# 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]

Beatrice

130

You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

2

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Benedick

195

Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor
'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be
so.'

3

Much Ado about Nothing
[I, 1]

Benedick

255

Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.

4

Much Ado about Nothing
[II, 1]

Beatrice

435

No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet
me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and
say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to
heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver
I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the
heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and
there live we as merry as the day is long.

5

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 2]

Claudio

1236

If he be not in love with some woman, there is no
believing old signs: a' brushes his hat o'
mornings; what should that bode?

6

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 2]

Claudio

1240

No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him,
and the old ornament of his cheek hath already
stuffed tennis-balls.

7

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 2]

Benedick

1260

Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old
signior, walk aside with me: I have studied eight
or nine wise words to speak to you, which these
hobby-horses must not hear.

8

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 3]

Borachio

1444

Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this
fashion is? how giddily a' turns about all the hot
bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty?
sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers
in the reeky painting, sometime like god Bel's
priests in the old church-window, sometime like the
shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry,
where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

9

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 5]

Dogberry

1588

Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the
matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so
blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but,
in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.

10

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 5]

Verges

1592

Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living
that is an old man and no honester than I.

11

Much Ado about Nothing
[III, 5]

Dogberry

1610

A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they
say, when the age is in, the wit is out: God help
us! it is a world to see. Well said, i' faith,
neighbour Verges: well, God's a good man; an two men
ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest
soul, i' faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever
broke bread; but God is to be worshipped; all men
are not alike; alas, good neighbour!

12

Much Ado about Nothing
[IV, 1]

Friar Francis

1852

Pause awhile,
And let my counsel sway you in this case.
Your daughter here the princes left for dead:
Let her awhile be secretly kept in,
And publish it that she is dead indeed;
Maintain a mourning ostentation
And on your family's old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
That appertain unto a burial.

13

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 1]

Don Pedro

2121

Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.

14

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 1]

Leonato

2131

Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me:
I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
As under privilege of age to brag
What I have done being young, or what would do
Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me
That I am forced to lay my reverence by
And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors;
O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,
Save this of hers, framed by thy villany!

15

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 1]

Don Pedro

2147

You say not right, old man.

16

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 1]

Claudio

2194

We had like to have had our two noses snapped off
with two old men without teeth.

17

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 1]

Don Pedro

2250

Yea, that she did: but yet, for all that, an if she
did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly:
the old man's daughter told us all.

18

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 1]

Don Pedro

2349

By my soul, nor I:
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight
That he'll enjoin me to.

19

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 2]

Benedick

2477

An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in
the lime of good neighbours. If a man do not erect
in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live
no longer in monument than the bell rings and the
widow weeps.

20

Much Ado about Nothing
[V, 2]

Ursula

2496

Madam, 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
fed and gone. Will you come presently?