Scene Profile – At a Glance
- Location: A street in Messina, at night, outside Leonato’s house, in drizzling rain.
- What Happens: Dogberry instructs the night watch in their duties, which are mainly to avoid trouble. After he leaves, the watch overhear Borachio tell Conrade how he earned a thousand ducats from Don John by courting Margaret at Hero’s window while the prince and Claudio watched. They arrest both men.
- Key Characters: Dogberry, Verges, the Watch, Borachio, Conrade.
- Dramatic Function: The plot is caught on the night it is carried out. The scene introduces Dogberry and the watch, keeps the window offstage by having it narrated, and puts the truth in the hands of the one group in Messina nobody will listen to.
- Famous Quote:
"Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will."
(Borachio, Act 3, Scene 3) - Why It Matters: It is the scene that makes the comedy safe. The audience learns here that the villains are in custody before the wedding, and watches the rest of the play knowing what the gentry do not.
Scene Summary
Dogberry asks the watch whether they are good men and true, and Verges says that if they are not it would be a pity but they should suffer salvation. Dogberry asks who is the most desertless man to be constable, and the watch nominate Hugh Otecake or George Seacole, because they can write and read. Dogberry appoints Seacole, telling him that good looks are the gift of fortune but reading and writing come by nature, that he is the most senseless and fit man for the job, and that he should bear the lantern. Then the charge. The watch are to comprehend all vagrom men and bid any man stand in the prince’s name; if he will not stand, let him go and thank God they are rid of a knave. They are to make no noise, because talking is most tolerable and not to be endured, and a watchman says they would rather sleep, which Dogberry calls ancient and quiet. They are to send drunks to bed, or let them alone if they will not go. If they meet a thief they may suspect him, but the less they meddle the better for their honesty; the most peaceable way is to let him show what he is and steal out of their company. Verges adds that a crying child should be reported to its nurse, and Dogberry that if the nurse is asleep they should depart in peace. Finally, the constable is to present the prince’s own person, and may stay the prince himself in the night, if the prince is willing. Dogberry bids them good night, tells them to call him up if any matter of weight chances, and comes back to add that they should watch about Leonato’s door, since the wedding is tomorrow and there is a great coil tonight. The watch decide to sit on the church bench till two and then go to bed.
Borachio and Conrade come in, and the watch, hearing them, keep still. Borachio, drunk, draws Conrade under a penthouse out of the rain to tell him everything, and the watch hear treason and stay close. He has earned a thousand ducats from Don John. Conrade wonders that any villainy should be so dear, and Borachio corrects him: ask rather how any villainy can be so rich, since when rich villains need poor ones, the poor ones may make what price they will. Then he digresses, at length, on fashion as a deformed thief that turns all the hot bloods between fourteen and thirty-five into whatever the pictures show, Pharaoh’s soldiers in the painting, Bel’s priests in the church window, the shaven Hercules in the tapestry with a codpiece as massive as his club. A watchman, aside, knows that Deformed; he has been a thief these seven years and goes up and down like a gentleman. Conrade asks whether Borachio has not gone giddy with the fashion himself, since he has drifted from his tale, and Borachio comes back to it. Tonight he wooed Margaret, Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero, at her mistress’s chamber window; and the prince, Claudio and Don John, planted in the orchard by Don John, watched the amiable encounter from afar. The prince and Claudio took her for Hero; Don John knew she was Margaret; and between his oaths, the dark night and Borachio’s villainy, Claudio went away enraged, swearing to meet Hero at the temple next morning and shame her before the whole congregation. The watch step out and charge them in the prince’s name to stand. They have recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery ever known in the commonwealth, and one Deformed is in it, since he wears a lock. Conrade tries to speak and is told never to; the watch charge them to let the watch obey them to go with them. Borachio reflects that they will prove a goodly commodity, taken up on these men’s bills, and Conrade agrees to obey.
The Most Senseless and Fit Man
The scene introduces Dogberry with a charge to the watch that instructs them, item by item, to do nothing. Every rule has the same shape: here is your duty, and here is how to avoid it.
