Eretto’s notes: This is my second attempt at writing this scene. My first attempt was tragically wiped out by a faulty Net connection, may it rest in peace. The poor thing. I had spent half an hour writing it, and it never got to see the light of day. I feel like a mother who has just suffered a miscarriage.

Looking back on my previous entry, I feel that some of the stuff at the end didn’t sound too good, felt they were way too modern. Should work on that. I feel Margaret’s comment needed work.

Oh, and btw:

Act 1, Scene 3

Setting: Leonato’s garden

Pedro stalks out of the banquet hall, flustered and angry. He heads for the bower at Leonato’s garden (scene of many of his deception plans), where he sits down on one of the many benches. Claudio, who has been following him, goes up to him and asks what the matter is.

Pedro replies he is tired of being everyone’s ‘prattler’. He laments of feeling like a ‘trained monkey, an ass who is trained to dance’, for everyone to laugh at. Claudio senses however, that there is more o the story, and tries to dig deeper.

Pedro tells him that what hurts the most is seeing Benedick mock him so. (“His tongue is like an arbalest, firing volley after volley at my seat of blood, rending my very being.”) The sight of Beatrice joining in adds salt to the wound.

Pedro then looks around to make sure nobody is watching them, before confessing to Claudio something he has never said openly before: He secretly likes Beatrice.

“Kingdom come!” Claudio exclaims. “Do you speak true?”

Pedro replies that he has liked Beatrice for quite a long time. He has indirectly tried to tell Beatrice this through conversation (see ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, by William Shakespeare) but Beatrice has made it expressively clear that a relationship between her and him would not work out as Beatrice feels she is not worthy of his rank.

Pedro reveals that he has been finding it hard to get over this. (“The lady’s rejection burns deeper than any wound I have bore in battle, to bare my soul before her and to have it turned away, scars deeper than a hundred crucifixions.”)

At one point however, the pain got too hard to handle, and he found himself loathing Beatrice. (“It is a thing hard to explain/ When joy at seeing something turns to pain.”) As revenge (and also a way for him to get his kicks) Pedro decided that if Beatrice couldn’t have him no one else would, and plotted to matchmake her with someone she could never love.

Who may that be? Why, her good friend Signor Mountato. (Or Benedick, for those who have not paid close attention to the book.)

Pedro however was not really aware that they had once loved each other, and was even less aware that both Benedick and Beatrice still had feelings for each other. So he decided to matchmake them thinking that the awkwardness and discomfort would provide him with quite a barrel of laughs.

He was then shocked to discover that the relationship between them worked. (“It was the end, the great doom had come, the Angel hath blown his trumpet, and Wormwood hath come to defile the seas.”) Claudio, however being young, and unfamiliar with the writings of the Biblical Book of Revelations, giggles at what he thinks is a suggestive joke.

Even more hateful however, is the fact that Benedick turned out to become his enemy, through his involvement in Don John’s deception plan (“a fate I did not ask for.”) And through Benedick’s constant poking of fun at him, he had become “much lower in Beatrice’s eyes.”

Claudio comments “A good position for a lover,’” but Pedro does not appear to hear him. Pedro goes on, wailing, “What fools we make of ourselves, when we try to ruin fate and instead fate ruins us. To change natural order is to destroy oneself.”

He keeps on going. “If only the Lady knew of how much I love her, long for her, lust for her! If only she knew of how I lie in my bed every night, thinking of her.”

Claudio, who has been mostly sympathetic of Pedro’s fate, cannot resist a little joke, and says, unwisely: “Your speech is fumbled, my prince. Methinks that what you mean to say is that you think of her lying in your bed every night.”

Pedro is stunned beyond belief at this comment. H e seethes in fury:

“Eater of carrion! Drabspawn! Dwimmerlaik!! How dare thee!” He goes on to describe is rage at this so-called verbal betrayal, which he compares to the selling to Kihika Jesus. In anger, he leaps at Claudio, who wisely runs off, eager to leave the prince at peace by himself.

Pedro returns to his bench, where he continues to lament his fate.

And now, the stuff you've been waiting for...(not)

ACT 1, SCENE 2

Setting: A banquet hall in Leonato's house

It is a perfectly wonderful day in Messina. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the grass is growing, the dogs are trying to make little dogs.

All is merry in Leonato's house. Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio, Hero, Pedro, Margaret and various other nobles and gentlepeople are chatting merrily at the dinner table, waiting for Leonato to return and start the banquet.

To pass the time, Pedro begins to poke fun at Benedick (who is still angry at him), making references to his hearty appetite.

"I do wonder how the exquisite Lady Beatrice puts up with such a glutton," Pedro proclaims. "With you by her side, surely you will be eaten out of house and home. I do pity the dear lady, having always to slave at the heath to satiate your fiendlike appetite."

Benedick scowls, and opens his mouth to rebuke Pedro, but Beatrice gets to him first.

BEATRICE: My dear Lord Prince, I fear you are sadly mistaken. With Benedick as my husband, it is me who is no longer hungry at night.

