[In the following essay, Phialas explores the use of deceptive appearances in Much Ado about Nothing to advance the romantic action of the two plots and unify the overall structure, theme, and tone of the play, and also assesses the play's attempt to elicit complex reactions from its audience.]

Of the three "joyous" comedies Much Ado About Nothing has been called the least perfect by reason of its alleged failure to integrate successfully the two stories which make up its plot. Strangely enough in this particular point it is thought to be less perfect than The Merchant of Venice, although in truth it far surpasses that play in excellence of structure and unity of tone, as well as in the relative emphasis it places upon the love story and the antagonistic motive represented by Don John. In The Merchant of Venice, … unusually heavy emphasis is placed on that part of its plot which deals with strife and conflict, that is, with the absence of love in human relationships, a theme Shakespeare made indispensable in his comic structure. But in the proportion of that emphasis the romantic theme of the play seems to suffer relative neglect. For instance there is wooing in The Merchant of Venice but the only extensive instance of it occurs in the opening of Act V, and by that time Lorenzo has won the heart of Jessica; for that reason their scene in the gardens of Belmont, though one of wooing, has the air of recapitulation. If we now turn to the Bassanio-Portia love story we shall find something very similar to this. Their wooing consists of a brief encounter before Bassanio addresses himself to the caskets. In the whole scene Portia's role is completely passive, while Bassanio's great speech preceding his choice has the air of semi-formal definition. It is true that in addition to defending the choice of the leaden casket the speech extends the idea of Nerissa's song and thus suggests the nature of true love. But in truth Bassanio's own courtship has scant occasion to mature an external attraction into the ideal attachment which, as he says, is based on inner beauty and worth. What is crucial here is Bassanio's reason for his choice. And although the speech further insists that in love also choice should be based on something more than external beauty, the idea is not made part of Bassanio's own experience of falling in love with Portia. Bassanio wins her without wooing her, and although she had given him "fair speechless messages," there is a cold, almost mechanical quality in his winning her. In short, she is not won through wooing, and this in a romantic comedy must be accounted a deficiency. But it is a deficiency the dramatist will not allow us to notice in the acting of the play, for he engages our interest in absorbing action of one sort or another, including an elopement, which in a love comedy is a great asset.

Now love based on external attraction only is taken up in Much Ado About Nothing and made part of the Claudio-Hero story, where Claudio, having seen Hero, wishes to make her his wife but is unwilling to woo her and instead enlists Don Pedro to do his wooing for him. And here it appears we have yet another motive which one would find alien to the spirit of romantic comedy. But there is wooing enough in the play, though of a special sort, in the love affair of Benedick and Beatrice. The point here made is that Much Ado About Nothing has rather strong and intriguing connections with The Merchant of Venice, at least with its romantic action. Furthermore, we may note that the play takes up a theme attempted in Love's Labour's Lost but here given a fuller treatment both in scope and quality. This is the rejection or pretended rejection of romantic love and wedlock by Benedick and Beatrice, a theme repeated in Phoebe's attitude in As You Like It and Olivia's in Twelfth Night. It is indeed a fundamental, an indispensable, motive of Shakespearean romantic comedy, and its absence in The Merchant of Venice is a further deficiency of its romantic action. Finally, Much Ado About Nothing carries further than any other comedy before it the attempt to elicit from its audience highly complex responses to its stage action, something Shakespeare had achieved in good measure in The Merchant of Venice.…

First we should note that the play deals with the fortunes of two love affairs, and though the two pairs of lovers differ significantly—they are deliberately contrasted—their stories run a rough and slow course: one leads to quick union, then separation, and then reunion; the other is slow and deliberate from beginning to end. Both stories are obstructed, prevented from swift and happy conclusion, by the errors of mere seeming, by the deception of appearance. And this circumstantiality of seeming threads the two stories together in both action and thematic significance. We shall note also that as visual and more significantly "oral" appearance is the means of obstructing love in the play, its technical or stage agency for advancing the action is over-hearing, accurate or inaccurate, and eavesdropping. We shall see that appearances are either put on by characters themselves, as Benedick and Beatrice do, or are created by others, as those practiced by Don John and Don Pedro. What results from this is an action made up of a series of deceptions. For a short while Don Pedro's initial intrigue to woo Hero for Claudio deceives nearly everybody, including Antonio, Leonato, and Benedick. And Don John, likewise misled, convinces Claudio, whom he pretends to take for Benedick, that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself. But the two brothers, incorrigible intriguers that they are, attempt further deceptions, again the one aiming to unite lovers, the other to sever them. Don Pedro directs his intrigue against Benedick and Beatrice, whereas Don John mounts his against Claudio and Hero. It should be noted here that both intrigues depend upon the deception of appearances. In the scene witnessed by Don Pedro and Claudio it seemed that Hero received a lover at her window; in the other, Benedick and Beatrice are informed that though they seem to dislike each other, they are in truth in love. In the church scene after the accusation Hero seems dead, which leads to the Friar's intrigue aimed to deceive Claudio and Don Pedro; and in the final scene Leonato introduces his own little deception by presenting a masked Hero as a cousin.

In addition to this series of deceptions which bind the two stories and advance their action, we should note two points not sufficiently stressed by critics. First, we must remember that in both plots circumstantial appearances, false or otherwise, have to do with love; and second, Benedick's reason for eschewing marriage is his pretended belief that no wife is faithful, that every husband is a cuckold. But this, it turns out, is what Don John seems to believe also and attempts to demonstrate in his intrigue against Hero.

