The action is set in Sicily, where Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, has recently defeated his half-brother, the bastard Don John, in a military engagement. Apparently reconciled, they return to the capital, Messina, as guests of the Governor, Leonato. There Count Claudio, a young nobleman serving in Don Pedro’s army, falls in love with Hero, Leonato’s daughter, whom Don Pedro woos on his behalf. The play’s central plot, written mainly in verse, shows how Don John maliciously deceives Claudio into believing that Hero has taken a lover on the eve of her marriage, causing Claudio to repudiate her publicly, at the altar. This is a variation on an old tale that existed in many versions; it had been told in Italian verse by Ariosto, in his Orlando Furioso (1516, translated into English verse by Sir John Harington, 1591), in Italian prose by Matteo Bandello in his Novelle (1554, adapted into French by P. de Belleforest, 1569), in English prose by George Whetstone (The Rock of Regard, 1576), in English verse by Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene, Book 2, canto 4, 1590), and in a number of plays including Luigi Pasqualigo’s II Fedele (1579), adapted into English—perhaps by Anthony Munday—as Fedele and Fortunio (published in 1583). Shakespeare, whose plot is an independent reworking of the traditional story, seems to owe most to Ariosto and Bandello, perhaps indirectly.

Don John’s deception, with its tragicomical resolution, is offset by a parallel plot written mainly in prose, portraying another, more light-hearted deception, by which Hero’s cousin, Beatrice, and Benedick—friend of Don Pedro and Claudio—are tricked into acknowledging, first to themselves and then to each other, that they are in love. This part of the play seems to be of Shakespeare’s invention: the juxtaposition of this clever, sophisticated, apparently unillusioned pair with the more naive Claudio and Hero recalls Shakespeare’s earlier contrast of romantic and antiromantic attitudes to love and marriage in The Taming of the Shrew. The play’s third main strand is provided by Constable Dogberry, his partner Verges, and the Watchmen, clearly English rather than Sicilian in origin. Although Benedick and Beatrice are, technically, subordinate characters, they have dominated the imagination of both readers and playgoers.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

Much Ado About Nothing

1.1 Enter Leonato, governor of Messina, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his niece, with a Messenger

LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon comes this night to Messina.

MESSENGER He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I left him.

LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

MESSENGER But few of any sort, and none of name.

LEONATO A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

MESSENGER Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion. He hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.

LEONATO He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.

MESSENGER I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him—even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.

LEONATO Did he break out into tears?

MESSENGER In great measure.

LEONATO A kind overflow of kindness, there are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

BEATRICE I pray you, is Signor Montanto returned from the wars, or no?

MESSENGER I know none of that name, lady. There was none such in the army, of any sort.

LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece?

HERO My cousin means Signor Benedick of Padua.

MESSENGER O, he’s returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE He set up his bills here in Messina, and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, 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.

LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signor Benedick too much. But he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

MESSENGER He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

BEATRICE You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it. He is a very valiant trencherman, he hath an excellent stomach.

MESSENGER And a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICE And a good soldier to a lady, but what is he to a lord?

MESSENGER A lord to a lord, a man to a man, stuffed with all honourable virtues.

BEATRICE It is so, indeed. He is no less than a stuffed man. But for the stuffing—well, we are all mortal.

LEONATO You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signor Benedick and her. They never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them. 61

BEATRICE Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one, so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse, for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

MESSENGER Is’t possible?

BEATRICE Very easily possible. He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat, it ever changes with the next block.

MESSENGER I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

BEATRICE No. An he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

MESSENGER He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

BEATRICE O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease.

He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker

runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio. If he

have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand

pound ere a be cured.

MESSENGER I will hold friends with you, lady.

BEATRICE Do, good friend.

LEONATO You will never run mad, niece.

BEATRICE No, not till a hot January.

MESSENGER Don Pedro is approached.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and Don John the bastard

DON PEDRO Good Signor Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

LEONATO 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.

DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICK Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

LEONATO Signor Benedick, no, for then were you a child.

DON PEDRO You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourable father.

BENEDICK If Signor Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.