A/N: Okay this is the last angry feminist rant piece, I assure you. Much Ado about Nothing is my favorite Shakespeare play. I love the Beatrice and Benedick side. But I got a little -okay alot- agrivated because after degrading Hero so much it would have been reasonable for her father, in this time, to stone her, attacking the woman he supposedly loved both physically and metally, and branding her as a harlot for life, she's just ment to marry him again afterward and everythings so happy and jolly. I like the BBC's Shakespeare Retold version heaps but here is my version. Rated T for very minor sexual discourse. Your a big boy/girl. You'll cope.
Much Ado about Nothing: …He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
Offstage
Benedick:
…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!
Both Benedick and Claudio enter Leonato's orchard
Claudio: Right… It's not like you're just making excuses because you turned from the saint of all bachelorhood to the man who is at the beck and call of his wife?
Benedick: I wouldn't go that far! Just because I'm happily married doesn't mean I've become a… a…
Claudio: A spongy beef-witted flax wench?
Benedick: What?
Claudio: I've been on the internet again. You know you can find these Shakespearean insult generators…
Benedick: Oh, so you need someone else to make up you're insults for you?
Claudio: It's the only way to keep up with you. Well, maybe not now you're a married, you droning flap-mouthed clotpole.
Benedick: Hey, it's not only me who's the newly wed! You got married on the same day as me remember! I have known when there was no music with you but the drum and the fife; and now had you'd rather hear the tabour and the pipe!
Claudio: Okay, okay. But in honesty how are things with you and Beatrice? Leonato once said that "if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad". It's been a week. Are you crazy yet?
Benedick: I'm crazy enough to be talking to you! What about you? How are things with you and Hero?
pause
Claudio: Fine, fine.
Benedick: Wow, so convincing! You should be an actor.
Claudio: Give it a rest Benedick.
Benedick: What's wrong? I thought you two would be going great after the struggle you two went through just to get to the alter, what with you thinking she'd been sleeping around and all, and her having to fake her death, and it all turning out to be much ado abou…
Claudio: We are going great.
Pause. Benedick stares at Claudio
Claudio: We are!
Pause
Claudio: …In a sense.
Benedick: And what is this sense?
Claudio: Well… Um… this is a bit embarrassing.
Benedick: I've seen you when you were drunk and hitting on fifty year old men, Claudio it can't be more embarrassing than that.
Claudio: Want a bet?
Benedick: Okay, now I've got to know.
Claudio is clearly embarrassed
Claudio: Well… You know how on ones… wedding night...there are certain… expectation…
Benedick: …Yes?
Claudio: Well…um… we didn't… do the expected.
Awkward pause. Really awkward.
Benedick: Oh! Well, you were probably tried from a long day…
Claudio: No! I don't mean that! I was willing and able but she... wouldn't… with me.
Benedick: What?
Claudio: And it wasn't like she just refused or anything. She thinks she's doing the right thing!
Pause
Benedick: Okay, I'm totally lost.
Claudio: Remember how I left her at the altar when I thought she had lost her virginity?
Benedick: Number one; it was only a week ago, and number two; even if it wasn't I would have still remembered!
Claudio: Well on our wedding night, she refused to… you know… because she thinks that if she loses her virginity I'll leave her.
Benedick: Even to you?
Claudio: Yes! That's kind of my point!
Benedick: Oh.
Yet another awkward pause. Hero enters. Claudio leans over to whisper to Benedick
Claudio: Would you talk to her for me?
Benedick: What? No! I don't know Hero…
Hero interrupts
Hero Hello Darling. How are things?
She kisses him on the cheek
Claudio: No. I mean yes. I mean good. Um… I've got to go do a thing… with that person… Bye!
Exit Claudio. Uncomfortable silence between Benedick and Hero.
Benedick: Um… Hello Hero. Claudio and I were just… talking…
Hero: He's been telling you that I haven't been sleeping with him, right.
Benedick: Whoa. If I knew you were psychic I wouldn't have thought all those things about your cousin in front of you.
Hero chuckles
Hero: I'm not. But it doesn't take a genius to guess.
Benedick: Okay so… I don't have to be subtle?
Hero: No.
Benedick looks towards the heavens and mouths "Thank You"
Benedick: Hero, you know he won't leave you if you sleep with him.
Hero: I know.
Pause
Benedick: Okay… That wasn't the response that I thought I was going to get…
Hero: You remember when Claudio left me at the alter?
Benedick: Why does everyone keep asking me that question?
Hero: I don't think you understand what that meant. I was officially branded a harlot. I was soiled, I was unclean. I was unfit for a wife and I would have died an old maid. I brought shame to my family and particular my father. And all this because he saw my maid having a fling in the dark.
Benedick: And John the Bastard.
Hero: You think that his title alone would be enough to convice Claudio he wasn't exactly trust-worthy. Yet he takes the word of a man he was recently waring with over me his bride-to-be? If he values my virginity so much that he would ruin my life over it, he can keep it.
Pause
Benedick: That's clever.
Hero: Thank you!
Benedick: But aren't you worried that…you know… he'll go other places for "affection".
Hero: No. He pledged himself to me, both at the wedding and to my father. He's stuck I'm afraid. And plus every maid in my father's estate would know. He doesn't know the meaning of suffering until he's been black-listed by the maids' gossip ring.
Benedick: Yeah. I remember I once said something particularly cruel about Beatrice. It was months until I could eat kitchen food again.
Hero: Thought they were spitting in it?
Benedick: No I thought they were poisoning it. Made a valuable discovery -don't make fun of a woman's weight.
Hero: So… are you going to tell on me?
Benedick: Hero, Claudio's my best friend. We've seen war, death and a Bush government together. I would trust him with my life and he with mine.
Hero: Oh. I understand.
Benedick: That's why I'm not going to tell. This is twice as funny as any prank I've ever pulled on him! How long are you going to keep him hanging?
Hero: Oh a few months at least. I want to drag this out for as long as possible.
Benedick: Well, this is definitely a warning not to cross you cousin. I never would have guessed you to have such diabolical plans. You should try out for the next Bond villain.
Hero: What? You think I've lived with Beatrice for all these years and have never learnt anything from her?
Benedick: Yes sure but this is one side I've never seen to you.
Hero: Well since I've died I've taken a new lease on life
One Hero died defiled, but I do live,
And surely as I live, I am a maid.
End of scene
