Benedick, as if seeking reassurance.
But while Benedick, the avowed bachelor, ridicules idealized love, Don Pedro offers to win Hero’s hand for Claudio at that evening’s masked ball. With their identities disguised, the maskers indulge in innuendo, sexual banter, retribution, and deceit. And Don John, seizing the chance to play mischievously on Claudio’s insecurities, insinuates that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself.
The lie is exposed, the match is made and, delighted, Leonato gives his blessing. All that remains is for
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Leonato Governor of Messina and father of Hero.
Hero Leonato’s daughter and only heir.
Don Pedro Prince of Aragon, returned from war, possibly against Don John.
Don John Illegitimate brother of Don Pedro to whom he’s grudgingly reconciled.
Claudio A young count who has distinguished himself in military action.
Benedick A lord of Padua also serving under Don Pedro;
a professed bachelor.
Beatrice Niece of Leonato and cousin to Hero.
Borachio A follower of Don John who invents a plot to thwart Claudio’s marriage to Hero.
Margaret A gentlewoman attending on Hero who plays a dubious role in Borachio’s plot.
Ursula A gentlewoman attending on Hero, who helps to trick Beatrice into admitting her love for Benedick.
Friar Francis He arranges for Hero to fake her death.
Antonio Leonato’s brother.
Conrad A follower of Don John, he is arrested with Borachio and forced to confess.
Dogberry Master Constable of the Watch, he tries to imitate his betters.
Act 1 Act 2
1.3
2.1 1.1
1.1
2.3
The villainous Don John plots to disrupt the
festive mood.
Leonato learns that Don Pedro and his men
are to arrive shortly in Messina after a
victorious war.
Benedick and Beatrice renew their war of words
and Don Pedro agrees to woo Hero for Claudio.
Don Pedro leads the men in convincing Benedick that Beatrice
secretly loves him.
At the masked ball, Don John tells Claudio that Don Pedro woos Hero for
himself. The lie is exposed, the marriage agreed,
and the date set.
157
Claudio and Hero to speak to one another for the first time. While they whisper together, Beatrice fends off a throwaway marriage proposal from Don Pedro.
Until the wedding, Don Pedro takes up matchmaking. Detecting compatibility in opposites, he decides to trick Beatrice and Benedick into admitting they love each other. Two scenes are set:
Benedick eavesdrops as Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato discuss Beatrice’s feelings. Meanwhile, she overhears Hero and Ursula revealing Benedick’s love.
Borachio feeds Don John’s malevolence with a plot to thwart the marriage. He’ll speak to Margaret, dressed as Hero, at her window the night before the wedding, while Don John ensures that Claudio and Don Pedro witness the encounter.
At the altar, Claudio cruelly rejects Hero, claiming that she’s no longer pure. Hero faints. Claudio and Don Pedro leave. Unlike Leonato, the Priest believes in Hero’s innocence and proposes a rescue plan. Benedick stays behind, concerned for Hero and Beatrice.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN
Act 3 Act 4 Act 5
Overwhelmed by emotion, he and Beatrice confess their love. She then asks him to kill Claudio.
The duel does not take place because by chance the bumbling watchmen have overheard Borachio bragging about the plot. They bring the truth to light and clear Hero’s name. Believing her to be dead as the Priest suggests, Claudio agrees to mourn at her “tomb” and to marry her “cousin,” sight unseen.
When this lady unveils, she is, in fact, Hero. The play ends with news of Don John’s arrest, and a dance before the double wedding. ❯❯
3.1
3.2 3.5 5.1
3.3 4.1 5.3
Hero and her women let Beatrice overhear their
discussion of Benedick’s secret
love for her.
Don John’s second plot offers to show Claudio and Don Pedro that Hero
is unchaste.
On the wedding morning, Dogberry tries to inform Leonato of the
plot, but fails.
Benedick challenges Claudio, and Borachio confesses the plot. Claudio promises
to make amends.
