From Much Ado About Nothing (2.1) – far my favorite of the comedies for the dynamic between Benedick and Beatrice (the latter described by Leonato below)
There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my
lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
herself with laughing.
For the scene (4.1) where they admit their feelings for one another my Arden edition quotes this perfect analysis – “They manage by a deft indirectness to put nothing into a syntax where the other person can choose either its negative or its positive meaning” (Jorgensen in Redeeming Shakespeare’s Words) – that is also the tactical summation of the merry war that is my marriage.
The 2011 David Tennant/Catherine Tate production is well worth a view but – because I’m a purist and the 80s Gibraltar resettling rubs me wrong – even better is the David Tennant/Samantha Spiro 2005 BBC Radio production. Honorable mention goes to Michael Keaton as Dogberry in the 90s Branagh film.
Extracts 