Margaret laughs, saying "Yea, tis' true." What follows is a witty and somewhat suggestive exchange between Benedick, Beatrice and Pedro:

BEATRICE: Yes, my husband is indeed a most appetizing man. He hath prepared for me of late a most exquisite sausage, soaked in the finest juices of passion from all the land, which tasted like rapturous gravy between my tongue  and my teeth.

PEDRO: I see that marriage has not changed you one bit. It takes more than a storm to make the sun stop shining.You are still as much Lady Tongue as you were before you submitted to the oafish Dick.

BENEDICK: Yea, by my troth. My wedding night is testament to that.

BEATRICE: The muscles in my mouth are used for more than just speaking.

BENEDICK : Amen, amen fair lady. You strike the bull. The ace is in the hole.

Margaret laughs at this comment. "Methinks there is more than just the ace that is in the hole,  county Benedick." Much laughter from all at the table, except from Pedro. Claudio notices this, and asks why he is so glum. Benedick replies: "He has the right to look glum, he has no idea the sensations we are speaking of!"

The laughter that follows this barb at Pedro's single life is too much to handle, and the Prince stoms off in a huff. Claudio pursues him.

Benedick wonders where Pedro left to. Margaret answers him: "Most likely to give some little harlot the time of her life."

OK...lets's hope this was not a bad idea. This site was mooted after a few suggestions raised by some classmates. Hope I have the zeal and determination to actually finish this.

THE SEQUEL TO BOTH MACBETH AND MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING:

'MUCH ADO ABOUT MACBETH'

aka 'MUCH ADO ABOUT EVERYTHING'

aka 'THE CRAPPY RAMBLINGS OF A LIT-LOVING GUY WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS.'

Background of the play:

This is a memory play. I

All is well in Scotland. The 'foul butcher' Macbeth and 'his fiend like queen' have been disposed of by Malcolm, the newly crowned King of Scotland. Macduff, Lennox, and all the other kelefeh thanes been promoted to earls. The country is basically at peace, much tossing of cabers and eating of haggis.

In Messina, things too are looking well. Despite a disastrous marriage ceremony, Claudio and Hero are happily married, to the delight of  Leonato, Hero's father and the governor of the city. Also blissfully wed are Benedick and Beatrice, previously enemies. The bastard prince Don John has been captured as a punishment for his previous crimes.

Things however, are not entirely perfect, as due to Beatrice's anger at the shaming of her cousin Hero, there exists now a rift between Benedick and Prince Pedro and Claudio (who were the main perpertrators of the shaming).

And now, the main event:

ACT 1, SCENE 1

Setting: A prison

Don John is a captive in a cell. He laments about his loss of freedom and the unfairness of his state. Borachio and Conrad, his former henchmen, sleeping in opposite cells, yell at him to shut up.

They then go back to sleep, causing John to begin a soliloquy. 'Much have I learnt from this ghastly incarceration,' he laments. 'Never sow discord, for the harvest of retribution is a bitter and dark one. Never should I bend down when in the prison washing chambers.'

A voice suddenly calls him from behind: "Hail, John, Governor of Messina'. John looks around to see three Weird Sisters.

Having been locked up for quite awhile with a group of women-deprived convicts has done strange things to John's urges, and he calls out: "Are you here like Athena before Perseus, offering me strange and tremendous boons to slay the Medusa of my lust?" A possible suggestive joke is derived from these lines.

The Sisters politely decline. Don John asks why they call him Governor, when he is obviously not, and thus begins a long winded conversation which ends with the witches convincing him to break out of prison and overthrowing the present governor, Leonato.

"Messina is wealthy, blessed among lands," the Second Weird Sister says. "Blessed are you if it be in your hands."

John argues that he cannot conquer Messina. He has no troops, all he has are two useless henchmen, while Leonato has the aid of many strong warriors, such as Prince Pedro, Claudio and Benedick. "Claudio is noble," John mutters. "No man would dare face him anywhere."

The Witches laugh at his comments. "For aid, dearest John, you should turn to no other," the First Witch says. "Save the mighty form of thy dear brother."

 John asks how, confused, and the Weird Sisters tell him to "speak of Beatrice" in his presence. "With luck, Pedro's dissent and unrequited love," the Third Witch says. "Will prove to be gifts from the gods above."

Confused, John calls out for them to elaborate, but he finds the Witches have gone, 'blended with the air.' He starts another soliloquy, wondering if he should 'snatch the realm' from Leonato, and weighs the 'crippling risks' in his head.

After wrestling with this dilemma, as 'Jacob did with seraph,' John is convinced that the breaking out from prison is justifiable. He vows to never rest until Messina is in 'his talons.' Using avian and bird and prey imagery, he graphically describes how he will seize the kingdom. His motives, as clearly seen, are of a lust of power, and jealousy as he knows that due to his bastard upbringing ('which was not the fault of this accursed self') he will be denied a land to rule.

"Borachio, Conrad, arise, awake," Don John ends the scene. "Leonato's title we shall soon take."

Act 1 Scene 2 next week.