Home → Plays → Much Ado About Nothing → Plot Summary
Much Ado About Nothing: Plot Summary
Plot Profile – At a Glance
- The Setting: Messina, in Sicily, at the house of its governor, in the weeks after a war. The prince of Aragon and his officers arrive as guests and stay a month; everything happens in Leonato’s house, garden, orchard and church, and on the street outside.
- The Protagonist: Two couples share the play. Claudio and Hero carry the main plot, a conventional romance that is nearly destroyed; Beatrice and Benedick carry the one everybody remembers, a pair of sworn enemies of marriage who have to be tricked into admitting they love each other.
- The Antagonist: Don John, the prince’s bastard brother, newly pardoned after a rebellion and determined to spoil whatever makes his brother and Claudio happy. He hires the plot; his follower Borachio invents it.
- The Inciting Incident: Claudio falls in love with Hero on sight, and Don Pedro offers to woo her for him at the masked ball. The engagement is made within a day. Don John, who has failed to break it, is told of a way to break the wedding instead.
- The Core Conflict: What people see against what is true. The prince stages scenes to make Beatrice and Benedick fall in love; Don John stages a scene at Hero’s window to make Claudio believe she is unfaithful; both tricks work because of who is believed, not what is shown.
- The Climax: Act 4, Scene 1, the wedding in the church. Claudio rejects Hero at the altar, her father wishes her dead, she faints, the friar proposes that she be given out as dead, and Beatrice, alone with Benedick, answers his declaration of love with two words: "Kill Claudio".
- The Outcome: The watch, who overheard the plot on the night it was carried out, finally make themselves understood; Borachio confesses; Claudio does penance at Hero’s tomb and agrees to marry her supposed cousin, who unveils as Hero. Beatrice and Benedick are caught out by their own love poems and marry too, and the play ends with a dance.
- Genre: Comedy – printed among the comedies in the First Folio of 1623, and first published on its own in a quarto of 1600. Probably written in 1598 or 1599. Around seven-tenths of it is in prose, more than any other Shakespeare comedy.
A prince and his officers come home from a war to stay with the governor of Messina. The youngest of them, Claudio, falls in love with the governor’s daughter Hero, and the prince woos her for him at a masked ball; the wedding is fixed for a week’s time. To pass the week, the prince arranges for the governor’s sharp-tongued niece Beatrice and his own sharp-tongued officer Benedick, who have been insulting each other since the play began, to overhear that each is secretly in love with the other. Both believe it, and both fall. Meanwhile the prince’s bastard brother, who hates them all, arranges for Claudio to watch Hero’s window at night and see a woman who is not Hero being courted by a man. Claudio rejects Hero at the altar and her father wishes her dead. A friar advises them to pretend she is; Beatrice asks Benedick to kill Claudio, and he challenges his friend. The plot is undone by a comically incompetent constable and his night watch, who overheard the villain’s man boasting and arrested him. The villain flees, the slandered bride is revealed alive at a second wedding, the enemies of marriage are caught with their own love poems, and everybody dances.
Act 1: The Soldiers Come Home
A messenger brings Leonato, governor of Messina, news that Don Pedro, prince of Aragon, is arriving from a war in which the young Florentine Claudio has done great things. Beatrice, Leonato’s niece, wants to know whether Benedick of Padua is back too, and makes it plain she thinks little of him; the messenger is told that there is "kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her". The prince arrives with Claudio, Benedick and his sullen bastard brother Don John, newly reconciled to him after a rebellion. Beatrice and Benedick fall to insulting each other at once – "What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living" – and Benedick swears he will never marry: "I will live a bachelor". Left with the prince, Claudio confesses that he loves Hero, Leonato’s daughter, and Don Pedro offers to woo her on his behalf at that night’s masked ball and then hand her over: "I will assume thy part in some disguise". The plan is overheard twice. Leonato’s brother Antonio has it garbled from a servant, and tells Leonato that the prince means to woo Hero for himself; Don John’s follower Borachio has it right, from behind a tapestry, and brings it to his master, who would rather be "a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace" and sees a chance to spoil something.