The Watch overhear Borachio bragging
about the plot.
At the altar, Claudio rejects Hero, her father
disowns her, and the Priest proposes a means
of restoring her good name. Benedick and
Beatrice privately declare their love.
Claudio mourns Hero’s “death.”
5.4
Claudio’s bride is revealed to be Hero,
and Benedick and Beatrice’s love is made public. Now the weddings can
take place.
158
Much Ado About Nothing presents “seeming” in several guises. The wordplay on nothing/noting in the title would have alerted the play’s first audience to the theme of observation. And the messenger’s reports in the first scene make it clear that Messina is a society where appearances matter. But what’s built on appearance, report, and hearsay is fragile, open to conflicting interpretations, and easily destroyed.
Appearing and observing Both love stories in the play hinge on appearance and observation.
Claudio has fallen in love with Hero because she seems to him a sweet, modest young woman. But he’s unsure of his own judgment and seeks confirmation from the older Benedick and Don Pedro. Benedick differentiates between noting Hero and looking at her. His replies draw attention to the subjectivity of perception, as simply looking at her does not reveal any extraordinary
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
traits in the young woman;
Claudio’s noting, however, marks her as priceless: “Can the world buy such a jewel?” (1.1.171).
With no assurance for his budding love from Benedick, Claudio is reluctant to reveal his admiration for Hero to Don Pedro. Only when the Prince insists that he’s serious in thinking “the lady is very well worthy” (1.1.207–208) does Claudio admit his love.
The courtship of Claudio and Hero follows a very formal pattern.
First the lovers admire each other from a distance. Claudio does not even woo Hero himself, but leaves this to the Prince. The lovers do not speak to each other until their elders have agreed on the marriage and Leonato has given his blessing.
Even at this point, Hero doesn’t have any lines, although the text suggests that she takes the liberty of kissing Claudio in public.
Constrained by the formality of their courtship, Claudio and Hero hardly know each other.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that Claudio’s faith in Hero is easily shaken when Don John tells him that his brother has wooed her for himself. Claudio does not doubt for a minute that Hero
IN CONTEXT THEMES
Social codes and status, love, marriage, deception SETTING
Messina, a port city in Sicily under Spanish rule SOURCES
There are no direct sources.
The Hero plot, based on an old tale, is indirectly indebted to:
1516 Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (Italian verse translated into English, 1591) 1554 Matteo Bandello’s Novelle (Italian prose adapted into French, 1569).
LEGACY
1613 The play is staged to celebrate the marriage of King James’s daughter Elizabeth.
1662 William Davenant’s The Law Against Lovers combines parts of Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure. The play influences many Restoration comedies.
1861 Hector Berlioz’s opera Béatrice et Bénédict portrays the witty sparring of the eponymous older couple in sparklingly jazzy syncopations.
1993 Kenneth Branagh’s film moves the play to the Tuscan hills, giving it an easy-going holiday atmosphere.
1996 Michael Boyd’s RSC production makes great use of mirrors, frames, and portraits to bring out the theme of appearance versus reality.
Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and
affairs of love.
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent.
Claudio
Act 2, Scene 1
And there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall
be called assurance.
Borachio
Act 2, Scene 2
159
has accepted Don Pedro. The report is quickly revealed as false and laughingly dismissed by the Prince and Leonato. But Don John is still determined to prevent the marriage and, thanks to Borachio’s plot, he makes it appear to Claudio and Don Pedro that Hero entertained a man on the night before the wedding.
Mistaking Margaret for Hero, Claudio is instantly convinced that she is unfaithful and his idolizing adoration quickly turns into hatred and disgust.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN
The formal, stylized nature of the courtship finds its counterpart in Claudio’s public rejection of Hero in the disrupted wedding ceremony.
As in the scene at Hero’s window, Claudio misinterprets what he observes. Having rejected Hero as a “rotten orange” (4.1.32), he’s convinced that “Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty” (4.1.42).