The play opens with Leonato receiving news through a messenger that he will soon be visited by Don Pedro of Arragon, accompanied by his brother Don John and two Italian lords, who, we are told, have done "good service" during a recent military campaign. Of the two Italian lords Claudio, the Florentine, is seriously described as having "borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion." This report of Claudio's achievement, besides indicating his youth and valor, associates him with tears of joy, tears shed by his uncle in Messina upon learning of his nephew's military accomplishments. In addition Claudio's description contrasts him with Benedick, his friend and companion, to whom the earliest allusion, made by Beatrice, is as disparaging as the messenger's reference to Claudio is laudatory. Beatrice calls Benedick "Signior Mountanto," that is, "Signior Duellist," and adds that he is anything but heroic: in truth "a very valiant trencherman," a braggart and a coward. "I pray you," she asks the messenger, "how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed, for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing" (I, i, 42-5). As is appropriate to the content of her speeches, Beatrice's tone is mocking, but without bitterness, indeed gay, and that tone, together with Leonato's comment thereon, precludes overhasty judgment on our part. Claudio and Benedick are thus contrasted in the earliest allusions to them: the one is brave, heroic, associated with tears, honored by Don Pedro; the other is said to be a braggart, unheroic, with scarcely "wit enough to keep himself warm." The one portrait is romantic, the other satiric. The episode shows, furthermore, Beatrice's interest in Benedick, though ostensibly her reason is to heap ridicule upon him.

After the indirect introduction, through the messenger and Beatrice, of Claudio and Benedick, the play brings these two on the stage, together with Don Pedro and Don John the Bastard. During this episode Claudio is not given a single speech, and the actor must of course indicate his interest in Hero, who likewise remains silent in the course of the episode. Their silence is emphasized by the clever and witty dialogue of Benedick and Beatrice, who now take the stage, resuming their unfinished skirmishes of old, and protesting a "dear happiness" that they are not in love with each other. Before leaving the episode we should note two important details. First, the irony in Leonato's protestation to Don Pedro: "Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave" (I, i, 99-102). Second and far more important, Shakespeare introduces through Benedick the important theme of conjugal infidelity in this early episode. To Don Pedro's question if Hero is his daughter, Leonato replies: "Her mother hath many times told me so." Benedick, unable to resist the opening, asks: "Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?" This is, of course, a brief reference to the theme, but though brief it is the first in a long series of allusions to it by Benedick, for, as noted earlier, he gives his fear of wifely infidelity as the reason for his pretended aversion to the opposite sex, love, and wedlock. This then is the first note, struck early in the play, to be followed by Benedick's comic elaboration, which in turn leads to Don John's making infidelity the basis of his intrigue against Hero. For Don John seems to believe what Benedick pretends to believe about the woes of marriage. What is of note here is that Benedick and Don John are concerned with the same idea, though their attitudes toward it differ. But their concern with the same motif contributes its share towards the play's thematic as well as structural unity.

The third movement of the long opening scene extends and establishes more firmly the contrast between the romantic and satiric attitudes towards love and wedlock as represented by Claudio and Benedick. Having seen Hero twice, Claudio has fallen in love with her though he has evidently exchanged no words with her. He has chosen "by the view," and on her appearance alone he has begun to idealize her. What might have been a more passionate expression of his love for her is held down to hesitant acknowledgment by Benedick's strictures on such matters. It should be noted here that Benedick makes the revealing admission that though he can speak with "simple true judgment" about women, his custom is to be "a professed tyrant to their sex." In the face of this, Claudio is content to call Hero first a "modest young lady," then a "jewel," the "sweetest lady" that he ever looked on. Hero, says Benedick, may be handsome, but Beatrice "exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December." But this is not the reason he tries to dissuade Claudio from marriage. The reason is that a husband is surely a woeful, a pitiful thing. "Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith, an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays" (I, i, 199-204).

Even when Don Pedro returns to the stage a moment later, Claudio retains his timidity and guarded expression of his love for Hero, for he is not certain of Don Pedro's attitude. Later on when, left alone with him, he is assured of the latter's more sympathetic response, Claudio breaks out into a much freer account of his feelings and does so in blank verse, the first in the play. But while the three are together on the stage, he is an easy target for the aroused Benedick, who with an assumed tolerance for his friend's infirmity accuses Claudio of being in love. And on his side, Benedick vows, he "will live a bachelor," for although a woman conceived him, none will deceive him: "… that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bungle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none" (11. 242-46). It is his strongest protest against wedlock, what we may call his comic error anticipating his later capitulation which is likewise forecast by Don Pedro's conviction:

I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

And a line or two later he adds:

In time the savage bull both bear the yoke.

But Benedick insists on his choice and the reasons for it: "The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead." Even Claudio adds his own allusion to horns in saying that, if after all this Benedick should take a wife, he would be "horn-mad."

The episode deals in the main with Benedick's over-protesting both his own heresy towards love and his disapproval of Claudio's surrender to it. For this double offense against Cupid he will pay dearly, and all this is ironically anticipated. But of great significance is Benedick's persistence upon the theme of cuckoldry, an idea made part of the general atmosphere of the play. For in accusing all womanhood of infidelity he is introducing the very basis of Hero's later undoing, though ironically Benedick is one of only three characters who are convinced of her innocence. Not only this, but we should note that in the concluding episode of the play Claudio fears Benedick himself would be a "double dealer" if Beatrice "do not look exceedingly narrowly" to him.

As we noted above, when he is left alone with Don Pedro on the stage in the concluding movement of this scene, Claudio leaves no doubt of his love for Hero. This is indicated by the use of verse but more clearly by Claudio's avowal that upon his return

        war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is…
                                 (11. 303-6)

Don Pedro, fearing that Claudio will be like a lover and "tire the hearer with a book of words," offers to help, to which Claudio responds in the accents of the lover indeed:

How sweetly you do minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!