Original
DOGBERRY: If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue
of your office, to be no true man; and, for such
kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them,
why the more is for your honesty.
WATCHMAN: If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay
hands on him?
DOGBERRY: Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they
that touch pitch will be defiled: the most peaceable
way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him
show himself what he is and steal out of your company.
(Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
DOGBERRY: If you meet a thief, you might suspect him – by virtue
of being a watchman – to be a dishonest man; and with that
type of man, the less you interfere with them,
the more honest you are.
WATCHMAN: But if we know that he’s a thief, shouldn’t we
arrest him?
DOGBERRY: In truth, it is your job to do so; but I believe that those
who touch black tar will become unclean: the most peaceful
way for you, if you do catch a thief, is to let him
show his true colours by stealing away from you.
Comprehend all vagrom men, but let them go if they will not stand; make no noise, and sleep rather than talk; send drunks to bed, or leave them; suspect thieves, but let them steal out of your company, since those that touch pitch will be defiled. The charge is a constable’s philosophy of peace, and the comedy is that it is delivered in the voice of authority, with the prince’s name invoked at every step. Dogberry’s words go wrong in the usual way, salvation for damnation, desertless for deserving, senseless for sensible, tolerable for intolerable, and the modern text lets him correct each one; but the deeper joke is that the instructions are coherent. A watch that does nothing offends nobody, and Dogberry, who would not hang a dog by his will, has thought it through. The theme of wit and communication in this play belongs to people who say less than they mean; Dogberry says more than he means and the meaning survives anyway. The last instruction is the only one that matters: watch about Leonato’s door, because of the wedding. He gives it as an afterthought, and it is the reason the play ends well.
A Thousand Ducats
Dogberry has gone, the watch have settled on the church bench, and the plot walks into the scene drunk. Borachio’s account to Conrade is the only version of the window the audience will ever have.
Original
Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.
(Borachio, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
So you must know that Don John has paid me a thousand gold coins.
Shakespeare keeps the window offstage. The prince and Claudio’s night in the orchard is never shown; it is reported here, by the man who staged it, to a friend who did not see it, within earshot of men who were told to sleep. The decision shapes the whole play. The audience does not see what Claudio saw and so cannot judge the evidence; what it hears is the price and the method, and it hears them from a servant explaining the economics of villainy. Borachio’s answer to Conrade is the play’s one statement of class from below: rich villains need poor ones, and the poor ones name their price. The theme of status and class runs through the speech as plain fact. Don John supplies the oaths and the rank; Borachio supplies the maid and the window; and the thousand ducats is the rate of exchange between them. The watch, hearing treason, stand close, and the scene’s long digression on fashion keeps them, and the audience, waiting for the story to arrive.
What a Deformed Thief This Fashion Is
Before he tells the story, Borachio delivers a drunk man’s lecture on clothes, and the watch, listening, make an arrest out of it that will outlast the play.
Original
Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? How giddily a' turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? Sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reeky painting, sometime like god Bel's priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?
(Borachio, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Anyway, can’t you see that style is like a deformed thief? How style makes the hot-blooded youngsters between fourteen and thirty-five years old go all giddy? Sometimes they dress up like Pharaoh’s soldiers in that filthy painting; sometimes they dress like god Baal’s priests in the paintings in the old church windows; sometimes like shaven Hercules in that tarnished, worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece looks as massive as his club?
Fashion is a thief that turns young men into whatever the pictures show: Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reeky painting, Bel’s priests in the church window, the shaven Hercules in the tapestry with the oversized codpiece. It is a digression and it is also the play’s thesis in a drunk’s mouth. The fashion of a doublet is nothing to a man, Borachio says, and the fool’s the fool whatever he wears; the audience has just watched a maid in her mistress’s gown be taken for her mistress by two men who read the clothes. The watchman’s aside, that he knows that Deformed, who has been a thief these seven years and goes up and down like a gentleman, is the scene’s funniest misreading and its most useful one, since Deformed will be on the charge sheet in Act 5 wearing a key in his ear. The theme of deception and noting is handled here as a joke about seeming: the watch hear a word and make a man of it, which is what the prince and Claudio did at the window. Conrade’s complaint that Borachio has shifted out of his tale brings the tale back.
