In the middle of his speech Orlando enters, raging for food. It is interesting to see how closely Shakespeare follows Jaques' mind in the presence of the fierce animal want of hunger. He is too much interested to be of help. The Duke ministers to Orlando. Jaques wants to know "of what kind this cock should come of." He speaks banteringly, the Duke speaks kindly. The impression given is that Jaques is heartless. The Duke's thought is "here is one even more wretched than ourselves." Jaques' thought, always more for humanity than for the individual, is a profound vision of the world. The play is a little picture of the world. The contemplative man who is not of the world, is yet a part of the picture. We are shown a company of delightful people, just escaped from disaster, smilingly taking the biggest of hazards. The wise man, dismissing them to their fates with all the authority of wisdom, gives up his share in the game to listen to a man who has given up his share of the world. Renunciation of the world is attractive to all upon whom the world presses very heavily, or very lightly. Rosalind and Phebe are of the two kinds of woman who come much into Shakespeare's early and middle plays. Rosalind, like Portia, is a golden woman, a daughter of the sun, smiling-natured, but limited. Phebe, like Rosalind, is black-haired, black-eyed, black-eyebrowed, with the dead-white face that so often goes with cruelty. Shortly after this play was written he began to create types less external and less limited. _Much Ado about Nothing._ _Written._ (?) _Published._ 1600. _Source of the Plot._ The greater part of the fable seems to have been invented by Shakespeare. The Hero and Claudio story is found in the twenty-second novel of Bandello, and in at least three other books (one of them Spenser's _Faerie Queene_). It was also known to the Elizabethans in a play now lost. _The Fable._ Benedick, a lord of Padua, pledges himself to bachelorhood. Beatrice, a disdainful lady, is scornful of men. Claudio plans to marry Hero. Don John, enemy of Claudio, plans to thwart the marriage by letting it appear that Hero is unchaste. Don Pedro and Claudio make Benedick believe that Beatrice is dying of love for him. Ursula and Hero make Beatrice believe that Benedick is dying of love for her. The disdainful couple make friends. Don John thwarts the marriage of Claudio by his tale of Hero's unchastity. Claudio casts off Hero at the altar. Hero swoons, and is conveyed away as dead. Beatrice and Benedick are brought into close alliance by their upholding of Hero's cause. Proof is obtained that Hero has been falsely accused. She is recovered from her swoon. Claudio marries her. Benedick and Beatrice plight troth.