Monologue

Benedick Monologue from Much Ado About Nothing

From Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

male · defiant · 1:37 min

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That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is,—for the which I may go the finer,—I will live a bachelor. (DON PEDRO: I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.) With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid. (DON PEDRO: Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.) If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

About this piece

Benedick expresses his resolute decision to remain a bachelor, rejecting societal expectations and the idea of romantic entanglement.

30s · determination · love · identity · freedom · isolation

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