Having presented a timid Claudio as the romantic lover in love with one he knows little about, Shakespeare introduces in the space of a half dozen lines the first instance of deception, the stage device which will propel and control the action of both stories in the play. Don Pedro will assume Claudio's part, will woo and win Hero for him. With this, the long opening scene comes to a close.

Don Pedro's plan to woo Hero for Claudio yields at least two by-products, both ultimately ineffectual, or rather rendered so by the discovery of the error of appearances. The first unforeseen result of Don Pedro's deception is recorded in the brief second scene with Antonio's report to Leonato that a man of his had overheard Don Pedro's plan to woo Hero for himself. The second outcome of Don Pedro's plan to woo Hero in Claudio's name occurs a little later in Act II, scene i, where Don John, pretending to take the masked Claudio for Benedick, tells him that Don Pedro woos for himself. Both of these episodes are brief and their effects are checked later in the same scene when Don Pedro, having won Hero, gives her to Claudio. But these two instances of the errors in seeming serve significant ends; they show how easy it is to be deceived by appearances, visual or oral. Antonio and Leonato are convinced that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself, and later so does Benedick. But what is far more important, Claudio, who knows Don Pedro's plan, likewise believes the report of the latter's betrayal of him. Now the fact that three other characters are deceived along with him is intended to mitigate but lightly Claudio's error, for unlike the others he is in on Don Pedro's secret. More significantly the episode lays emphasis on the general ease with which appearances can deceive and anticipates the later and much graver deception of Claudio and Don Pedro by Don John.

The opening scene of Act II, besides Don John's abortive plan to vex Claudio, which occurs at the end of the masked ball, includes Beatrice's own comic hamartia which parallels Benedick's, the masked ball, the union of Claudio and Hero, and Don Pedro's announcement of a second plan in Cupid's behalf: "to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other." And he plans to do it through deception.

The scene opens with Beatrice recording her instinctive distrust of Don John and commenting upon his tart looks and excessive reticence. And she adds that a combination of Benedick, who tattles evermore, and Don John, who is "like an image and says nothing," would result in a handsome husband. And when she is told that if she remains shrewish and "too curst," she will never get a husband, she replies:

I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, "God sends a curst cow short horns;" but to a cow too curst he sends none.

Leonato. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

Beatrice. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had rather lie in the woolen!

(II, i, 23-32)

Her protestation, aside from ironically anticipating her later conversion and thus paralleling Benedick's, resumes and maintains before us his insistence upon cuckoldry. Presently the revellers enter, all masked, and soon they move in sequent pairs within hearing of the audience. In each pair there is pretense of hidden identity, and Benedick and Beatrice, taking advantage of that pretense, ridicule each other without mercy: he by saying that she has had her "good wit out of the 'Hundred Merry Tales'"; and she by calling him the prince's jester, whose gift is in devising "impossible slanders." As with the theme of cuckoldry so the idea of slander is introduced early, to be repeated again and again by different characters until the very air of the play is filled with it. It is after this that Don John tries his initial and briefly successful assault upon Claudio, to be followed by Benedick's concurrence, both to be put aside shortly by Don Pedro's explanation.

Before concluding, the scene records two brief episodes of interest concerning the reluctant lovers. In the midst of his complaints to Don Pedro against Beatrice's ridicule of him during the ball, Benedick suddenly exclaims: "I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd." Equally revealing is Beatrice's own surprising allusion, a moment after Hero and Claudio are united, to her own single state, hitherto by her own description a state of "dear happiness": "Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry "Heighho for a husband!" (11. 330-32) Having heard both, Don Pedro concludes the scene by proposing his second scheme, to undertake one of "Hercules' Labours," to "practice" on Benedick and Beatrice so that they shall fall in love.

In the following scene Don John under Borachio's prompting initiates the parallel intrigue aimed at separating Claudio and Hero even as Don Pedro's aims at uniting Benedick and Beatrice. Both intrigues are to employ appearances, visual and oral, and in both the victims are gulled by being made to believe they have the advantage over those on whom they are eavesdropping.

Don Pedro's intrigue aiming to unite Benedick and Beatrice commences in Act II, scene iii, opening and closing with long and important soliloquies by Benedick, who is the subject of the episode. In his opening soliloquy he states in somewhat formal fashion his comic hamartia, and in attacking love and Claudio's romantic metamorphosis he anticipates a similar attack upon his own later change; at the end of the scene he will be another Claudio. Aside from this structural function the passage is of the greatest significance in that it defines Claudio's change through his love for Hero, a subject upon which much has been written. It is true that Benedick cites no long list of conventional lovers' maladies visited upon Claudio, but he nevertheless isolates pointedly certain details in Claudio's deportment which leave no doubt as to his change and the reasons for it. So far as Benedick is concerned, Claudio's falling in love is both incredible and intolerable: "I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio." (II, iii, 7-12) What Benedick stresses here is not merely that Claudio has fallen in love but that, like himself, he had earlier scorned and laughed at the folly of it in others. Claudio had been quite different, then, before seeing Hero. "I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes." (11. 12-22) Unless we accept these lines as expressing the facts in Claudio's behavior, the speech can possess no significance. Professor [Charles T.] Prouty has argued [in The Sources of Much Ado About Nothing, 1950] that "such tirades are a part of Benedick's humor as an enemy of love and are not necessarily true." But if these things are not true, why is Benedick so deeply concerned with them and why does he rehearse them in a soliloquy? As we have noted above, the point to bear in mind is that Claudio is here presented as another Benedick, laughing at lovers and scorning love: and now look at him, Benedick says. He has become "Monsieur Love"! (1. 37) But what really convinces us that Claudio has indeed suffered a lover's changes is Benedick's question: "May I be so converted, and see with these eyes?" It is inconceivable that Benedick should ask if he could "be so converted," that is, as Claudio has been, if he knew all the time that Claudio had not been converted at all. The point is that, in spite of his protestations, Benedick is not certain that he can long resist love, for he answers his own question thus: "I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool." (11. 23-28) It is true that thus far he has resisted love, yet the possibility of his submission is clearly implied in his conclusion: "… till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich shall she be …, virtuous … mild …, noble …, of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God." (11. 30-37) Thus in addition to pointing to his own imminent change in his censure of Claudio, Benedick's soliloquy announces his readiness for such change. For it would not do for Shakespeare to show Benedick suddenly and unexpectedly admitting his love for Beatrice. The soliloquy suggests a psychological state in him which is appropriately receptive to the revelations soon to be made of Beatrice's love of him.

