Much Ado About Nothing

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1. Act 1.

   Don Pedro and his officers arrive at Leonato's house in Messina. Claudio confesses his love for Hero, and Don Pedro offers to woo her for him in disguise at that night's masked revels; Beatrice and Benedick resume their war of wit. The bastard Don John, freshly reconciled to his brother, broods on his discontent and looks for a way to do mischief.

   1. Scene 1 — Before LEONATO'S House.

      A messenger brings Leonato news that Don Pedro has won the war with few losses and great honour to young Claudio. Beatrice asks sarcastically after 'Signior Mountanto' (Benedick). The soldiers arrive; Beatrice and Benedick spar. Claudio tells Benedick, then Don Pedro, that he loves Hero, and Don Pedro promises to woo her for him under cover of the masked ball.

   2. Scene 2 — --A room in LEONATO'S house.

      Leonato's brother Antonio reports that a servant overheard Don Pedro confess he loves Hero and means to woo her himself, a garbled version of the real plan that begins the play's chain of misheard 'notings.'

   3. Scene 3 — --Another room in LEONATO'S house.]

      The sullen Don John tells his follower Conrade that he 'cannot hide what I am' and would rather be a 'canker' than a flattering rose. Borachio reports that Claudio, not Don Pedro, is to marry Hero, and Don John resolves to spoil the match: 'any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me.'

2. ACT 2.

   At the masked ball Don Pedro wins Hero for Claudio, though Don John briefly makes Claudio fear the Prince has wooed her for himself. With both betrothals settled, Don Pedro launches a benevolent plot to make Beatrice and Benedick fall in love, while Don John and Borachio plan a malicious one to disgrace Hero.

   1. Scene 1 — A hall in LEONATO'S house.

      At the masked dance Beatrice mocks Benedick to his disguised face. Don John pretends to mistake Claudio for Benedick and tells him Don Pedro woos Hero for himself; Claudio despairs until the truth clears it. Hero and Claudio are betrothed. Don Pedro proposes a 'labour' to bring Beatrice and Benedick 'into a mountain of affection.'

   2. Scene 2 — Another room in LEONATO'S house.

      Borachio lays out his scheme to Don John: he will woo Hero's maid Margaret at Hero's window, calling her 'Hero,' the night before the wedding, while Don Pedro and Claudio watch from below, so that Claudio will believe Hero false and shame her at the altar.

   3. Scene 3 — --LEONATO'S Garden.

      Benedick muses that he will never fall for any woman, then hides as Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato stage a loud conversation about how desperately Beatrice loves him. Balthasar sings 'Sigh no more, ladies.' Gulled, Benedick resolves: 'the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.'

3. ACT 3.

   Beatrice is tricked in turn into believing Benedick loves her, and both lovers are quietly transformed. Don John shows Claudio and Don Pedro the staged scene at Hero's window, and they vow to disgrace her at the wedding. The night watch, briefed by the muddled constable Dogberry, blunders into overhearing Borachio confess the whole plot.

   1. Scene 1 — Leonato's Garden.

      Hero and her woman Ursula stage their own loud talk in the garden, within earshot of the hidden Beatrice, about how much Benedick loves her and how scornful she is. Beatrice steps out transformed: 'Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! ... Benedick, love on; I will requite thee.'

   2. Scene 2 — A Room in LEONATO'S House.

      Don Pedro and Claudio tease the suddenly melancholy, clean-shaven, perfumed Benedick, who is plainly in love. Don John arrives and tells them Hero is disloyal, offering to show them proof at her chamber window that very night; Claudio vows that if he sees it he will shame her in the congregation where he meant to wed her.

   3. Scene 3 — A Street.

      Dogberry and Verges give the Watch their comically garbled orders. Left alone, the watchmen overhear a drunken Borachio boast to Conrade how he wooed Margaret as 'Hero' for a thousand ducats and how Claudio will shame Hero next morning. The Watch arrest the pair for 'the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.'

   4. Scene 4 — A Room in LEONATO'S House.

      On the wedding morning Hero dresses while Margaret jests bawdily about husbands and a heavy heart; Beatrice enters out of sorts and lovesick, and the others tease that she too will soon want 'carduus benedictus.'

   5. Scene 5 — Another Room in LEONATO'S House

      Dogberry and Verges try to tell Leonato that the Watch have caught two suspects, but their long-winded muddle so exhausts him on his daughter's wedding morning that he tells them to examine the men themselves, and hurries off, missing the warning that would have stopped the catastrophe.