Act 2: The Ball and the Orchard
At the ball, Beatrice tells Leonato why she will never marry – she could not endure a husband with a beard, and "Adam’s sons are my brethren" – and the masked Benedick has to listen to her describe him, to his face, as "the prince’s jester: a very dull fool". Don John, pretending to mistake Claudio for Benedick, tells him that the prince is wooing Hero for himself. Claudio believes it instantly and gives her up; Don Pedro then produces Hero, betrothed to Claudio as promised, and the wedding is fixed for a week on Monday. Beatrice, asked whether she would have the prince himself, turns him down with a joke. To fill the week, Don Pedro announces one of "Hercules' labours": with Leonato, Claudio and Hero to help, he will make Beatrice and Benedick fall in love with each other, so that "we are the only love-gods". Don John, meanwhile, is offered a better plot by Borachio: let the prince and Claudio be brought to Hero’s window at night, where Borachio will court her maid Margaret in Hero’s clothes. In Leonato’s orchard, Benedick hides in the arbour to hear Balthasar sing "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more", and then hears the prince, Claudio and Leonato discuss, loudly and in detail, how Beatrice is dying of love for him and dare not say so. Alone, he decides that "This can be no trick", that the world must be peopled, and that he will be horribly in love with her. Beatrice comes to call him to dinner, and he finds a double meaning in it.
Act 3: The Window
Hero and her gentlewoman Ursula do the same to Beatrice in the garden, praising Benedick and agreeing that Beatrice is far too proud and scornful ever to be told he loves her. Beatrice, hidden in the bower, hears herself described and comes out converted, in ten lines of rhyme: "Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand". Benedick, meanwhile, has shaved, perfumed himself and gone quiet, and his friends diagnose love. Don John takes Don Pedro and Claudio aside, tells them Hero is disloyal, and offers to show them "her chamber-window entered" that night. On the street, the constable Dogberry instructs his night watch in their duties, which are mainly to let thieves go and sleep if they can, and the watch then overhear Borachio telling Conrade how he has just earned a thousand ducats: the prince and Claudio watched him court Margaret at the window, believed she was Hero, and have sworn to shame her in the church. The watch arrest them both. Next morning Hero dresses for her wedding, and Dogberry comes to Leonato with news of the arrest but cannot get it out – "Comparisons are odorous" – and Leonato, with a daughter to give away, tells him to examine the prisoners himself and goes to church.
Act 4: The Church
The wedding. Claudio, asked whether he comes to marry this lady, hands Hero back to her father: "Give not this rotten orange to your friend". Don Pedro confirms that he saw her at the window with a man, and Don John calls her a common stale. Hero denies it and faints, and Leonato believes the accusers rather than his daughter – "Death is the fairest cover for her shame" – and wishes her dead. The friar, who has watched her face, does not; he proposes that the family give out that Hero died of the slander, so that Claudio will mourn her and the truth has time to surface: "Come, lady, die to live". Everyone leaves but Beatrice and Benedick, who, in the wreckage of the wedding, admit for the first time that they love each other. Benedick asks what he can do for her. "Kill Claudio", she says, and when he refuses she rages that she cannot be a man with wishing and will die a woman with grieving; he goes to challenge his friend. In the prison, Dogberry examines Borachio and Conrade with the sexton’s help, the confession is taken down, and Conrade calls the constable an ass, which Dogberry wishes above all things had been written down: "O that I had been writ down an ass".