At this point Benedick sees "Monsieur Love" approaching, accompanied by Don Pedro and Leonato, and Balthasar with a lute. And of course Benedick, in hiding in the arbor, does precisely what they want him to do. In the episode which follows, the introduction of music is of the greatest significance, not simply thematic but psychological as well. And yet Balthasar's song has been curiously misunderstood by critics, some of whom make scant allusion to it. As is his habit Shakespeare associates music with love and wooing, and music has become an indispensable symbol of harmony in the plays. And in addition the introduction of music here enables Shakespeare to write a light dialogue between Balthasar and Don Pedro, with much talk of wooing and wooers and noting-nothing, which critics have tended to overinterpret. In passing, it may be noted also that the "atmospheric" term "slander" drops casually from Balthasar's lips (1. 47), doubtless intended for our subconscious. Furthermore Balthasar's lute music elicits Benedick's appropriately anti-romantic, irony-laden response: "Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done."

But what of the song itself? Although its lines are addressed to "ladies," the words are really meant for Benedick, but its general meaning reaches beyond him and touches the others on the stage, particularly Claudio and Don Pedro:

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever.…

Not only Benedick, then, but others as well have deceived or are about to deceive their loving ladies, for men "were deceivers ever," to "one thing constant never." How fittingly ironic that Benedick, who has hitherto made it his duty to question ladies' fidelity, should be addressed with such lines! And presently those on the stage will hint that his hard heart has brought Beatrice close to acts of self-violence! Such men are unworthy, the refrain sings, of ladies' tears.

Then sigh not so, but let them go.…

The second stanza, more clearly than the first, not only alludes to men's deception generally and to the one aimed at Benedick in particular, but also pointedly anticipates Don John's fraud aimed at Hero:

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
  Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
 Since summer first was leafy.

It cannot be maintained that Balthasar's song converts Benedick, but on the other hand it is clear that it creates a distinct impression, if not directly upon Benedick, certainly upon his subconscious, and indeed our own as well. Its content, then, is relevant both in its allusions to episodes, past and future, and also in creating the right psychological context which puts Benedick on the defensive, so to speak. Furthermore its refrain, with its strongly anticipatory "sounds of woe," forecasts also a comic resolution by asking ladies to convert such sounds into "Hey, nonny, nonny." Finally, the two stanzas with their refrain contribute to the play's over-all unity of tone and atmosphere by placing the two stories in the same thematic and psychological context.

The song having in a sense helped prepare Benedick for the deception, Don Pedro, in an anticipatory note, requests Balthasar to prepare "some excellent music" to be sung "tomorrow night … at the Lady Hero's chamber-window." And then Don Pedro and his two associates turn to the attack. The general tone they create is a master-stroke of psychology which convinces Benedick that Beatrice is indeed enamored of him. Benedick's first response is that "this is a gull," but he then dismisses the thought since so old and grave a "reverence" as Leonato could scarcely practice such "knavery." But Benedick's dismissal of any suspicion has already been determined, so to speak, by the three practicers. Two of them pretend that Beatrice may merely "counterfeit" her passion for Benedick, but Leonato's answer is proof enough: "O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it." (II, iii, 109-11) Benedick is satisfied. Furthermore, their allusions to him, alternating between censure and praise, between his "contemptible spirit," and his "good outward happiness," have such an air of casual and incontestable truth about them that he is put completely at his ease, and disarmed thus he believes all he "overhears."

Benedick's soliloquy which follows the deception balances his opening speech by answering some of its questions. He may, indeed, be "so converted" and by a lady fair and virtuous, two of the attributes he had stipulated in the earlier passage. In the face of Beatrice's imaginary tears, Benedick capitulates, and he records his response to her love in an exquisitely jesting, half-hearted effort at self-deception: "I may chance to have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have rail'd so long against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.… No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married." (11. 244-52) The passage is one of the most significant in the entire play, for it records with Benedick's individual humor the recognition of his comic error. What must be borne in mind when treating the matter of the play's unity is that Benedick's comic error is precisely what Claudio's had been, for he too, we have seen, had scorned love and its cares in favor of the more becoming occupation of the soldier. Benedick's submission to love follows Claudio's and is in turn followed by Beatrice's. The long scene comes to a close with the entry of Beatrice upon the stage to bid Benedick come to dinner. And suddenly Benedick can "spy some marks of love in her," and can also detect "a double meaning" in what she says. This is so and not so. Beatrice may be enamored of him but there are no marks of love in her, nor does he interpret accurately her double meaning, though her speech may not always reveal her feelings towards him. Certainly she "seems" and "sounds" different to him, but he is deceived!