4. ACT 4.

   At the altar Claudio repudiates Hero as unchaste and abandons her; she collapses, and her own father at first believes the slander. The friar, sure of her innocence, counsels the family to pretend she has died, so that grief may bring Claudio to repentance. Beatrice and Benedick confess their love, and she charges him to avenge Hero by killing Claudio.

   1. Scene 1 — The Inside of a Church.

      Before the priest, Claudio rejects Hero as a 'rotten orange,' and Don Pedro backs the charge of unchastity; Hero faints, and the shaken Leonato wishes her dead. Friar Francis, reading her face, believes her innocent and proposes to announce she has died, trusting remorse to clear her. Alone, Benedick and Beatrice declare their love, and Beatrice rounds on him: 'Kill Claudio.'

   2. Scene 2 — A Prison.

      Dogberry, Verges, and the Sexton examine Borachio and Conrade. The competent Sexton records the confession, reports that Don John has secretly fled and that the wronged Hero is said to have died, and orders the prisoners bound and brought to Leonato. Affronted at being called an 'ass,' Dogberry insists the loss be remembered.

5. ACT 5.

   The grieving Leonato and Antonio challenge Claudio and Don Pedro, who shrug them off; Benedick, breaking from his comrades, challenges Claudio in earnest. Then Dogberry's watch delivers Borachio, whose confession exposes the plot and stuns the guilty men with remorse. Claudio agrees to marry Leonato's veiled 'niece,' who is the living Hero, and Beatrice and Benedick are united at last.

   1. Scene 1 — Before LEONATO'S House.

      Leonato and Antonio confront Claudio and Don Pedro, who decline to fight the old men. Benedick arrives, withdraws from Don Pedro's company, and challenges Claudio for Hero's death. The Watch brings in Borachio, who publicly confesses the slander; Claudio and Don Pedro are struck with grief. Believing Hero dead, Claudio accepts Leonato's terms: to hang an epitaph at her tomb and wed her 'cousin' next morning.

   2. Scene 2 — LEONATO'S Garden.

      Benedick, attempting love-poetry, trades wit with Beatrice and woos her openly. Ursula brings news that Hero's innocence is now proved, Don John unmasked and fled, and the lovers go in together to learn the outcome.

   3. Scene 3 — The Inside of a Church.

      At Hero's monument by night, Claudio hangs a scroll of penitent verses and the company sings the solemn dirge 'Pardon, goddess of the night,' vowing to repeat the rite yearly, before leaving to dress for the new wedding at dawn.

   4. Scene 4 — A Room in LEONATO'S House.

      Claudio is married to a veiled lady who unmasks as the living Hero, restored with her name cleared. Beatrice and Benedick, each shown the other's secret love-poems, agree to wed, Benedick stopping her mouth with a kiss. Word comes that Don John has been captured, and the play ends in a dance: 'Strike up, pipers!'

Characters

• Benedick protagonist

  A young lord of Padua, a soldier returning from war with Don Pedro, famous for his quick wit and his loud vows never to marry. He and Beatrice keep up a 'merry war' of insults, but their friends trick each into believing the other is secretly in love, and the ruse becomes the truth. When Hero is slandered, Benedick takes Beatrice's side against his own comrades.

• Beatrice deuteragonist

  Leonato's sharp-tongued niece, who scorns marriage and trades barbs with Benedick in a long-running 'merry war' of wit. Gulled by her cousin and friends into hearing that Benedick loves her, she discovers her own love in return. Fierce in defense of her wronged cousin Hero, she demands that Benedick prove his love by avenging her: 'Kill Claudio.'

• Claudio major

  A young lord of Florence, newly distinguished in war, who falls in love with Hero and is betrothed to her with Don Pedro's help. Quick to believe Don John's slander that Hero is unfaithful, he shames and rejects her at the altar. Believing her dead, he repents and agrees to marry her 'cousin' in recompense, only to find Hero alive.

• Hero major

  Leonato's gentle daughter, betrothed to Claudio. Don John's plot makes it appear she has a lover at her window the night before her wedding; Claudio denounces her at the altar and she collapses. On the Friar's advice her family lets the world believe she has died of shame, until her innocence is proven and she is restored to a penitent Claudio.

• Don Pedro major

  The Prince of Arragon, victorious commander and honored guest of Leonato. Good-natured and fond of matchmaking, he woos Hero on Claudio's behalf at the masked ball and devises the scheme to bring Beatrice and Benedick together. His trust in his bastard brother Don John helps the slander against Hero take hold.

