Hero runs the trick in verse, Beatrice hears herself called proud and self-endeared, and ten rhymed lines tame a wild heart.

Benedick has shaved and gone quiet, his friends diagnose love, and Don John offers the same two men a sight that will undo a wedding.

A constable tells his men to do nothing, a drunk servant explains the plot under a penthouse, and the villains are caught on the night of the crime.

A gown, a cold and a thistle called Benedictus: the women dress the bride, and the audience knows what is waiting at the church.

The constable has the news that would stop the wedding and cannot say it; the father has a daughter to give away and will not wait.

A bride handed back as a rotten orange, a father who wishes her dead, a friar who watched her blush, and two words that turn a comedy: Kill Claudio.

A constable who cannot examine, a sexton who can, and the truth about Hero taken down in a prison while the gentry mourn a lie.

Two old men challenge a prince, Benedick challenges his friend, and a constable who cannot count brings in the man who can tell the truth.

Benedick cannot rhyme, Beatrice will not be kissed, the challenge stands, and a servant runs in with the news that ends the plot.

Thirty lines of penance: Claudio hangs an epitaph on the tomb of a woman who is alive, a hymn is sung to Diana, and dawn sends everyone to a wedding.

A veiled bride, two stolen sonnets, a cuckold joke and a dance: the comedy ends before anyone can ask whether Claudio deserves it.