The opening scene of Act III spreads the same net for Beatrice that has caught Benedick, with Hero leading the hunt. In place of the song with its emotional and psychological contribution, the present scene is written entirely in verse, and it includes the first instance of Beatrice's speech in that medium. Like Benedick, she is made to think that she is eavesdropping whereas she is merely intended to overhear what Hero and Ursula are saying. Their talk is of Benedick's love for her, and they praise his worth while censuring her pride, her wit and scorn. And as they pretend to believe that Beatrice would doubtless flout Benedick if she knew of his love, Hero resolves not to tell her of it.

No; rather I will go to Benedick
And counsel him to fight against his passion;
And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with.
                                        (III, i, 82-85)

The passage parallels much of the earlier scene with Benedick, and Hero's pretense at "slander" not only repeats Balthasar's earlier use of the term before his song, but also intensifies the irony of her own imminent calumny. In brief, Beatrice, who was not unprepared for the change, forswears pride and scorn, and vows to requite Benedick's passion, adding the significant "To bind our loves up in a holy band." Don Pedro's practice upon the reluctant lovers has succeeded in revealing to them their love for each other, and in this there is a fine sense of irony since the trick played upon them had little to do with causing them to fall in love. In other words, there is a kind of self-deception in Don Pedro's notion that bringing Benedick and Beatrice "into a mountain of affection" would be one of "Hercules' labours."

In the following scene of Act III Benedick's conversion into a lover is presented as identical with Claudio's and this of course confirms the parallel between the two men which we noted above. Claudio's strange metamorphosis, so stoutly ridiculed by Benedick earlier in the play, is precisely the change Don Pedro, Leonato, and Claudio now ridicule in him. He is sadder than he was wont to be, though Don Pedro explains the cause thereof as want of money. But there are other symptoms: he has a "fancy … to strange disguises," affecting a variety of costumes. He "brushes his hat o' mornings," "the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls," "he rubs himself with civet," he washes his face, and paints himself. He must be in love, they conclude, and "the greatest note of it is his melancholy." For "his jesting spirit … is new-crept into a lute-string and now governed with stops." Are not these the very changes Benedick had bewailed and ridiculed in Claudio? The notion that Benedick's tirades against Claudio are not true finds no support here, for the very changes Benedick attacks in Claudio are visible symptoms in himself. His dress, the loss of his beard, his assumed gravity, his reticence—all these we see on the stage, and they are all attributes of the lover. It was certainly necessary for Shakespeare to show these matters in only one of them, and of the two Benedick is the right choice, for he is conceived in a comic vein whereas Claudio is not. And the mocking of the mocker is part of the comic idea of the play. Thus Benedick, who earlier in the play had heaped scornful mockery upon Claudio's love, in the present episode loses his perspective completely. And it is surely the height of comedy to hear his affectedly laconic speech to Leonato: "Old signior, walk aside with me. I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak with you.…" Alas, Benedick the lover has no idea how ridiculously serious he looks and sounds!

Benedick and Leonato having retired to consider Benedick's "eight or nine wise words," Don John enters the stage and accuses Hero of infidelity and offers Don Pedro and Claudio proof "tonight." Since Benedick, in spite of his earlier thrusts at wifely infidelity, would probably reject the accusation—and he does when he hears it in the church scene—he is kept ignorant of the charge against Hero, Don John's "proof," and Claudio's plan to disgrace her at the altar. Furthermore, his exclusion makes it easy for Benedick to align himself with Beatrice in Hero's behalf. And he not only agrees with her and the Friar that there "is some strange misprision in the princes," but divines the cause. "The practice of it," he says, "lives in John the Bastard."

But conviction that Hero is innocent cannot clear her good name. That is done by Dogberry and his fellows created by Shakespeare for that purpose, perhaps with hints from Lyly's Endymion. And what should be noted is that they overhear Borachio describe his slander of Hero. That the watch should accidentally penetrate to the truth while some of the clever ones are duped carries its own simple ironies. But what is far more important is that the watch fails to reveal their discovery before the wedding scene. Thus our suspense and anticipation are maintained, albeit on a lower pitch now since we are most certain that Dogberry will come out with the truth. The scene reveals to us both Borachio's success and Claudio's vow to shame Hero "before the whole congregation," as well as Borachio's apprehension by the watch.

While these matters are thus proceeding, Hero, aided by her maids, makes ready for the wedding. Scene four of Act III is in two parts: the first half deals with Hero's preparation, suddenly clouded by a strange premonition which is soon relieved by Margaret's bawdry; and the second half takes up the teasing of the love-melancholy Beatrice by Hero and her maids, an episode intended to balance the earlier taunting of Benedick by his friends. The final scene of Act III, one of the most ironic in the play, brings Dogberry and Verges to Leonato's house, but though they are possessed of the truth they fail to communicate it to Leonato, for they are tediously deliberate and he is preoccupied and inattentive, and he is shortly called away from them by a messenger who reports the wedding is at hand. That the watch are at least attempting to reveal the truth reduces our anxiety and keeps it on a manageable level, both here and in the wedding scene which follows. Though the emphasis here is upon the comic incongruousness between the inherent ridiculousness of the watch and their assumed dignity, the scene nevertheless anticipates the ultimate righting of Hero's wrong in Leonato's request that Dogberry take the examination of the culprits himself and bring it to him later. Whereupon Dogberry commands his associate to get him "to Francis Seacoal, bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol.…"

