# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Leonato

41

Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much;
but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

2

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Messenger

47

And a good soldier too, lady.

3

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Don Pedro

92

You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this
is your daughter.

4

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Benedick

153

Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
for a great praise: only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she
were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I
do not like her.

5

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Benedick

245

I look for an earthquake too, then.

6

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Claudio

284

How sweetly you do minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salved it with a longer treatise.

7

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Beatrice

404

He were an excellent man that were made just in the
midway between him and Benedick: the one is too
like an image and says nothing, and the other too
like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

8

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Antonio

416

In faith, she's too curst.

9

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Beatrice

417

Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's
sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst
cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none.

10

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Leonato

420

So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

11

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Beatrice

458

The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be
not wooed in good time: if the prince be too
important, tell him there is measure in every thing
and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero:
wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,
a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot
and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a
measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the
cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

12

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Borachio

553

So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

13

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Benedick

609

Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made,
and the garland too; for the garland he might have
worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on
you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' nest.

14

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Benedick

620

O, she misused me past the endurance of a block!
an oak but with one green leaf on it would have
answered her; my very visor began to assume life and
scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was
duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest
with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood
like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at
me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs:
if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
there were no living near her; she would infect to
the north star. I would not marry her, though she
were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before
he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have
turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make
the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find
her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God
some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while
she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a
sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they
would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror
and perturbation follows her.

15

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Beatrice

703

No, my lord, unless I might have another for
working-days: your grace is too costly to wear
every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

16

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Leonato

730

Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just
seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all
things answer my mind.

17

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Don Pedro

745

And you too, gentle Hero?

18

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 3]

Benedick

1026

[Coming forward] This can be no trick: the
conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of
this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it
seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!
why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:
they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
the love come from her; they say too that she will
rather die than give any sign of affection. I did
never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy
are they that hear their detractions and can put
them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a
truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis
so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving
me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor
no great argument of her folly, for I will be
horribly in love with her. I may chance have some
odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,
because I have railed so long against marriage: but
doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat
in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of
the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?
No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would
die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I
were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day!
she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in
her.

19

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 1]

Hero

1107

Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.
[Approaching the bower]
No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggerds of the rock.

20

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 2]

Don Pedro

1256

That would I know too: I warrant, one that knows him not.