Much Ado Act 4: my favorite love scene

4.1

much like my mother, Leonato wants the priest to have the marriage ceremony go as FAST AS POSSIBLE and tells him to use the simplest form (unfortunately for my mother, Dan and I had an hour+ long full Catholic Mass.) OH, speaking of mass, there's a Protestant joke in this scene that always made our dear friend Jonathan comment to us about its protestant nature:

FRIAR FRANCIS

You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady.

CLAUDIO

No.

LEONATO

To be married to her: friar, you come to marry her.

Jonathan always loved to point out that in the Catholir rite, the husband and wife are the ones who literally do the marrying of each other. Its a really beautiful part of the sacrament/marriage ceremony that they have the power of marrying and the priest just officiates. (I wanted Jonathan to elaborate on the history behind this but he didnt get back to me in time. maybe i'll update here when/if he does. In a Catholic ceremony, When you put the rings on the other persons finger, they say the Amen, you marry each other through this, as opposed to the priest saying Amen...)

Anywhoo...let's get to claudio being a jerk- WHO WAITS to do this kind of crap until they are in front of God and everyone at their own wedding? that is some BAD ju-ju. 

CLAUDIO

O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily
do, not knowing what they do!

holy antistrophe Cladio! We get it. you're calling her a whore. you feel like all you have power to do now is slut shame. I can't wait to see how sorry you are going to be...  its ok soon I'm going to dislike Leonato more than you.

Meanwhile poor Benedick who so clearly does not want to acknowledge this is not going well, awkwardly interjects:

BENEDICK

How now! interjections? Why, then, some be of
laughing, as, ah, ha, he!

Gosh, we do stupid things to break tension sometimes, huh?

This leads to more direct words- Claudio makes it clear that he thinks Hero is not a virgin, or to put it his way a rotten orange. 

Leonato wonders if Cladio was the one to take her virginity, which he waves away with common engagement/marriage practices that come under more scrutiny in Shakespeare's later problem plays, so we'll talk about it then... Claudio shoots this down. As things get more tense benedick sounds more and more stupid:

LEONATO

Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

DON JOHN

Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

BENEDICK

This looks not like a nuptial.

Thank you captain obvious.

Things continue to escalate, Don John even speaks up- I always forget when reading that Don John is there. seriously HOW does he get away with this without ANYONE suspecting him even though he's proven untrustworthy several times without punishment again?! His words are particularly smarmy:

Fie, fie! they are not to be named, my lord,
Not to be spoke of;
There is not chastity enough in language
Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

And then when Hero swoons Don John suggest they all just leave and not see what happens- and the stupid guys LISTEN TO HIM. WHAT?!

Luckily, Friar Francis has a plan (good name, love it even more now, and of course he is awesome.)

anywhoo... Friar Francis tells Leonato to calm the hell down after his monologue all about how he wishes he had no daughter and nothing can wash away her shame and he wishes she was dead etc etcetc. Friar Francis suggests to Leonato to maybe believe his daughter instead of the jerkface boys.

 Call me a fool;
Trust not my reading nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenor of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.

even after this beautiful speech Leonato needs more convincing. Finally benedick says something intelligent in this scene:

The practise of it lives in John the bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.

So after Leonato, who never appologizes for what a jerk he's been, is at least convinced that he made a mistake and stops saying horrible things to his daughter, the friar reveals his plan. Let's still pretend Hero is dead so these guys can feel horrible and her modesty of dying in such a way will prove her innocence (huh? um... ok...) in Cladio's mind. Its a strange plan, but no less strange than some of the schemes coming up in the romance plays... and it gives us this beautiful line:

Come, lady, die to live: this wedding-day
Perhaps is but prolong'd: have patience and endure.

And then we get to my favorite scene in the play- the kill Claudio scene. and we start with Benedick going back to his awkward/stupid line tendency:

Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

YES, benedick- WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!

Tangent- when i was in undergrad, I was in a "period styles" class that was really just a shakespeare class as we didnt cover any other periods or styles... and the teacher coached/directed this scene as beatrice pulling a fast one on benedick/using her feminine wiles to get vengeance. and I hated it. everything inside me rebelled against it and i remember being glad to not play beatrice if this was the idea behind it, because i'd built her up in my head as this very genuine, flawed but funny and straightforward lady. I seemed to be the only one who had a huge problem with this interpretation though so i seethed quietly until I got to grad school and felt vindicated not only by a slew of classmates but also by Professor Cohen who on several occasions raved about how genuine and heartbreaking Dam Judy Dench was when she played Beatrice. so... all that to say to any of you directors/actors/teachers out there: dont trivialize my favorite characters. PLEASE.

that being said the way I read this scene, its touching how hard Beatrice tries NOT to ask benedick to take revenge for her, she knows they are friends, she knows its a cruel thing to ask but she's stuck. because she's a woman and can't do it herself.

then there's this:

BENEDICK

I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?

BEATRICE

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

BENEDICK

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

There's something beautiful and solemn yet funny and mature yet giddy all at once about this scene which is why i love it and maybe why I think Dana and I fit into the benedick/beatrice mold so well (and let's not even get in to how much easier it was for Benedick to say he loved Beatrice than for her to say it back... oh Shakespeare and all your mirror up to nature business...) i think tying in with that, how many of Shakespeare's love scenes do you get in prose? 

Benedick keeps after Beatrice until she finally admits:

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

and then the scene turns:

BENEDICK

Come, bid me do any thing for thee.

BEATRICE

Kill Claudio.

BENEDICK

Ha! not for the wide world.

BEATRICE

You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

and just like that... these two people who are so clearly perfect for each other could fall apart. What sacrifices are you willing to make for the person you love? A sobering question...  and benedick just makes the situation worse when he says:

BENEDICK

We'll be friends first.

BEATRICE

You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

now there's no stopping beatrice:

what, bear her in hand until they
come to take hands; and then, with public
accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,
--O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart
in the market-place.

That O that I were a man is one of my favorite lines ever, I can't tell you how many times i have cried or screamed that line. what's lovely about seeing this scene on the page/screen is the way you can tell beatrice won't let benedick have a word in edgewise. she railroads him at every line and unlike her cousin SHE WILL NOT BE SILENCED. and then there's this, which I have often added to my O god, that i were a man prayers:

I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

and Benedick can't hold out after this and agrees to challenge Claudio and leaves Beatrice with another assurance of his love for her.

And that scene makes this love story my favorite.

4.2

back to Doberry & Co.- and in this scene we see how TRULY obsessed with reading and writing Doberry is. he wants to be sure EVERYTHING is correctly written down/recorded. what's written is what's important gets emphasized over and over again. And for as crazy or foolish as dogberry seems... he's got a point. After a rather convoluted examination, we get the gist of what the "villains" did and the Sexton who is recording all this brings everyone up to speed:

Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away; Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and upon the grief of this suddenly died. Master constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato's: I will go before and show him their examination.

Hooray. The day will surely be saved now.

and now that we don't have to worry so much about hero we can get to laughing at dogberry more:

CONRADE

Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.

DOGBERRY

Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not
suspect my years? O that he were here to write me
down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an
ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
that I am an ass. 

Ass jokes... apparently they are humor gold.

Act 5 to come.