Much Ado About Love
A short humorous Shakespearean story
Daniel: Oh, fair Elizabeth, our nuptial hour comes apace. Methinks I shall quickly dream away the time, those four happy days.
Elizabeth: What are you on about, Danny?
Daniel: I woo’d thee with my sword, but thou dids’t bewitch me with thine eyes. I will wed thee in a mere four days, with pomp, with reveling, and with triumph!!!
Elizabeth: You’re starting to scare me.
[Enter Ben, Elizabeth’s brother, bearing a message.]
Ben: Hey guys, we finally got a reply from Danny’s Uncle Bill. He and Aunt Jenny are definitely coming to the wedding, and they apologize for replying so late.
Daniel: Villains! I respect none by those names. Would they wert even clean enough to spit on! How canst I accept this? For shame! For shame!
Ben: [Looks at Elizabeth] What’s the matter with Danny? Danny, what’s the matter with you? Bill’s your uncle.
Daniel: My mother hath many times claimed it so.
Ben: You’re nuts.
Daniel: Begone, sir. I do desire that we become better strangers.
Ben: Screw you.
[Exit Ben, to the kitchen]
Daniel: [Calling after Ben] Thou art as fat as butter and nearly half as handsome! Eat not all of our foods!
Elizabeth: Danny?!
Daniel: [Stepping forward to take Elizabeth in his embrace] Yes, my Queen, daughter of the very moon. I am sickened with love when I look upon you. Your presence lingers my desires to take you abed. Dine on my lips, and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountain lies.
[Daniel kisses Elizabeth]
Elizabeth: [Laughing, she steps away] Danny!!!! The “pleasant fountain”?
Daniel: [Despondent, now that she stepped away] Where thou art, Elizabeth, lives the world itself, and where thou art not, even though but feet distant, is mere desolation.
[Elizabeth moves into the kitchen, and Daniel follows. They find Ben preparing his lunch]
Daniel: [to Ben] Eat, eat, eat! I am sickened when I do look upon you. Mayhaps you should dine on prunes, for thou hast but little more merit than a stewed prune.
Ben: Shut up, I’m eating a ham and cheese sandwich.
Daniel: Oh, yes, thou damned and luxurious pig. One needst die that another feedeth. Dine on thine own kin! Be merry!
I would beat thee, would it not infect my hands.
Ellizabeth: Danny, stop it! Have a sandwich.
Daniel: Elizabeth! Elizabeth!
[Takes Elizabeth’s hands in his own] I humbly do beseech your pardon, only for too much loving you.
Elizabeth: [Laughing] I love you, too, Danny.
[Elizabeth kisses Danny]
Daniel: Oh joy, that your love be expressed. Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen….
[Glares at Ben]
… that your love be embolden’d, that as lovers we see to our amorous rites. Come, come, come slow night, four times you must pass that I might forever possess heaven so fine, a King to her Queen.
[To Ben] And fie to you, scoundrel, that thou dost spy upon our love.
Ben: Screw you. I’m eating. Go get a room.
Daniel: Villain. Thy mother….
Elizabeth: NOT about my mother!
Daniel: Apologies, my Queen. For thy sake and thine alone, shalt I befriend this cad who claims kinship with you.
Ben: I am her brother, you know. And I’m not fat. I weigh 170.
Daniel: [To Ben] Lies are easy, and not easy recanted. I shall become your good friend, indeed, helping thee in thy need, thy sorrows, and thy continuous weeping that we oft must suffer. Certain if I were a woman, I wouldst not kiss thee, but mayhaps something would.
Elizabeth: [laughing] “continuous weeping….”
Daniel: Friendship is the most important of all things, save when interfering in the affairs of love….
[turns to Elizabeth]
Elizabeth, my love…
Ben: I don’t … weep. And we already are friends. We’ve been friends for 20 years!
[Elizabeth and Daniel look at Ben quietly]
[Exit Ben, plate of food in hand, out the front door, muttering]
Daniel: I thought he’d never leave.
Elizabeth: [Dragging Daniel by the hand]
O happy dagger! I’ll be thy sheath! There rust and let me die happy.
[Exit Daniel and Elizabeth, to the bedroom]
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Originally published at Vocal Media. No longer posted there.
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