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Part II Ro

Much ado about nothing is a the pleasantest of Shakespeare's plays It ritten about 1599 and is the first of a cluster of three comedies, written in the space of a year or so, that represent Shakespeare's coht

Don Pedro of Aragon

The play opens with Leonato, the governor of Messina, speaking with a Messenger who has just brought him a letter Leonato says:

I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon

coht to Messina

- Act I, scene i, lines 1-2

Messina is one of the principal cities of the island of Sicily It is located in the northeastern coular island just at the narrow strait that separates Sicily frodoe I-526)

But as Don Pedro of Aragon doing in Sicily?

Well, through es Sicily had been ruled by the German emperors In 1266, however, it fell into the hands of the French dynasty of Anjou

In 1282 the Sicilians grew tired of this Angevin rule On March 30, just as the church bells were ringing for the sunset prayers called vespers, the Sicilians rose in concert and killed every Frenchman they could find This event, the "Sicilian Vespers," ended Angevin rule on the island

The last Gerevins, had had only one surviving child, a daughter She had on, and the Sicilians considered this Aragonese King to be the natural successor to the crown They Invited him to come to Sicily He did so and by 1285 had established hi a dynasty that was to continue for over five hundred years

The Aragonese King who took over in Sicily was Pedro III (also known as Pedro the Great) Naturally, he was not the Don Pedro of Aragon who figures in Much Ado About Nothing, a play which is completely and entirely unhistorical Undoubtedly, however, it was his name that floated into Shakespeare's mind when he needed one for the prince

a young Florentine

It is quickly established that there has been a battle which Don Pedro has won and which has been practically bloodless Leonato says:

/ find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed

Florentine called Claudio

- Act I, scene i, lines 9-11

Florence was the leading city of Renaissance Italy, the ue of ancient Athens Shakespeare never set the scene of one of his plays in that city, but he knew its reputation and worth Si the audience that the allant

of Padua

Leonato has a daughter, Hero, beautiful and shy, and a niece na to es to say:

I pray you, is Signior Mountanto

returned from the wars or no?

- Act I, scene i, lines 29-30

Mountanto is the na thrust and the ireat swashbuckler, presumably a phony, whose valor is all talk

The Messenger doesn't knoho:

My cousin nior Benedick of Padua

- Act I, scene i, line 34

Padua is the scene of e I-447) The Messenger assures the company that Benedick is alive and well, and Beatrice breaks out at once in a flood of slander against him Leonato feels it necessary to explain this away and says to the Messenger:

You must not, sir, mistake my niece

There is a kind of merry war betwixt

Signior Benedick and her They never meet

but there's a skirmish of wit between them

- Act I, scene i, lines 58-61

And indeed, it is this "merry war" that is the heart of the play and that will keep it alive and popular forever

my dear Lady Disdain

In co Don Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick There is a gracious and good-humored conversation with Leonato in the course of which Benedick carefully es to fail to see Beatrice

Finally, Beatrice is forced to address him and says:

1 wonder that you will still [always] be talking,

Signior Benedick; nobody marks [listens to] you

- Act I, scene i, lines 112-13

Whereupon in the most lordly way possible, Benedick turns, looks at the lady with a vague surprise, and says:

What, my dear Lady Disdain!

Are you yet living?

- Act I, scene i, lines 114-15

And the battle is joined

the Prince your brother

But not quite all is entlereets him too, and says:

Let me bid you welcome, my lord;

being reconciled to the Prince your brother,

I owe you all duty

- Act I, scene i, lines 149-51

He is speaking to Don John, the Prince's illegitiainst Don Pedro In fact, that hat the battle was about Don John lost, apparently igno side, and the loser has had to reconcile himself with his brother No wonder he looks so sour

Nothing of this is historical, but ShakespearePhilip II of Spain (who died only a year or so before Much Ado About Nothing ritten and who had ruled Sicily) had happened to have an illegitimate brother widely known as Don John of Austria

The historical Don John was, to be sure, nothing at all like the Don John of the play and had never rebelled against his brother In fact, the historical Don John is best known for his victory over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto and then for his death, not long afterward, at the age of thirty-one in 1578

possessed with a fury

Claudio has fallen in love with Hero and as is natural for a lover, he wants his friend, Benedick, to praise her Benedick, a very sensible young man, refuses to be poetic about it He says:

There's her cousin, and she were not possessed with a fury,

exceeds her as much in beauty

as the first of May doth the last of December

- Act I, scene i, lines 184-86

The Furies were creatures of Greek legend ere vengeful spirits that pursued those guilty of great crimes, and were probably personifications of the uilt and reh, that despite Benedick's unkind characterization of Beatrice he is very uess that Beatrice wouldn't take so ue-lash Benedick if she weren't equally struck by him

