Act 4, Scene 1 Summary

All the characters have assembled for Hero’s wedding. When Friar Francis asks Hero whether she has any reason to object to the wedding, she answers no. Then he asks Claudio the same question, which is when he launches into his tirade and calls out Hero as unchaste—a “rotten orange”—and asks Leonato to take her back. He accuses her of not being a virgin and says, “She knows the heat of a luxurious bed.” He declares he doesn’t want to marry such an “approved wanton.” The happy wedding is now transformed into a chaotic nightmare. Leonato and the shaken Hero ask what Claudio means. Claudio tells Leonato, in front of everyone in the church, that the night before Claudio, Don Pedro, and Don John had watched Hero talking to another man who has confessed to them about having a sexual relationship with Hero. Claudio harshly demands Hero to confess with whom she was sleeping. Hero vehemently tries to explain her innocence, but now Don Pedro supports Claudio’s claim and denounces Hero as “common stale.” Leonato cries in anguish and asks for a dagger so that he can kill himself. Hero faints, and Beatrice and Benedick rush to help her. Claudio, Don Pedro, and Don John leave the church without even pausing for Hero to regain her consciousness. Leonato cries that Hero should die rather than live with this taint on her honor. Beatrice, however, is absolutely convinced that her cousin has been a victim of slander.

Leonato meanwhile wishes that his daughter is dead, to which Benedick asks him to calm himself. Father Francis now steps in. He says that he has been closely observing the whole incident, and judging from Hero’s expression of shock and pain, it is clear that she hasn’t been faithless. Hero asserts that she is a virgin and has no clue about what she is being accused of. The intelligent Benedick realizes that if the accusation is a lie, the source of all this evil must be Don John, who would gladly want to ruin their happiness. Leonato declares that if his daughter has indeed been tricked, he would avenge her honor. Friar Francis now comes up with a plan and tells them to hide Hero and pretend she is dead. When her accusers will hear that an innocent woman has died, their anger will change to regret, and they will start to remember what a virtuous lady Hero was. If the accusation really is a trick, then perhaps the treachery will expose itself, and Hero can regain her honor. Everyone agrees to the plan, and Benedick promises to keep this plan a secret from his comrades.

Once they depart, Beatrice and Benedick are left alone who finally declare their love for each other. But when Benedick says that he will do anything for Beatrice, she asks him to kill Claudio. Benedick refuses to kill his friend. Angry and inconsolable, Beatrice denounces Claudio’s cruelty toward Hero, his “public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancor” and says that if she would have been a man, she would have avenged her cousin’s honor. Benedick changes his mind and agrees to challenge Claudio as Beatrice truly believes he is to blame for Hero’s dishonor. He leaves to tell his friends that she is dead.

Act 4, Scene 1 Analysis

This scene transforms the play from a comedy to a tragedy. A woman’s honor is being questioned in this scene, which is the highest accusation for a woman from the Renaissance time. Claudio’s tirade is aimed to inflict the harshest pain. He doesn’t spare any words to describe the whore Hero is. Although Hero tries to defend herself (though again in a lady-like manner and not in the way that Beatrice does, which is to rage and avenge), Claudio doesn’t even allow her the benefit of the doubt and accuses her of blushing due to guilt, and not modesty. As Margaret is not present at the wedding, she cannot tell the accusers that it was she who was in the balcony, and not her mistress.

Imageries of death mark this scene throughout, emphasizing the enormity of the tragedy. As Hero is publicly shamed, her reputation is now irrevocably ruined, which in itself is a kind of death. Hero faints, again, as if dead. Claudio speaks of her in the past tense, as if she is already dead, asking, “What a Hero hadst thou been?” and bids her a permanent farewell. Leonato speaks of Hero’s body as though a carcass, describing her as rotting, “foul-tainted flesh.”

The scene also acts as an exposition of the traits and beliefs of every character in the play. Claudio, who was shown as quick to believe and quick to rage, now finally has this scene to prove that indeed he pauses little to think about what is being said and what even he says. His vehemence shows his fear of female infidelity and how he has little understanding of the woman he is about to marry. Don John is shown to be superficial in his understanding too—he never suspects the half-brother whom he has recently battled and doesn’t go beyond the surface in believing what he is told, and, hence, shows himself to be as open to being manipulated as he himself is the manipulator. Leonato, just like the other men, is quick to believe the accusations, just as he is quick to have the wedding done at the beginning of the scene. Beatrice, however, remains fiercely protective about her cousin, and not for a moment she stops believing in her cousin. She is fierce and angry, wishing to avenge the honor like a man, thus coming out as the strongest character in the play who has her own mind. Benedick is shown to be torn in between his friends and his love for Beatrice and honorably decides to do the thing that he feels is right. Friar Francis, an insignificant character otherwise, steps up and provides a rational solution to this misunderstanding where Hero’s own father fails to solve the problem. Hero will have to die to be symbolically reborn.

This scene also marks a critical turning point for the relationship of the other set of lovers when Benedick and Beatrice affirm their love for each other. When Benedick chooses to believe Beatrice, he shows himself to be the more mature lover—to love is also to trust, to have faith, and to act, all of which Claudio fails remarkably at.

Act 4, Scene 2 Summary

The interrogation of Borachio and Conrad begins in the presence of Dogberry, Verges, the sexton, and the Watch. Dogberry questions the two men, but his confusing language and weak examination yield no confession. The sexton intervenes to ask some relevant questions of the night watchmen, and the truth about Borachio’s wickedness is finally revealed. Borachio does not deny his crime. The sexton declares that Hero has died from the public humiliation that she has suffered and that Don John has fled. Now that the men’s role in Hero’s dishonor is made clear, the sexton instructs that Borachio and Conrad be bound and brought to Leonato’s house to face punishment. Conrad calls Dogberry “an ass,” who is extremely offended.

Act 4, Scene 2 Analysis

This scene reveals to the characters of the play who the actual culprit of the great treachery is. The previous scene was tragic with a wedding thwarted and the honor of a lady questioned, where the play had taken a dark turn. However, the course is swiftly changed in the next scene where justice is seen to be taking place with the actual apprehenders exposed.

Dogberry’s continuous malapropisms add to the humor of an otherwise grim confession sin. When he says that Borachio will be “condemned into everlasting redemption,” we can imagine the audience laughing as redemption is exactly the opposite of what the men deserve here.

Until this scene, Borachio was the more active plotter, the worst of the evil-doers with his maleficent plan and his execution of it. However, upon hearing Don John has left and Hero has died, he appears more subdued and doesn’t join Conrad in his insult of Dogberry.