The wedding scene is the most difficult in the play and it has caused much controversy among the critics. Some defend Claudio's role while others find it utterly inexcusable. And more serious than that, most students of the play discover here the division in tone and atmosphere to which E. K. Chambers alludes in his essay on the play [in Shakespeare: A Survey, 1925]. Is it true that the play's "harmony of atmosphere," as he puts it, suffers from the fact that the Claudio-Hero story moves in a melodramatic plane while the story of Benedick and Beatrice moves in a comic plane? Is this distinction between the two stories valid? An examination of the scene refutes Chambers' contention. And although in the foregoing analysis of the play thus far we have seen a blending of the two stories in terms of both theme and structure, the wedding scene is a crucial test of the notion that the play does indeed possess "unity of atmosphere." By way of introduction to our analysis, let us note that the scene presents episodes in the two stories dealing with the same melodramatic motive: Claudio is said to have killed Hero with his accusation, and Benedick, commanded by Beatrice, vows to kill Claudio. And Benedick will come no closer to killing Claudio than the latter comes to killing Hero. That this melodramatic theme is common to both stories is incontestable; yet the fact seems to have escaped those critics who see a fatal division in the atmosphere of the play The initial episode of the scene presents Claudio, in a somewhat self-dramatizing attitude, rejecting Hero before the altar, asserting that she is "but the sign and semblance of her honour." For Claudio, having himself engaged in an action wherein things were not what they seemed—the deception of Benedick—fails to consider that the scene at Hero's window may have been another instance of that same "truth." Aside from the irony inherent in this lapse on his part as well as Don Pedro's, what is of great significance here is the fact that Claudio, though he has fallen in love with Hero, knows nothing about her. There had been no courtship, and he had chosen "by the view" alone: "by the view" he chose Hero and "by the view" he rejects her. No doubt Claudio deserves censure for both choosing and rejecting Hero merely on the basis of externals. And as we noted earlier, this motif relates the play with The Merchant of Venice, wherein Bassanio, as well as Nerissa's song, had insisted upon an understanding of inner worth as the basis of a happy union. For love based on show alone is but fancy "which alters / When it alteration finds." But the injunction not to "choose by the view" does not imply that appearances need be deceptive, and certainly Hero is as true and loyal and innocent as she appears.

Claudio is no doubt an easy mark for Don John's aim, yet Shakespeare provides that our censure of him must not be too severe, for he must not appear utterly undeserving of Hero. To that end Shakespeare makes the evidence against Hero of such strength that not only is Claudio convinced but Don Pedro also and for a while even Leonato. And this last, though it does not completely justify Claudio's conduct at the altar, surely explains much of it. Furthermore, the fact that the cause of the conflict is the work of Don John takes much from whatever force there may be in the charge that Claudio is irresponsible, callous, and cruel. For it must be kept in mind that he is the target of Don John's devilish scheme. Claudio, though not quite the "slandered groom," is nevertheless the one whose happiness is undermined by the slander of Hero.

What Shakespeare is clearly pursuing here is a complex emotional response by the audience. Though we are made unhappy by the rejection of Hero we know that the whole matter will be made right soon, and though we feel that Claudio is somewhat hasty and an easy gull, yet we see two others being gulled with him, and one of them, Leonato, should know—he should certainly feel—that Hero cannot be guilty. The point, then, is a simultaneous experience of conflicting, though not mutually cancelling, emotions on our part. The very same conflict of emotions makes up our response to Beatrice's instant rejection of the accusation and particularly her command to Benedick to kill Claudio. We approve of her vehemence against Hero's accusers and especially Claudio, but we do so knowing all along that the truth is even now being taken down by the officious Dogberry. We know that although Hero has been struck a fearful blow by the rejection, she is not dead; we respond to Beatrice's spirit and her flaming words in defense of Hero; yet we at no time subscribe to her call for Claudio's death. In her command "Kill Claudio!" there is the same melodramatic note which characterizes the rejection of Hero at the altar. And surely Claudio's "sad invention" and Balthasar's song sung over a tomb which the audience knows is empty are no more melodramatic than Benedick's challenge to Claudio in order to avenge Hero's death. In both there is a strong undercurrent of the comic beneath the seeming gravity of appearances.

This complexity of our emotional response to the scene is maintained to the end and particularly in Benedick's deliberate acceptance of Beatrice's command. Though the audience wishes Benedick to challenge Claudio, the knowledge that Hero is alive and that she will soon be vindicated modifies our feelings so that instead of grave apprehension we experience the double pleasure of first having Benedick do what we want him to do—that is to challenge Claudio—and also of knowing that all will be well.

Our controlled anxieties are further relieved by the action of the second and final scene of Act IV, for here the imperious Dogberry, in the company of Verges and appareled in the robes of office, examines Conrade and Borachio, and their deposition reassures us that Hero was indeed wrongfully accused, and adds the very important note that Don John "is this morning secretly stol'n away."

The opening scene of Act V is in three parts, the first two presenting challenges issued to Claudio and the third cancelling these by its revelation of the truth concerning Hero. Nevertheless the first two episodes maintain the complexity of our emotions, for they present first Antonio and Leonato and then Benedick challenging Claudio to a duel. Our response to the challenges is maintained at the level of immediate stage interest rather than of serious apprehension, and there is in both episodes an element of comedy. This is particularly true of Benedick's challenge, wherein he resumes, or rather maintains, his highly self-conscious gravity and laconic speech, both of which present an amusing contrast to his customary ways. To those earlier ways of his, allusion is made in the taunts of Don Pedro and Claudio, who insist that love has "transshaped him" and who threaten to "set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedick's head." Their speech, in content and form, contrasts sharply with Benedick's and throws into sharp relief the change love has wrought in him. In all this the intention is to create a comic impression which overlays the apparent gravity of the challenge, and to that impression is added again the casual note that Don John has fled from Messina. The result is that the two episodes elicit the same complexity of emotions to which we alluded earlier, and then with the entry of Dogberry and the watch with their two prisoners our chief anxiety is at long last completely dissipated. But while this is the effect of Borachio's confession upon our feelings, the effect upon Don Pedro's and Claudio's is quite the reverse, for they are now deeply shocked by the knowledge that Hero died innocent. Although there has been an important change in the emotions of both characters and audience, Shakespeare maintains a balance between the apparently serious and the comic. Leonato with apparent gravity requests of Claudio two acts of expiation, the singing of an epitaph over Hero's tomb and the promise to marry Antonio's daughter in lieu of Hero. To Leonato's assumed gravity Claudio adds his own, but of course the scene is kept from becoming maudlin by Dogberry's presence and also by the fact that the audience as well as most of the characters on the stage know that Hero is alive.

