Summary: Act III, scene i
In Leonato’s garden, Hero prepares to trick Beatrice into
believing that Benedick loves her. With the help of her two waiting
women, Margaret and Ursula, she plans to hold a conversation and
let Beatrice overhear it—just as Don Pedro, Leonato, and Claudio
have done to trick Benedick in the previous scene. Margaret lures
Beatrice into the garden, and when Hero and Ursula catch sight of
where she is hiding, they begin to talk in loud voices.
Hero tells Ursula that Claudio and Don Pedro have informed
her that Benedick is in love with Beatrice. Ursula suggests that
Hero tell Beatrice about it, but Hero answers that everybody knows
that Beatrice is too full of mockery to listen to any man courting
her—Beatrice would merely make fun of both Hero and Benedick and
break Benedick’s heart with her witticisms. Therefore,
she says, it will be better to let poor Benedick waste away silently
from love than expose him to Beatrice’s scorn. Ursula replies by
disagreeing with Hero: Hero must be mistaken, because surely Beatrice
is too intelligent and sensitive a woman to reject Benedick. After
all, everybody knows that Benedick is one of the cleverest and handsomest
men in Italy. Hero agrees, and goes off with Ursula to try on her
wedding dress.
After Hero and Ursula leave the garden, winking at each
other because they know they have caught Beatrice, Beatrice emerges from
her hiding place among the trees. Just as Benedick is shocked earlier,
Beatrice cannot believe what she has heard at first. Also, like Benedick,
she swiftly realizes that it would not be so difficult to “take
pity” on her poor suitor and return his love. She knows how worthy
Benedick really is and vows to cast off her scorn and pride in order
to love him back.
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Act III, scene i →
Summary: Act III, scene ii
Elsewhere, Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato begin to tease
Benedick about his decision never to marry. Benedick announces that
he has changed, and the others agree; they have noticed that he
is much quieter. They say that he must be in love and tease him
about it. But Benedick is too subdued even to answer their jokes.
He takes Leonato aside to speak with him.
As soon as Claudio and Don Pedro are left alone, Don
John approaches them. He tells them that he is trying to protect
Don Pedro’s reputation and save Claudio from a bad marriage. Hero
is a whore, he says, and Claudio should not marry her. The two are shocked,
of course, but Don John immediately offers them proof: he tells
them to come with him that night to watch outside Hero’s window
where they will see her making love to somebody else. Claudio, already
suspicious and paranoid, resolves that if what he sees tonight does
indeed prove Hero’s unfaithfulness, he will disgrace her publicly
during the wedding ceremony the next day, and Don Pedro vows to
assist him. Confused, suspicious, and full of dark thoughts, Claudio
and Don Pedro leave with Don John.
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Act III, scene ii →
Analysis: Act III, scenes i–ii
The trick that Hero and Ursula play upon Beatrice works
just as well as the one Don Pedro and Claudio play upon Benedick
in the preceding scene, as Beatrice, just as Benedick does, decides
to stop resisting marriage and return her supposed pursuer’s love.
Clearly, the friends of these two characters know them well. The
conversations that Benedick and Beatrice are allowed to overhear
are psychologically complicated, appealing to both the characters’ compassion
and their pride. Beatrice, like Benedick, cannot help but be flattered
to hear that her supposed enemy is in fact dying for love of her.
But her sensitive side has been targeted: she is disturbed to hear
that he is in such distress, and that she herself is the cause. Moreover,
it seems likely that her pride is wounded when she hears people
say that she has no compassion and that she would mock a man in
love instead of pitying him. Just as Benedick is moved to prove
the talkers wrong, so Beatrice seems to be stirred to show that
she does have compassion and a heart after all. When Hero says, “Therefore
let Benedick, like cover’d fire, / Consume away in sighs, waste
inwardly. / It were a better death than die with mocks,” Beatrice
is motivated to “save” poor Benedick and also to show that she is
not heartless enough to be as cruel as Hero seems to think she is
(III.i.77–79).