Incapable of seeing her as the person she really is, Claudio falls from one extreme: Hero as chaste, pure, and innocent, to another: Hero as loose and wanton. The way she
For his 1993 film, Kenneth Branagh cut the text to keep the action moving.
A star-studded cast included Kate Beckinsale, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Branagh himself.
appears to him is determined by what others want him to believe.
So it’s no surprise that when, eventually, Borachio confesses the plot, Claudio instantly reverts to the first image he had of her.
Tricks and truths
While appearances give the love story of Claudio and Hero an almost tragic turn, they are put to comic use in the love story of Beatrice and Benedick. Here are two people who seem to detest nothing so much as each other. Yet we cannot help feeling that behind their battle of words they are hiding wounds caused by rejected love, hints of which can be heard in their banter:
“You always end with a jade’s trick. / I know you of old” (1.1.138–139).
Their friends are convinced that they will make a perfect couple and, in the two eavesdropping scenes, use report and hearsay to trick them into admitting their love.
Claudio, Don Pedro, and Leonato paint the picture of a Beatrice desperately in love. But they think it best for her not to admit it for fear of being mocked by an unfeeling Benedick. Convinced that the three men tell the truth, because
“The conference was sadly borne”
(2.3.210), Benedick is determined that Beatrice’s love will be requited.
Even the prospect of being mocked by his friends for changing his mind about marriage does not deter him.
Hero and Ursula, in turn, praise Benedick as “the only man of Italy”
(3.1.92). They reproach Beatrice for being proud and disdainful since, as a confirmed bachelor, she always finds things to criticize in even ❯❯
160
Conrad Follower of
Borachio
Serving under
Serving under
Loves
Claudio Serving under
Uncle to Beatrice
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
the most perfect of men. If she learned of Benedick’s love, then she would “make sport at it” (3.1.59).
Sobered by this criticism, Beatrice is prepared for “taming my wild heart to thy [Benedick’s] loving hand”
(3.1.112). Benedick can confirm that Beatrice is fair, virtuous, and wise, and Beatrice does not need reports of Benedick’s merits to know that he is deserving. It is clear to us that, unlike Hero and Claudio, Beatrice and Benedick know each other well.
Language and reality
The play’s language is characterized by wordplay, banter, and repartee.
Beatrice and Benedick are involved in linguistic fencing matches from the moment they meet in the play:
“Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick?” (1.1.112–115).
Conversation between Don Pedro and his men is predominantly light- hearted, macho joking, especially
about Benedick’s mistrust of women and rejection of marriage:
“Don Pedro: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’
Benedick: The savage bull may, but 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…‘Here you may see Benedick, the married man’”
(1.1.243–250). This expresses the
deeply rooted fear in Messina society of being cuckolded. Even Leonato jokes about the legitimacy of his daughter. Where marriage brings fears of cuckoldry, Don John’s accusation against Hero is readily believed. In the wedding scene, the language switches from jests to calculated insults as Claudio uses the very form of the marriage service to reject and humiliate Hero.
The studied nature of his rejection is matched in the formal mourning ceremony at Hero’s tomb. The readiness with which Don Pedro and Claudio dismiss the musicians and leave for a second wedding can make us wonder how much of Claudio’s grief is merely “seeming.”
Language is also used as a means of establishing social equality. In her conversations with men, Beatrice uses witty repartee to meet them on an equal footing.
Both Margaret and Dogberry see language as having the potential to bring them level with their masters.
Margaret’s brief conversation with Benedick (5.2), a dialogue that
But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are
only turned into tongue, and trim ones, too.
Beatrice
Act 4, Scene 1
Father to Hero
True love finds a way
Co-conspirators of Don John Loves
Leonato Governor of
Messina Friends
Benedick
Don Pedro Prince of Aragon
Margaret
Ursula Her maids
Bastard brothers
Don John Follower of