Much Ado...

How often have you seen a movie which starts off with the male lead and the female lead not being able to stand each other, squabbling over little things, each making the other's skin crawl, the witty duel of words they have once in a while trying to outdo one another and then it so happens that after you get back from the interval, they seem to be in love. (Way too often I am sure)

This pattern of a romantic comic love story should have seen its birth by some great creative writer, and my guess is William Shakespeare. The other day I was reading Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing",and I found that Beatrice(Female lead) and Benedick (Male lead) fit in perfectly as desc above, they can't seem to stop themselves from getting onto the other's nerve.

There are a some really funny yet intelligent exchanges and I quote a few:

Benedick : "What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?"
Beatrice : "Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to Disdain if you come in her presence."

This is when Beatrice confesses that she will never marry,
Benedick: "God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratched face."
Beatrice: "Scratching could not make it worse, and 'twere such a face as yours were."
Benedick:"Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher".(monotonous speaker of nonsense)
Beatrice:"A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours."

Beatrice replies to Hero when she suggests that Bendick is a better match for Beatrice.
Beatrice : "He that hath a beard is more than a youth and he that hath no beard is less than a man;and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward and lead his apes into hell"
(As a matter of fact, post few sceens(Act 3 Sceen 2 to be exact) Benedick actually gets his beard shaved off to woo his lady love Beatrice!!)

When Beatrice is forced by her uncle to bid Benedick goodnight.
Benedick: "I thank you for the pains."
Beatrice: "I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me, If it had been painful, I would not have come."

The comic continues and somewhere in Act 2 the Cupid in guise of their common friends strikes and brings them together. Well, "All is well that ends well"- wasn't this the famous quote from the man himself. But it is the war of words between B and B that one will enjoy through the play.

PS: Yet another rumbling of Beatrice I loved was,when Hero has been proposed, Beatrice burning inside herself charges with the rage against the whole concept of love and marriage.

"wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,a measure(discernible time sequence), and a cinque pace(lively dance): 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."So true:))

PPS: Much Ado About Nothing