Scene iii of Act V extends the favorable turn of events in the preceding scene and points to the happy resolution of the plot. It opens with a colloquy between the irrepressible Margaret and Benedick, who sounds almost like his old self again in the bawdy exchange with her. Their brief episode is followed by a halting song and comment thereupon by Benedick. And here we should notice that Shakespeare is presenting us a somewhat different Benedick. He is in love, he cannot compose or sing love songs, he suffers much more pain than ever Leander did. But Benedick is a lover with a difference, and of course so is Beatrice. Here in his soliloquy he reveals something of Shakespeare's intention, namely to present Benedick as one in love who like Berowne before him is capable of seeing more than the romantic side of love. In other words Benedick is the sort of lover in whom the romantic attitude does not replace what had earlier seemed like an anti-romantic point of view. Instead, the two attitudes are juxtaposed in him. Surely only such a lover would rehearse his ill success in writing sonnets as Benedick does: "I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for 'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings." (V, ii, 36-39) We should note that Benedick is in love, that he wants and tries to compose a love sonnet but finds it beyond his poetic capabilities. The notion that Benedick yields to the convention only on the surface since he is unable to write a sonnet cannot be accepted. Although he finds the writing of love poems difficult, he persists, and in the closing scene there is reported a

… halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion'd to Beatrice.

In this he is not very different from other lovers, who, though possessing greater facility, produce less than perfect love poems. Certainly such are Orlando's ditties to Rosalind, and Hamlet himself is by no means happy with his "numbers." What matters is not the merits of these lovers as love poets but the fact that they attempt love poetry, and the attempt is an incontestable attribute of the romantic lover. The comic tone of the episode is briefly interrupted by the entry of Beatrice and Benedick's report to her concerning his challenge of Claudio, but it is resumed by Ursula's intelligence that "my lady Hero hath been falsely accused … and that Don John is the author of all.…" And the scene closes appropriately with Benedick's bawdy reply to Beatrice's request that he accompany her to hear further of "this news": "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle's."

The play's penultimate scene takes us to the churchyard and Leonato's monument for Claudio's mourning rites over Hero. The episode, as we said above, bears some analogy to the challenges offered Claudio earlier in the play particularly in a sense of emptiness occasioned, in both cases, by the fact that Hero has only seemed dead. Furthermore the brief scene in the churchyard, while ostensibly concerned with Hero's memory, is actually a prelude to the happy conclusion now at hand. And this is suggested by Balthasar's song and later by Don Pedro's description of day-break:

The wolves have prey'd; and look, the gentle
  day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
                               (V, iii, 25-27)

The concluding scene of the play begins with Leonato and Benedick expressing their relief at Hero's vindication, and when presently Claudio and Don Pedro enter the stage, Benedick and Claudio extend the feeling of ease and merriment by their bawdy exchange, which, be it noted, reverts for its humor to the cuckold's horn. The ladies are led on stage masked, Claudio takes his bride's hand who then unmasks and shows herself as the real Hero. To their union is then added that of Benedick and Beatrice, both of whom pretend to take each other for pity. But their assumed reluctance is defeated by the evidence of verses which they have composed for each other. Indeed Benedick proves a most philosophic lover when he contemplates his earlier apostasy, alluded to by Don Pedro: "In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it, for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion." (V, iv, 104-9) Benedick's "conclusion" is one of the great utterances in Shakespearean comedy. But lest that moment of gravity should linger overlong, Shakespeare mixes it with the lighter satiric note in Claudio's charge that Benedick may prove a double-dealing husband. And Benedick on his side insists on merry-making, music, and dance before the marriage ceremony. Finally upon spying Don Pedro alone he offers him words of wisdom. "Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife. There is no staff more reverend than one tipp'd with horn." Much comfort in that staff, yet Benedick is in love and about to be married. The ironic juxtaposition of attitudes is maintained to the very end.

The foregoing analysis of Much Ado About Nothing shows that its two stories are closely related in structure as well as theme and tone, particularly the last, since this aspect of the play has been seriously questioned. Not only are the two stories concerned with the same idea, that is, the effect of appearances on the fortunes of lovers, but also the working out of the several episodes in the two plots is so managed that our responses to them are the same. For instance, we have noted that our general attitude toward certain scenes, and indeed to the play as a whole, is a complex one. And this is particularly true of the way we respond to the deportment of the chief characters. We may approve of Beatrice's defense of Hero but of course we are never at ease with her command that Benedick kill Claudio. Similarly, we are relieved to hear Benedick accuse Don John of responsibility for Hero's abuse, and we are happy to see him align himself with Beatrice; yet we are not quite at ease with his melodramatic resolve to challenge Claudio, especially since he appears convinced that someone else is to blame. Our feelings are complicated further by another matter: though on the moral side we disapprove of Benedick's challenge, our disapproval is greatly dissipated by two details. First, we are never in doubt that all will be well, and second we enjoy Benedick's comic metamorphosis through love, for it is most amusing that this "professed tyrant" to the female sex should now take arms against Claudio, and all for love.