• Don John antagonist

  Don Pedro's illegitimate brother, a sullen malcontent newly reconciled to the Prince after a failed rebellion. 'I cannot hide what I am,' he says; resentful of Claudio's favor, he engineers the plot to disgrace Hero, having Borachio woo her maid Margaret at Hero's window. When the deception unravels he flees, and is captured offstage.

• Leonato major

  Governor of Messina, father of Hero and uncle of Beatrice, the genial host of Don Pedro and his company. At the broken wedding he at first believes the slander and turns on his daughter, wishing her dead; recovering, he follows the Friar's plan to clear her name and bitterly challenges Claudio before the truth comes out.

• Antonio supporting

  Leonato's elderly brother, an old man of Messina. He passes on a garbled report of Don Pedro's love-talk early on, helps comfort and counsel his brother, and joins the aged Leonato in furiously challenging Claudio and Don Pedro to a duel over Hero's disgrace.

• Borachio supporting

  A follower of Don John and lover of Hero's maid Margaret. For a thousand ducats he carries out the scheme that ruins Hero: he woos Margaret at Hero's window while Claudio and Don Pedro watch, mistaking her for Hero. Overheard boasting of it by the Watch, he is arrested and confesses, clearing Hero's name.

• Conrade minor

  A follower of Don John and companion to Borachio. He counsels his discontented master and is arrested alongside Borachio by the Watch; his indignant 'Off, coxcomb!' to Dogberry provokes the constable's famous protest, 'I am an ass.'

• Dogberry supporting

  The self-important constable of Messina, head of the night Watch, whose speech is a tangle of malapropisms (words comically mistaken for their opposites, as when he calls suspects 'auspicious' for suspicious). His bumbling watchmen nonetheless overhear Borachio and uncover the plot against Hero, so that justice arrives by accident.

• Verges minor

  The headborough (a petty parish officer), Dogberry's aged deputy and straight man. He helps marshal the Watch and trails after Dogberry trying, with little success, to get a word in.

• Margaret supporting

  One of Hero's waiting-gentlewomen, witty and free-spoken. Unwittingly central to the plot, she stands at Hero's window in Hero's clothes to be wooed by Borachio as 'Hero,' giving the watchers their false proof. The play treats her as a dupe, not a conspirator: she did not know the harm her game would do.

• Ursula minor

  One of Hero's waiting-gentlewomen. With Hero she stages the loud garden conversation about Benedick's supposed love that is overheard by the hidden Beatrice, helping to trick her into love.

• Balthasar minor

  A musician in Don Pedro's service. He sings the play's most famous song, 'Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,' which counsels women to accept men's inconstancy and 'let them go.'

• Friar Francis supporting

  The friar officiating at Hero and Claudio's wedding. Convinced of Hero's innocence by watching her face as she is accused, he proposes the plan to announce that she has died of shame, trusting that grief and reflection will bring Claudio to repentance and the truth to light.

• Sexton minor

  The parish clerk who serves as recorder at Dogberry's examination of Borachio and Conrade (4.2). The only competent official present, he registers their confession, learns of Don John's flight, and sends word to Leonato.

• Boy minor

  A boy whom Benedick sends to fetch a book from his chamber window at the start of his orchard soliloquy (2.3).

• Messenger minor

  A messenger who opens the play with news of Don Pedro's victory and approach to Messina, and other attendants who carry word through the action.

• First Watchman minor

  One of Dogberry's night watchmen. Posted to keep order, he and his fellow overhear Borachio drunkenly boasting of the plot against Hero, recognize 'one Deformed' as a supposed thief, and make the arrest that saves her.

• Second Watchman minor

  Another of Dogberry's watchmen, who with his fellow overhears and arrests Borachio and Conrade, then stands firm in repeating the charge at the examination.

• Watch ensemble

  Members of Dogberry's comic night watch, who blunder into uncovering Don John's plot.

• Both (Borachio and Conrade) ensemble

  Speech-prefix for the two prisoners, Borachio and Conrade, answering Dogberry in unison ('Yea, sir, we hope') during the examination in 4.2.

• Lord minor

  An attendant lord who confirms to Claudio that the monument before them is Leonato's, at the mourning rite in 5.3.

• Song ensemble

  Cue label for the solemn dirge 'Pardon, goddess of the night,' sung at Hero's supposed tomb in 5.3.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia