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).

Of course, all of these complicated motivations in the friends’ plans to dupe Beatrice and Benedick into falling in love with one another relate to the same essential cause: their friends are trying to make Beatrice and Benedick realize that each, in his or her private heart, does have the potential to love the other profoundly. The tricks could hardly work otherwise—Beatrice and Benedick both seem too mature and intelligent to be deluded into thinking that they are in love. Their friends are simply trying to make them realize that they already love each other.

Beatrice’s speech at the end of the scene is much shorter than Benedick’s in the preceding one, but the gist of it is the same. Profoundly affected by what she has heard, she decides to allow herself to change her views about marriage in order to accept Benedick. She has learned how others perceive her—”Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?”—and has decided to change these perceptions: “Contempt, farewell; and maiden pride, adieu. / No glory lives behind the back of such” (III.i.109–111). Now, she decides she will accept Benedick if he courts her, “[t]aming my wild heart to thy loving hand” (III.i.113).

In the next scene, however, the atmosphere grows dark. Don Pedro and Claudio’s merry teasing of the subdued Benedick amuses, but Don John’s shocking accusation against Hero suddenly changes the mood from one of rejoicing to one of foreboding. We also see Don Pedro and Claudio’s disturbingly quick acceptance of Don John’s word about Hero’s unfaithfulness—Don John has promised to show them “proof,” but it still seems strange that they so quickly believe evil about Claudio’s bride-to-be. Claudio earlier reveals his suspicious nature to the audience when he believes Don John’s lie in Act II, scene i that Don Pedro has betrayed him. His susceptibility to suspicion now returns to haunt him, this time with the support and encouragement of Don Pedro.