Act 5: The Tomb and the Dance
Leonato and Antonio stop Don Pedro and Claudio in the street and challenge them, two old men against two young ones – "Thou hast killed my child" – and are laughed off. Benedick arrives, will not laugh, calls Claudio a villain and challenges him to a duel. Then the watch bring in Borachio, who confesses everything: what the wisdom of the prince could not discover, "these shallow fools have brought to light". Claudio and the prince, who believed Hero dead, are stricken; Leonato sets Claudio’s penance, to hang an epitaph on her tomb and marry Antonio’s daughter in her place, sight unseen. Dogberry is paid for his pains and departs. In the garden, Beatrice and Benedick court in their own way, agreeing that they are too wise to woo peaceably. At the tomb by night Claudio reads the epitaph, "Done to death by slanderous tongues", and a hymn is sung. At the second wedding the masked bride unveils as Hero: "One Hero died defiled, but I do live". Beatrice and Benedick, each denying any love for the other, are confronted with the sonnets they have written and give in; Benedick stops her mouth with a kiss and declares that "man is a giddy thing". News comes that Don John has been taken in flight. Benedick tells the prince to think about him tomorrow, and to get himself a wife. "Strike up, pipers".
Key Takeaways
- Two plots, one trick: The prince’s gulling of Beatrice and Benedick and Don John’s slander of Hero use the same device, a staged scene for a hidden watcher, and the play runs them side by side.
- The main plot is the darker one: Claudio and Hero’s romance is the play’s official story, and it collapses in the church; the subplot, the sparring couple, is where the audience’s heart goes.
- The fools find the truth: The watch arrest the villains on the night of the crime, and it takes two acts for anyone of rank to listen to them.
- Nobody dies: Hero’s death is a stratagem, the duels are never fought, and the villain is caught offstage; the play’s one real wound is the one Claudio gives in the church.
- It ends with a dance, not an answer: Claudio is forgiven without explaining himself, Hero marries the man who shamed her, and the play asks for pipers rather than a verdict.
Much Ado About Nothing Plot Summary – Frequently Asked Questions
How does Much Ado About Nothing end?
With two weddings and a dance. In Act 5, Scene 1, Borachio, arrested by the watch on the night of the window trick, confesses in front of the prince and Claudio that the woman they saw was Margaret in Hero’s clothes. Both men believe Hero dead of the slander. Leonato sets Claudio’s penance: he must hang an epitaph on Hero’s tomb, sing a hymn there that night, and marry Leonato’s niece, a supposed daughter of Antonio, in the morning without seeing her face. Claudio accepts.
In Act 5, Scene 4, the masked bride unveils as Hero, and Claudio has his first wife back. Beatrice and Benedick, each still denying any love for the other, are confronted with the love poems they have written and give up; Benedick kisses her to stop her talking. A messenger reports that Don John has been captured in flight, Benedick tells the prince to think about punishing him tomorrow, and the play ends with a dance before the weddings, called for by the bridegroom.
What happens in the church scene?
Act 4, Scene 1 is the play’s climax. Claudio, asked by the friar whether he comes to marry Hero, says no and hands her back to her father as a rotten orange, the sign and semblance of her honour. The prince confirms that he, Claudio and Don John watched her at her window the night before, talking with a man. Hero denies it, is asked who she spoke to, says nobody, and faints; Leonato, believing the three men over his daughter, wishes her dead and says that death is the fairest cover for her shame.
Two things save her. The friar, who has been watching her face, declares that she is innocent and proposes that the family give out that she died of the slander, so that Claudio’s accusation turns to remorse and the truth has time to come out; Benedick, who has stayed with the family rather than leaving with the prince, agrees. Then, alone, Benedick and Beatrice admit that they love each other, and Beatrice asks him to kill Claudio. He refuses, she rages that she cannot be a man with wishing, and he agrees to challenge his friend. The scene begins as a wedding and ends with a death faked and a duel promised.
Who is Don John, and why does he do it?
Don John is the prince’s illegitimate brother. Before the play begins he has rebelled against Don Pedro, lost, and been pardoned; he arrives in Messina as a guest on sufferance, and he tells Conrade in Act 1, Scene 3 that he cannot hide what he is, that he would rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his brother’s grace, and that he is a plain-dealing villain. His particular grudge is against Claudio, the young start-up who has all the glory of his overthrow.