By the Name of Hero
The story, when it comes, is three sentences long and tells the audience everything the church scene will depend on.
Original
Not so, neither: but know that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero: she leans me out at her mistress' chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good night, – I tell this tale vilely: – I should first tell thee how the prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.
(Borachio, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
That’s not true, either. But you must know that tonight I wooed Margaret, Lady Hero’s lady-in-waiting, all the while calling her ‘Hero’. She leant out of her mistress’s bedroom window, and wished me good night a thousand times. But I’m telling you this tale badly. I should first tell you how the prince, Claudio, and my master, – the former two manipulated and convinced by master Don John – saw this romantic encounter from across the orchard.
Margaret, at Hero’s window, called Hero, bidding him good night a thousand times; the prince, Claudio and Don John, planted by Don John, watching from the orchard. Borachio tells it vilely, as he says, with the end before the beginning, and the disorder is a drunk man’s and a dramatist’s: the audience gets the facts in the order it needs them, who was at the window and who was watching. His analysis of why it worked is exact. Two of them took her for Hero, the devil his master knew better, and the deception held by his oaths, by the dark night, and chiefly by Borachio’s villainy, which confirmed any slander Don John had made. Claudio went away enraged, swearing to shame her before the congregation. The theme of honour and shame is set in motion by a sentence, and the sentence is overheard. The watch charge them to stand, mistake lechery for treachery and recover for discover, and arrest the villains on the night of the crime, which is the single most competent act anyone performs in the play. Borachio’s last line is a joke about being taken up on the watchmen’s bills, and he does not know yet how good a commodity he will prove.
Language and Technique
- Malapropism: Salvation for damnation, desertless for deserving, senseless for sensible, tolerable for intolerable, vigitant for vigilant, recovered for discovered, lechery for treachery: the scene has Dogberry’s wrong words and the watch’s, and the modern text corrects each in the speaker’s own mouth.
- The inverted charge: Every instruction in Dogberry’s charge is a duty followed by its escape: bid him stand, but let him go; take a thief, but let him steal away. The structure is the joke, and it is consistent.
- Narrated action: The window is never staged; Borachio reports it, drunk, out of order. Shakespeare keeps the audience from seeing what Claudio saw, so that the evidence cannot be judged and the credulity can.
- The aside: The watch comment on Borachio’s story as it is told, Peace, stir not, Some treason, I know that Deformed. The asides let the audience hear the truth being received by the one group that will act on it, and misheard in the same breath.
- Fashion as thief: Borachio’s conceit of fashion as a deformed thief, with its painting, church window and tapestry, is the play’s longest image and a drunk’s; it says that clothes make seeming, and the watch turn it into a wanted man.
Key Quotes from Act 3, Scene 3
Quote 1
You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it; and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the...
(Dogberry, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
… you have. I knew that would be your answer. Well, for your good looks, sir, give thanks to God, and don’t show off about them; and as for your reading and writing, reveal those skills when you don’t need to use your good looks. You are widely considered here to be the most senseless – I mean ‘sensible’ – and suitable man for constable...
Quote Analysis: Dogberry appointing Seacole: give God thanks for your good looks and make no boast of them, and let your reading and writing appear when there is no need of such vanity. The modern verse keeps the senseless. It is Dogberry’s theory of office, that the best officer is the one who displays nothing, and it explains the charge that follows.
We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch.
(Watchman, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
We would rather sleep than talk: we know what a watchman’s job is.
Quote Analysis: A watchman’s reply to the rule against talking: they would rather sleep, and they know what belongs to a watch. The modern verse keeps the plainness. Dogberry calls it ancient and quiet, and the audience is told what to expect of the men who will, within fifty lines, make the arrest that saves Hero.
Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o'er night and send her home again without a husband.
(Borachio, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but my evil master knew she was Margaret; and partly through his sworn oaths, which initially convinced them; and partly by the dark night, which deceived them; but primarily through my deception, which confirmed the slanderous behaviour Don John had told them of; Claudio left furious, swearing he would meet her as planned the next morning at the temple, and there, in front of the whole congregation, would shame her by sharing what he saw tonight and send her back home without a husband.
Quote Analysis: Borachio’s analysis of why the trick worked: the prince and Claudio took Margaret for Hero, Don John knew better, and the deception held by oaths, darkness and villainy. The modern verse keeps all three causes. The sentence ends with Claudio’s vow to shame her at the temple, which is the plan the audience will see carried out in Act 4, Scene 1.
Call up the right master constable. We have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.
(Second Watchman, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Call for the master constable, Dogberry. We have recovered – I mean ‘discovered’ – the most dangerous plot of lechery – I mean ‘treachery’ – that this country has ever known.
Quote Analysis: The second watchman’s announcement of the arrest, with two wrong words in it: recovered for discovered, lechery for treachery. The modern text gives both corrections. The watch have got the crime right and the name wrong, which is their condition for the rest of the play, and the right master constable will be no better at saying it.
Key Takeaways
- A charge to do nothing: Dogberry’s instructions to the watch are rules for avoiding duty, and the only one that matters, to watch Leonato’s door, is an afterthought.
- The window stays offstage: The audience never sees what Claudio saw; it hears Borachio tell it, drunk, to a friend, and so judges the men rather than the evidence.
- Rich villains and poor ones: Borachio’s thousand ducats and his account of who pays whom is the play’s one statement of the economics of the plot.
- Arrested on the night: The watch catch the villains before the wedding; from here the audience knows what the gentry do not, and the comedy is safe.
Study Questions and Analysis
Why does Shakespeare keep the window scene offstage?
Because showing it would make the audience judge the evidence, and the play wants the audience to judge the men. If the window were staged, the house would see Margaret in Hero’s clothes and could decide for itself how convincing she was; instead the house hears Borachio’s account, drunk and out of order, and knows only that two men watched from a distance, at night, having been told what they would see. What the play puts on stage is not the deception but its mechanism, oaths, darkness and villainy, and the credulity that made it work. Claudio’s belief is the subject, not Margaret’s performance.
CONRADE: And thought they Margaret was Hero?
BORACHIO: Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the
devil my master knew she was Margaret...
(Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
CONRADE: And did they think Margaret was Hero?
BORACHIO: Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but my
evil master knew she was Margaret...
The choice has divided readers. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1818) argued that the interest in Shakespeare’s plots is always on account of the characters and not the reverse, and the unseen window is the test case: the plot’s central event is withheld so that the characters’ responses to it can be the play. Bertrand Evans (1960) saw the play’s method as discrepant awareness, and this scene is where the audience’s advantage is established, since from here the house knows the villains are in custody and the men of rank do not. Gail Kern Paster, in the Folger edition, notes that the actions to make and to break the play’s nuptials employ the same theatrical means, and the window is the breaking action, staged for an audience of three and reported to an audience of thousands. The theme of deception and noting is more powerful unseen, and the play knows it.
What is the point of Dogberry’s charge to the watch?
To establish, before the arrest, what sort of men are about to make it. The charge is a series of instructions for avoiding every duty a watch has: let the man who will not stand go, sleep rather than talk, let drunks alone, let thieves steal out of your company, let the nurse sleep. Dogberry’s reasoning is that a watch which does nothing offends nobody, and he is proud of being called a merciful man. The audience laughs at the inverted charge and is then shown the same watch, fifty lines later, listening carefully, keeping still and arresting two villains in the prince’s name, which is more than anyone of rank manages in the play.
Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of a knave.
