1. What is the role of Dogberry and Verges?
The inept constable Dogberry and his side-kick Verges occupy a paradoxical position in Much Ado About Nothing. They provide an element of slap-stick comedy far- removed from the intelligent wit of Benedick and Beatrice; Shakespeare may have included this in order to make his play more universally appealing. However, understanding their humour makes an intellectual demand of an audience. Dogberry is funny because he consistently uses language wrongly, and often inappropriately:
"You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch" (3.3.21-22)
[To Leonato] "I humbly give you leave to depart, and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it." (5.1.315-17)
Like that of other "low" characters in Shakespeare, such as Elbow in Measure for Measure or Paroles in All's Well that Ends Well, Dogberry's discourse spins a web of linguistic error. In modern productions this is generally played down, with the slap-stick potential of his scenes being emphasised instead. This is an easier form of humour for an audience to digest, but one which overlooks the point which Shakespeare is making about language and its instability. This is expanded in All's Well.
Dogberry and Verges are portrayed as ridiculous time-wasters, but they are also crucial in the exposure of Don John. The watchmen overhear Borachio boasting to Conrade about his conquest of Margaret and arrest both men. They then take them to their master, Dogberry, who in his turn reports them to a higher authority, Leonato. This is a microcosmic reflection of the hierarchy in the primary group of characters, and possibly an ironic comment on it. Interestingly, when Dogberry reports the watch's activities to Leonato in 3.5, Leonato does not listen to him, dismissing him as inept and irritating, just as we are tempted to do. Had Leonato taken Borachio and Conrade's examination there and then, all the ado about nothing which follows in the wedding scene and its aftermath would not have happened. Instead he abdicates responsibility, telling Dogberry to "take their examination yourself and bring it to me" (46). Leonato clearly thinks that whatever the matter is, it cannot be more important than his daughter's wedding and so he leaves it in Dogberry's hands without pressing him for more information about it; the result, of course, is that his daughter's wedding is ruined. We are not meant to blame Leonato for his negligence, but to realise that the plot of Much Ado About Nothing hangs on something as trivial as the Governer not having time to examine two petty criminals.
Law and order in Messina are in the hands of a bungling constable and his servile side-kick: this can be interpreted in two different ways. Either we can use Dogberry and Verges to support a reading of Much Ado About Nothing as light comedy: if all it takes to expose a plot is a judicial system as comically inept as this, then nothing can go very far wrong. This reading promotes a view of Shakespeare's comic world as hermetically sealed and safe within its own small parameters. Alternatively, we can see Dogberry and Verges as evidence of a darker vision at work in the play: should it worry us that Messina is so poorly administrated? What does this say about Leonato's government? Furthermore, there are grounds for saying that Dogberry and Verges are not inept at all. It certainly should not escape our notice that these two "low" characters have achieved what Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato have failed to do: to see things as they really are. Dogberry and Verges have, after all, done their job. Borachio points this out when he confesses his guilt in act 5 scene 1:
What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light. (225-27)
What looks at first like simple comedy, then, expands into something deeper when it is analysed. This is a very typical Shakespearian device: to conceal something meaningful behind a facade of triviality. The minor characters in Shakespeare are always part of an underlying schema and are never merely light relief or plot contrivances.
2. What is the significance of the songs in the play?
There are two songs in Much Ado About Nothing; they both occur at crucial points in the action and perform very specific functions. The first song is in act 2 scene 3 and immediately precedes Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato's gulling of Benedick. The men have ordered the music for their own pleasure; this idea of music as a form of light entertainment which should be available at a moment's notice crops up a lot in the comedies. In Much Ado About Nothing, Balthazar is the resident singer subject to his masters' whims; in As You Like It it is Amiens and in Twelfth Night it is Feste. These singers occupy complex social positions. Like fools, they have some degree of social mobility outside their servile status; Shakespeare makes this most clear in Twelfth Night by characterising Feste as both fool and singer. Amiens is one of the merry band of exiles in the forest and so is part of a social group in which he might not normally be found: this mobility is part of the conventions of festive comedy. However, in Much Ado About Nothing, Balthazar is kept in his place: he participates in the dance in act 2 scene 1, but only by dancing with Margaret who shares his social status and in act 2 scene 3 he adopts a self-deprecating manner which sounds contrived and therefore can be interpreted as a social convention or reflex. Benedick is characteristically cynical about music in general ("Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?" 2.3.57- 59) and insults Balthazar's singing in particular:
"An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief had heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it." (2.3.81-85)
As we have just seen above, Dogberry and Verges are dismissed in much the same way. Shakespeare is using Balthazar to reassert the importance of the hierarchies at work in the play: he shows us how the men behave in relation to their inferiors on an everyday level and then exposes their abuse of power on a much more serious level. The men also order the music to create a romantic mood which they hope will influence Benedick. Before the song there is an unsubtle repetition of "wooing" and its associated forms: Don Pedro begs Balthazar to start his song and not make him "woo" any longer, to which Balthazar replies,
"Because you talk of wooing, I will sing,
Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
To her he thinks not worthy, yet he woos,
Yet will swear he loves." (2.3.48-51)
By making Balthazar comment on the emptiness of many promises made in courtship, Shakespeare shows us that he has seen through Don Pedro's attempt to create a romantic atmosphere. This aligns him with Benedick, who by his literal description of music has also undermined Don Pedro's intention, and with a truth-telling fool such as Feste or the fool in King Lear. The actual song is similarly flippant: men are not to be trusted. The irony of this is clear to the audience - the men on stage are about to gull their friend - but not to the men themselves. Don Pedro commends the song, Balthazar is dismissed and the gulling begins.
The other song is in act 5 scene 3 and is a dirge for Hero's supposed death. The dramatic irony surrounding the song casts its pathos in a wry light: the audience knows that Hero is not really dead and that the mourning rituals of the black clothes, the tapers, the scroll and the song are part of the plot to trick the men into believing that she is and so into repentance for their slanders. We are meant to assume that Claudio has followed Leonato's instructions and written both the poem and the song which precedes it himself:
"... if your love
Can labour aught in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
And sing it to her bones, sing it tonight." (5.1.274-77)
The song is therefore a penance for Claudio, almost like a Hail Mary after confession. He has already been absolved by Leonato and will ultimately be rewarded; the question is, as ever, whether he deserves this reward. It is not clear whether he sings the song himself or whether it is sung by a chorus or by Balthazar: Claudio asks the "music" to "sing its solemn hymn", though whether he accompanies it or not is ambiguous.
The song is addressed to the goddess of the night. This probably refers to Diana, who, being a moon goddess, is associated with the night and of course with chastity, which would explain her appearance here. Claudio invokes Diana to reinforce Hero's innocence. Hero, in the next line, is Diana's "virgin knight": Shakespeare suggests in this image that virginity is a form of self-protection: a virgin knight would be armed against all assaults on her chastity. By remaining chaste girls in the Renaissance fulfilled a social expectation and so made themselves immune from criticism or slander; furthermore, they protected themselves from the potential risk and pain of sexual involvement outside marriage. Shakespeare, of course, explodes this in Much Ado About Nothing - Hero's chastity is no protection against slander - but he makes Claudio sing an epitaph whose imagery is rooted in the same values that caused Hero's disgrace.