In short, the two are in love and everyone in the play and in the audience knows it-except for Beatrice and Benedick themselves

called Adam

Don Pedro is on Claudio's side, however, and the two of them then proceed to tease Benedick over his confirmed bachelorhood They assure him he will fall in love and htily that he won't, saying:

// / do, hang me in a bottle like a cat

and shoot at me; and he that hits me,

let him be clapped on the shoulder

and called Adam

- Act I, scene i, lines 248-50

The reference is to a north English ballad, fa three master archers who lived in a forest in the extreh, Williaht be used as a way of signifying a chaets the nod

" Benedick the married man"

Finally, Benedick's protestations reach a clie He says that if he ever gets n on which he is to be caricatured and

let then

"Here you may see Benedick the married man"

- Act I, scene i, lines 257-58

"Benedick" is but a slightly corrupt form of "Benedict," and either is now used with a snify sometimes a bachelor, sometimes a -time bachelor who is newly married

his quiver in Venice

Benedick's companions are not i of love Don Pedro warns hily:

if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice,

thou wilt quake for this shortly

- Act I, scene i, lines 261-62

Venice, as a great trading center (see page I-499), would be croith sailors froer for the use of women after the Spartan life aboard ship, and the city would therefore be considered a center of sexual license

born under Saturn

All is going along marvelously well Don Pedro promises to use his influence to see to it that Claudio and Hero get hted

There is only one exception Don John, the defeated brother, is miserable His companion, Conrade, tries to cheer him up, but fails Don John is even surprised that Conrade should try He says:

/ wonder that thou being

(as thou say'st thou art) born under Saturn,

goest about to apply a moral medicine

- Act I, scene iii, lines 10-12

In astrological thinking, each person is considered as having been born under the influence of a particular planet, which governs his personality in some fashion related to its own properties

Mercury is the fastest ay, volatile, and changeable

Venus, naoddess of love, is related to "venereal," which canor lustful The word has fallen out of use because of its association with diseases such as syphilis

Mars, the ruddy planet naod of war, has an obvious connection with "martial"

Jupiter (Jove) is the second brightest of the planets and is naods It is considered most fortunate to be born under it and to be "jovial" is to be ood-natured, and sociable

Saturn is considered to produce effects opposite to those of Jupiter It is the slowestof the planets and is naod Those born under his influence are therefore "saturnine," that is, grave, gloomy, and slow Don John himself is portrayed as a saturnine individual

The name "Conrade" has a connection with Sicily, by the way The last of the Gerned from 1250 to 1254 His son, Conradin, attempted to retain hold over Sicily but was defeated and beheaded in 1268 by Charles of Anjou, who set up the Angevin dynasty that was to end fourteen years later in the Sicilian Vespers

But another of Don John's companions, Borachio, coed between Claudio and Hero Don John brightens He feels a particular hate for Claudio, as so prominent in the battle that defeated Don John, and if so man's expense, so much the better

apes into hell

Leonato is planning a ht as an a the preparations, Beatrice is her usualshe will have a husband as Benedick had earlier been denying he would have a wife She even looks forward, with soined for old maids She will not marry and

Therefore I will even take sixpence

in earnest of the berrord

and lead his apes into hell

- Act II, scene i, lines 39-41

The "berrord" is the "bearward" or anies and do a job for hie I-454)

Philemon's roof

Don Pedro intends to take the occasion of the masked ball to smooth Claudio's path to Hero He will dance with Hero, pretending to be Claudio Drawing her to one side, and speaking ht be able to, he in her love for his friend

When Don Pedro dances with Hero, she naturally tries to find out who is under the mask, and he says:

My visor is Philemon's roof;

within the house is Jove

- Act II, scene i, lines 95-96

This refers to a tale told in Ovid's Metae I-8)

Jupiter (Jove) and Mercury once traveled through Asia Minor in disguise to test the hospitality of its inhabitants They were treated discourteously everywhere until they cae of an old, poor couple, Philemon and Baucis Their welcorant the couple whatever their wish ether, without warning, at the same moment, so that neither should know one ranted

Don Pedro, in referring to himself as Jove, may be tempted at the moment to speak for himself rather than for Claudio Indeed, Don John, for sheer et the news to Claudio that Don Pedro had indeed spoken for hih, in the end, he did not)

the "Hundred Merry Tales"

Benedick dances with Beatrice at the ball and, under the cover of anonymity, tells her of certain anony her She repeats the infor:

That I was disdainful,

and that I had ood wit