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 sheFor 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 ❯❯