Act One: The Return of the Soldiers · Viel Lärm um nichts

A messenger brought Leonato, governor of Messina, a letter: Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, was coming to Messina that very night, fresh from a victorious war, with his young officers. Among them was a young Florentine, Claudio, who had done in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion.

Leonato's niece, Beatrice, asked at once: "I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?" She meant Signior Benedick of Padua — and she went on to mock him: how many had he killed and eaten in these wars? for she had promised to eat all of his killing. "He is a very valiant trencherman." Leonato explained to the messenger: "There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them."

Don Pedro arrived, with Claudio and Benedick, and with his half-brother, Don John the Bastard, a sullen, silent man, with whom he had lately been at war, and been reconciled. Leonato welcomed them; his daughter Hero, gentle and quiet, stood beside him. And Benedick and Beatrice at once flew at each other:

"I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you." "What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?" "Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?" He was loved of all ladies, he said, only her excepted; and he loved none. "A dear happiness to women," said she: "I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me." "God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face." They would stay a month.

Claudio, left alone with Benedick, confessed that he had fallen in love with Hero. "Can the world buy such a jewel?" Benedick was disgusted: "I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter." He would never marry; he would live a bachelor. When Don Pedro heard of it, he was delighted, and teased Benedick: "I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love." "With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love." "In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke." "If ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead; and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'"

Don Pedro offered to help Claudio: at the masked ball that night, he would pretend to be Claudio, and woo Hero in his name, and then speak to her father; and she should be his.

But they had been overheard. A servant of Leonato's brother Antonio overheard part of it, and thought it was the Prince who loved Hero for himself. And Don John's follower, Borachio, hidden behind a tapestry, overheard the whole of it, and told his master. Don John was glad of any chance to make trouble. "I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace . . . it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. . . . If I had my mouth, I would bite." Claudio was "the most exquisite" upstart that had all the glory of his overthrow; if he could cross him any way, he would bless himself every way.