O-LevelLiterature in EnglishDrama2010/11 · May/June 2010 · Q1025 Marks

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Much Ado About Nothing Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Don Pedro: Good den, good den. Claudio: Good day to both of you. Leonato: Hear you, my lords! Don Pedro: We have some haste, Leonato. Leonato: Some haste, my lord! Well, fare you well, my lord. 5 Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one. Don Pedro: Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. Antonio: If he could right himself with quarrelling, Some of us would lie low. Claudio: Who wrongs him? 10 Leonato: Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou! Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword; I fear thee not. Claudio: Marry, beshrew my hand Leonato: If it should give your age such cause of fear! In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me; 15 I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As under privilege of age to brag What have I done being young, or what would do 20 Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by, And with grey hairs and bruise of many days Do challenge thee to trial of a man. 25 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, fram'd by thy villainy. 30 Claudio: My villainy! Leonato: Thine, Claudio; thine, I say. Don Pedro: You say not right, old man. Leonato: My lord, my lord, I'l prove it on his body if he dare, 35 Despite his nice fence and his active practice, His May of youth and bloom of lustihood. Claudio: Away! I will not have to do with you. Leonato: Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child; If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man. 40 Antonio: He shall kill two of us, and men indeed; But that's no matter; let him kill one first. Win me and wear me; let him answer me. Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come follow me; Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence; Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will. 45 Leonanto: Brother Antonio: Content yourself. God knows I lov'd my niece; And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains, That dare as well answer a man indeed As I dare take a serpent by the tongue. Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops! 50 Leonanto: Brother Antony – Antonio: Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea, And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple – Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys, That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander, Go anticly, and show outward hideousness, And speak off half a dozen dang’rous words, How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst; 55 60 And this is all. Leonato: But, brother Antony – Antonio: Come, 'tis no matter. Don Pedro: Do not you meddle; let me deal in this. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. My heart is sorry for your daughter's death; But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing But what was true, and very full of proof. 65 Leonato: My lord, my lord – Don Pedro: I will not hear you. 70 Leonato: No? Antonio: Come, brother, away. I will be heard. And shall, or some of us will smart for it. What does Shakespeare make you feel about Leonato at this point in the play?

(a)What does Shakespeare make you feel about Leonato at this point in the play?[25]

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2010). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

[25] Good answers will be informed by some awareness of what has gone before and that response to Leonato might have changed.
[25] He has not been a particularly sympathetic character in his initial reaction to Claudio's accusations of Hero, but Benedick, Beatrice and the Friar have persuaded him of her innocence and the plan to pretend that she has died has been hatched.
[25] He is showing grief, though perhaps some self-pity here, but this is changing to anger.
[25] He shows courage in demanding the attention of Don Pedro and Claudio and in challenging the latter to a duel, when he is so clearly outmatched.
[25] Antonio's support, Don Pedro's dismissiveness and Claudio's arrogance all increase our sympathy for him.
[25] The language of the passage is very powerful and emotive, for example, there are many references to suffering and death and there tends to be a good deal of repetition and listing, conveying the strength of the characters' emotions.
[25] Answers in the higher bands should consider the words in some detail.
[25] Refer to the band descriptors in arriving at your mark.

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