Platonic Friendship and Sexual Love
In Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare draws a contrast between platonic and sexual love in order to show the complexities involved in both. Sexual and platonic love fight for supremacy in the play; we are constantly having to ask whether the characters are more loyal to their own or to the opposite sex.
As in all his plays, Shakespeare arranges his characters in groups. In Much Ado About Nothing there are four: the family of Leonato, Antonio, Hero and Beatrice with Margaret and Ursula associated with it; the young men returning from victory on the battlefield, Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick; the villain Don John and his comrades Borachio and Conrade and the inept constable Dogberry with his side-kick Verges. The Friar occupies the isolated position given to most of the clergymen in Shakespeare. Within these networks Shakespeare sets the crucial relationships of the play: Hero and Beatrice, Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick, and Benedick and Beatrice.
We are told that Hero and Beatrice are close friends, but there is little evidence of this in their behaviour to each other until Act 4 Scene 1. Before this point it is up to a director to decide how much affection to show between them. Hero barely speaks until Act 3 Scene 1 when she and Ursula are tricking Beatrice into believing that Benedick is in love with her. Alone with one other woman, Hero seems to find a voice; and what she says is occasionally surprising. Hero is meant to be goading her cousin, who can hear every word she and Ursula say, but there are moments in which she seems to be overdoing it. Hero enters with spirit into her critique of Beatrice's character and insults her more than is necessary for the plot to succeed:
"Nature never framed a woman's heart
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprizing what they look on, and her wit
Values itself so highly that to her
All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared." (3.1.49- 56)
There is a grain of truth in this: Beatrice can be scornful and disdainful, as she was in her encounter with Benedick in Act 1 Scene 1. Hero is showing a sharp perceptiveness, which before now we have equated with her cousin. However, she is basing her comments on external appearance: Beatrice also has moments of private vulnerability, as in 1.1.136-37 when she says of Benedick, "You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old". Hero is making the same mistake as Claudio in judging by appearances. Because a trick is being played we are not meant to take Hero's words as seriously as we otherwise should, but nevertheless she is criticising Beatrice sharply, commenting only on her social, external persona. Shakespeare is asking us how important social personae are, and, again, pointing out that they are a part of who we really are.
There is a hint of enjoyment in, "And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with" (3.1.84- 85): Hero perhaps finds something satisfying in criticising Beatrice. It is possible that Hero envies Beatrice's independence and resents the way in which she always has the limelight. There is also a hint of this in Act 3 Scene 4 when Hero is being dressed for her wedding. She is petulant, rejecting Margaret's suggestion that she wear another dress with, "My cousin's a fool, and thou art another. I'll wear none but this" (3.4.10-11). Hero is clearly nervous about her wedding; she says that her heart is "exceedingly heavy" (22-23), to which Margaret replies aptly, "Twill be heavier soon, by the weight of a man" (24-25). When Beatrice enters, however, the spotlight shifts onto her. She greets Hero in a melancholy voice; this is implied by Hero's response, "Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?" (37). Beatrice claims to be "exceeding ill" (47), but the implication is that she is love-sick. Margaret teases Beatrice for the rest of the scene, and Hero is almost forgotten. The scene ends with Ursula returning to hurry the girls along, and we are reminded that this is Hero's day. The dynamic operating is one in which Hero defers to Beatrice, as she does throughout the entire play. Only when Hero is disgraced does she have the spotlight. The relationship between the cousins is therefore more complex than it might first appear; Shakespeare suggests that there is tension between them, but does not expand on the hints which he gives of it.
Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick form a trio; their relationship is defined by the comradeship and loyalty that comes from having just fought on the same side in a war. This also implies a hierarchy: Don Pedro is a Prince and the others owe him respect and deference. He has just promoted Claudio ("Don Pedro has bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio" 1.1.9-11), which indebts Claudio to him. In Act 1 Scene 1 Claudio asks Don Pedro's advice about Hero and seeks his approval of her. This suggests that had Don Pedro not approved of their marriage, it would not have gone ahead. Benedick is a nuisance in this scene: he teases Claudio and prevents any serious conversation. He dominates the discourse, diverting it from Claudio to himself. At line 216 Don Pedro gives in to this, saying "Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty". Claudio follows suit with "And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will", echoing Don Pedro's mocking tone. Benedick is being treated almost like a child who is trying to distract the adults and finally manages to get their attention. Eventually Don Pedro dismisses Benedick by telling him to convey a message to Leonato. Shakespeare arranges this scene to show us that Benedick is distanced from the other men: he claims he will not marry and refuses to take Claudio's intentions seriously. This shows his superior powers of perception; Benedick asks Claudio, "Would you buy her [Hero], that you inquire after her?" (168). Claudio's interest in Hero's wealth (273) makes this remark very pertinent.
Benedick's distance from Don Pedro and Claudio becomes more important as the play goes on. He is loyal to them both: in Act 2 Scene 1 he defends Don Pedro from the charge of having wooed Hero for himself, asking Claudio, "Did you think the Prince would have served you thus?", and later he challenges Don Pedro, saying that he has "stolen" Claudio's "bird's nest". However, in Act 4 scene 1, Benedick's allegiances change entirely. Now in love with Beatrice, Benedick moves to side with her in her defence of Hero. He does not join in with Don Pedro and Claudio's denunciation of Hero, and remains on stage with the family after the young men have exited to ask "How doth the Lady?" (111). He tries to calm Leonato ("Sir, Sir, be patient" 142) and attempts to unravel the confusion by asking Beatrice, "Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?" (146). Benedick then identifies Don John as the villain:
"Friar: There is some strange misprision in the Princes.
Benedick: Two of them have the very bent of honour,
And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
The practice of it lies in John the Bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies." (183-87)
This causes Leonato to speak rationally for the first time since Hero was disgraced:
"If they speak but truth of her,
These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
The proudest of them shall well hear of it." (188-90)
Benedick then advises Leonato to agree with the Friar's proposal that Hero should be concealed as if she were dead, adding that,
"And though you know my inwardness and love
Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
Yet, by mine honour, I shall deal in this
As secretly and justly as your soul
Should with your body." (243-47)
However, after he confesses his love to Beatrice in one of the most moving scenes Shakespeare ever wrote, he is forced to commit wholly to the side of the family. Benedick asks Beatrice exuberantly, "Come, bid me do anything for thee". She seizes the chance simultaneously to avenge Hero and make Benedick prove his love by asking him to kill Claudio. Eventually he promises to do it, and in promising he crosses a line between platonic and sexual love. Benedick's greatest loyalty and obedience are now owed to Beatrice. Even at the end of the play when all is supposedly resolved, Benedick remains hostile to Claudio:
"For my part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised and love my cousin." (5.4.107-109)
Benedick's relationship with Don Pedro has also changed by the end of the play. In Act 2 Scene 1 Don Pedro proposes to Beatrice, who refuses him. There are several reasons why Shakespeare may have included this incident. Don Pedro is perhaps seeking status by marrying the niece of the Governor of
Messina; he may be trying to find out whether she loves Benedick (significantly, his plan to make them fall in love is hatched just after he asks Beatrice to marry him); he may be in love with her. If this last is true, then Benedick and Don Pedro are rivals in love. Benedick suggests this in his last remark to Don Pedro:
"Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife. There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn." (5.4.120-22)
Benedick has the last words of the play. He suggests dancing, over-riding Leonato's protest ("we'll have dancing afterward"), and after the messenger brings the news of Don John's capture, he tells Don Pedro not to "think on" him until the next day. He then commands the pipers to "strike up" (5.4.115-26). Benedick is assuming control; his new status as Beatrice's husband and hence Leonato's nephew allows him to do this. He has succeeded on two counts where Don Pedro has failed. Claudio is now Leonato's son-in- law, which leaves Don Pedro excluded from the family circle. This is a typical Shakespearian device: someone is always excluded from the circle of happy revellers. In As You Like It it is Jacques; in Twelfth Night, Malvolio; in The Winter's Tale, Paulina. This indicates the generic complexity of Shakespeare's work (see below).