This complexity of response to the story of Benedick and Beatrice is the same as our response to the story of Claudio and Hero, and particularly to the actions and words of Claudio and Leonato. The characters in both plots exhibit ambiguous attitudes and through them elicit complex responses on our part. Claudio is duped by Don John into believing what seems true, yet the way in which he accuses Hero is such that he seems her slanderer. And both the manner and the simple fact of his accusation justify in part Beatrice's vituperation. The same complexity appears in Leonato's response. His attitude towards Hero is mixed, combining easy credulity, despair, and vengefulness. He grieves over Hero's alleged misconduct, yet he is angered by it into wishing her dead indeed; and at the same time he longs to avenge her disgrace.

Whether revealed through direct speech or action or both or obliquely through the incongruity of style in a particular passage, ambiguity or complexity of effect is certainly an incontestable feature of Much Ado About Nothing. In the broadest terms, this complexity of effect, present in both stories and identified as a mixture of the comic and melodramatic, is responsible for a single pervasive tone, the most effective and most subtle means of achieving far greater unity than most critics are willing to admit.

The question of the play's unity of atmosphere is by far the most serious one, but there are other problems concerning Much Ado About Nothing which have a just claim upon our interest. One of these is Professor Prouty's interpretation of the Claudio-Hero story and its relationship to the Benedick-Beatrice plot. The foregoing analysis of the play has, either through direct allusion or by implication, dealt in part with Professor Prouty's view that the Claudio-Hero union is a marriage of convenience, that is, a realistic, non-romantic affair, and that Benedick and Beatrice, another pair of realistic lovers, "are not really enemies of love: they are enemies of the dreary conventions." According to Professor Prouty, we have here "two couples completely opposed to the romantic tradition and these two couples are, in turn, representatives of opposite ideas: for the one, love is a real emotion, for the other, a business arrangement."

Although Claudio early in the play inquires of Don Pedro if Hero is Leonato's only heir, he makes no other reference to the matter, and in the remainder of the play no episode can be cited which supports the view that Claudio is seeking a marriage of convenience. It is true that Claudio does not woo Hero in person, but this is a necessary detail showing that he is in love with Hero without really knowing her. Furthermore, we should note that although Claudio does not woo Hero himself, she is wooed in his person by Don Pedro. But wooed Hero is, and Don Pedro promises Claudio that he will do it in the romantic manner:

I know we shall have revelling to-night.
I will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio.
And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale.
                               (I, i, 322-27)

And in the next line Don Pedro makes clear that the union will not be one of convenience, for he will broach the subject to Leonato after the wooing, after Hero has been wooed and won:

Then after to her father will I break.…

In addition to this, it is clear from a number of passages that Claudio's feelings are indeed engaged. Certainly the lines describing Hero's attraction have nothing to do with a "business arrangement":

But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is.…

And when Don Pedro shows the sort of compassion Benedick had refused Claudio, the latter adds:

How sweetly you do minister to love,
That knows love's grief by his complexion!

Furthermore that Claudio is indeed in love is shown by the strange changes in him, for according to Benedick he has become a different man: his speech, his dress, his taste in music—all these have changed. And this cannot be one of Benedick's tirades against love and therefore false. If what he says were not true, Benedick would have no reason to rehearse Claudio's changes in a soliloquy, and, more important, he would never ask if he, too, might so change. And of course Benedick does change, and in that particular he repeats Claudio's experience. What both do is first scorn love and lovers, then become lovers themselves, and precisely the same is true of Beatrice. Neither she nor the other two ever attack the conventions of romantic love; they attack love and the opposite sex. And although Claudio's reasons for scorning love are not given in detail, they are said to be those of Benedick, and these are certainly underscored. For the latter, the chief deterrent to marriage is the fear of being cuckolded, which is made as explicit as Shakespeare can make it, and it is one of the themes connecting the two plots. Nor is Beatrice really concerned with the dreary conventions. She makes no allusion to them, and she insists that she is grateful to God for sparing her, not from the conventions, but from a husband.

It is true, of course, that Benedick and Beatrice maintain to the end their negative attitude towards the fashionable code of love-making; in this they do not change. But that attitude is not dramatically exciting, and it is not shown in conflict with any action within the play itself. For instance, such an attitude would be dramatically effective and meaningful if it were contrasted with the attitude represented by Claudio and Hero. But these two are nowhere in the play given the extravagant hyperboles of such lovers as the sonneteering lords of Love's Labour's Lost. The reason is that Shakespeare's concern here is with something else about their love and its contrast with that of Benedick and Beatrice. What is central to the thought of the play is the approach or attitude toward love of the two pairs and the way that attitude changes in the course of the play. For Claudio and Hero love, first swift and superficial, and based entirely on "the view," is slowly and after much pain matured into something of inner worth and permanence. In contrast, Benedick and Beatrice begin by scorning love and each other and they end by falling in love. Thus both pairs of lovers are shown developing, though differently: Claudio and Hero grow towards understanding each other, while Benedick and Beatrice grow towards understanding themselves.

The chief event in the play, then, is the achievement by the lovers of self-awareness and a mature attitude towards love and each other. And the emphasis on this change is yet another step in the evolution of Shakespearean romantic comedy. For here the inner development of the lovers, especially Benedick and Beatrice, is made much more explicit than in both earlier as well as later romantic comedies. In Love's Labour's Lost, for instance, the change in the king and his lords is merely projected rather than achieved at the conclusion of the play. On the other hand, having fully dealt with the theme in Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare allows it far less scope in Phoebe's conversion in As You Like It and Olivia's in Twelfth Night. But in these plays he creates Rosalind and Viola who are already possessed of the self-awareness and mature view of love which Beatrice achieves at the conclusion of her play. The psychological exploration of Beatrice's character leads to the conception of the other two heroines, a conception presupposing and transcending her own.