He has no plan of his own. His first trick, telling Claudio at the ball that the prince is wooing Hero for himself, is improvised and fails within a scene; the window plot is Borachio’s idea, and Don John’s part is to pay a thousand ducats and bring the prince and Claudio to the orchard. He leaves Messina as soon as the slander is spoken, and is reported captured in the last lines of the play. Shakespeare gives him no explanation beyond his birth and his nature, and the play treats him as a cause rather than a character: the machinery is his, the believing is everyone else’s.
How are Beatrice and Benedick tricked into falling in love?
By being allowed to overhear. In Act 2, Scene 3, the prince, Claudio and Leonato walk in the orchard where Benedick is hiding and discuss, at length, how Beatrice is desperately in love with him and too proud to say so, and how she will surely die of it. Benedick, who knows the men to be honest and the white-bearded Leonato incapable of a jest, decides it can be no trick and resolves to love her. In Act 3, Scene 1, Hero and Ursula do the same to Beatrice in the garden, adding that she is too scornful to be told of Benedick’s love; Beatrice comes out of hiding resolved to requite him.
The trick works because both of them want it to. Neither hears anything they could not have guessed, and the play lets the audience see that the love was there first and the pride on top of it. What the gulling changes is the permission: each believes the other loved first, so each can admit it without losing the war. They continue to deny it to the end, and are convicted in Act 5, Scene 4 by the sonnets they wrote to each other.
Why does Claudio believe that Hero is unfaithful?
Because he sees it, or thinks he does, and because a prince sees it with him. Don John tells Claudio and Don Pedro in Act 3, Scene 2 that Hero is disloyal and offers to show them; that night, from the orchard, they watch Borachio at Hero’s chamber window courting a woman he calls Hero, who is Margaret in her mistress’s clothes. The audience does not see the window scene; it hears about it from Borachio, drunk, in the street. Claudio and the prince never speak to Hero before the wedding.
The play has prepared him for it. Claudio asked whether Hero was Leonato’s heir before he said a word about her beauty; he believed Don John’s first lie at the ball, that the prince was wooing Hero for himself, within a few lines; and he is a young count among princes, quick to think himself used. Shakespeare keeps the window offstage so that the audience judges the men’s credulity rather than the evidence. What Claudio has is a sight, a prince’s word, and a bastard’s, and he decides on the strength of them to shame her in public rather than ask her in private.
What is the role of Dogberry and the watch?
They solve the plot, by accident, and are the last people anyone listens to. Dogberry is the constable of Messina, a man who reaches for one word and grasps its neighbour; his watch, instructed in Act 3, Scene 3 to let thieves steal out of their company and to sleep rather than talk, happen to be standing under a penthouse when Borachio tells Conrade how he earned a thousand ducats at Hero’s window. They arrest the pair on the spot, on the night of the crime, the night before the wedding.
Then nobody will hear them. Dogberry brings the news to Leonato on the wedding morning in Act 3, Scene 5 and cannot say it; Leonato, busy, tells him to examine the prisoners himself. The examination in Act 4, Scene 2 produces a confession, which the sexton takes to Leonato, and Borachio is brought before the prince in Act 5, Scene 1, where he confesses again and says what the play has been showing: what the wise could not discover, the shallow fools have brought to light. Dogberry is paid for his pains and dismissed, and never learns what he has done.
How many acts and scenes does Much Ado About Nothing have?
Five acts and seventeen scenes: three in Act 1, three in Act 2, five in Act 3, two in Act 4 and four in Act 5. Most of the play is in prose, around seven lines in ten, and the verse is saved for the serious moments: Claudio’s wooing at the end of Act 1, Scene 1; Hero’s garden scene in Act 3, Scene 1; the church in Act 4, Scene 1; the old men’s challenge in Act 5, Scene 1; and the tomb and the second wedding.
The structure is two plots in step. The gulling of Benedick (Act 2, Scene 3) and of Beatrice (Act 3, Scene 1) sit either side of the act break; Don John’s slander is planned in Act 2, Scene 2, carried out offstage after Act 3, Scene 2, overheard in Act 3, Scene 3 and sprung in Act 4, Scene 1. The Shakespeare Retold translation follows the play scene by scene, and the links below open each act at its first scene.