benedick : Why then your uncle, the Prince and Claudio have been deceived; they swore you did.
Beatrice : Do not you love me?
Benedick : Why no; no more than reason.
Beatrice : Why then my cousin, Margaret and Ursula are much deceived, for they did swear you did.
Benedick : They swore you were almost sick for me.
Beatrice : They swore you were well-nigh dead for me.
Benedick : 'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?
Beatrice : No, truly, but in friendly recompense.
-
Benedick : Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
Beatrice : Yea... and I will weep a while longer.
Benedick : I will not desire that.
Beatrice : You have no reason. I do it freely.
Benedick : Surely, I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.
Beatrice : How much might the man deserve of me that would right her!
Benedick : Is there any way to show such friendship?
Beatrice : A very even way, but no such friend.
Benedick : May a man do it?
Beatrice : It is a man's office... but not yours.
Benedick : I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?
Beatrice : As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you. But believe me not. And yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.
Benedick : By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
Beatrice : Do not swear, and eat it.
Benedick : I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.
Beatrice : Why, then, God forgive me!
Benedick : What offense, sweet Beatrice?
Beatrice : You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I loved you.
Benedick : And do it with all thy heart.
Beatrice : I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
Benedick : [Kisses Beatrice] Come. Bid me do anything for thee.
Beatrice : Kill Claudio.
-
Beatrice : Good Lord for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a corner and cry 'heigh-ho!' for a husband.
Don Pedro : Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
Beatrice : I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your grace not a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
Don Pedro : Will you have me, lady?
Beatrice : [pauses] No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days. Your Grace is too costly to wear everyday. But I beseech your Grace to pardon me; for I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
Don Pedro : Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.
Beatrice : No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born...
[Beatrice exits]
Don Pedro : By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.
-
Beatrice : I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you.
Benedick : What, my dear Lady Disdain. Are you yet living?
Beatrice : Is't possible Disdain should die whilst she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to Disdain when you come in her presence.
-
Beatrice : [suggesting Satan would greet her spirit with] Get thee to heaven, Beatrice, get thee to heaven. Hell's no place for maids.
-
Beatrice : Kill Claudio!