(Dogberry, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Well, then, take no notice of him, but just let him go; and immediately call the rest of the watchmen together and count your blessings you got rid of a villain.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1818) remarked that a drunken constable is not uncommon nor hard to draw, and asked his readers to examine what goes to make up a Dogberry; the charge is the examination, a whole philosophy of office in which authority is a matter of lanterns, titles and the prince’s name, and action is to be avoided. August Wilhelm Schlegel (1808) spoke of the blundering simplicity of a couple of constables and watchmen, and William Hazlitt (1817) saw in Dogberry and Verges a formal gravity of pretension and total want of common understanding that he thought had since risen to the highest offices in the state. The joke has a sharp edge. The men who are told to take no note of anything are the only noters in the play who get it right, and the theme of wit and communication includes the paradox that nonsense can hold the truth.
Why does Borachio talk about fashion in the middle of his story?
Partly because he is drunk, as Conrade points out when he asks whether Borachio has not gone giddy with the fashion himself. But the digression is the story in another form. Fashion, Borachio says, is a deformed thief that turns young men into whatever the pictures show, Pharaoh’s soldiers, Bel’s priests, the shaven Hercules in the tapestry; the fashion of a doublet is nothing to a man, and a fool is a fool whatever he wears. He has just dressed a maid as her mistress and watched two gentlemen take the dress for the woman. The lecture on clothes is a confession that seeming is a costume, delivered by the man who sewed it.
The watch, meanwhile, hear the word Deformed and make a thief of it, one who has been at it seven years and goes up and down like a gentleman, and the misreading is the scene’s best joke because it repeats the plot: a word taken for a man, as a gown was taken for a woman. Jean E. Howard (1987) read the play as a contest over who may control what is seen, and Borachio’s speech is the view from the costume department. Carol Cook (1986) argued that the men of Messina depend on being able to read women by their seeming, and the deformed thief is Borachio’s name for the thing they read. The theme of deception and noting is explained by its practitioner, and nobody on stage understands him except the audience.
What does Borachio mean by “when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will”?
That the man who does the dirty work can charge what he likes, because the man who wants it done cannot do it himself. Conrade is astonished that any villainy should be so dear, a thousand ducats; Borachio tells him to ask instead how any villainy can be so rich, since Don John, a prince’s brother, needed a servant with access to Hero’s gentlewoman and a face that would pass at a window, and paid for both. It is the play’s one plain statement of the economics of the plot: rank supplies the oaths and the audience, service supplies the method, and the price is set by the poor man.
Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?
(Conrade, Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
How can it be that any crime should cost so much?
The line is also the play’s one view of the gentry from below, and the view is that they are customers. Harry Berger Jr. (1982) wrote of the Men’s Club of Messina and the premises of power and cost-avoidance on which it runs; Borachio is the man the club hires when it wants something it will not do itself. Gail Kern Paster notes how the play constructs Don John as the symmetrical destroyer of the prince’s matches, and Borachio’s sentence is the mechanism of the destruction, with the ducats counted. The theme of status and class is at its most literal here: a thousand ducats, a drizzling night, and a servant explaining to another servant how the rich get their villainy done.
How does the watch’s arrest change the way we watch the rest of the play?
Completely. From the end of this scene the audience knows that Borachio and Conrade are in custody and that the whole plot, Don John’s payment, the window, Margaret, Claudio’s vow to shame Hero at the temple, is known to the one body in Messina with the duty to report it. Everything that follows, Dogberry’s failure to tell Leonato, the church, Leonato’s grief, the challenges, is watched with the knowledge that the truth exists and is on its way. The tragedy is real for the characters and provisional for the house, which is the play’s method and the reason it can go as dark as it does in Act 4 and still be a comedy.
FIRST WATCHMAN: We charge you, in the prince's name, stand!
SECOND WATCHMAN: Call up the right master constable. We have here
recovered the most dangerous piece of
lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.
(Act 3, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
FIRST WATCHMAN: We charge you, in the prince’s name, to stop right there!
SECOND WATCHMAN: Call for the master constable, Dogberry. We have
recovered – I mean ‘discovered’ – the most dangerous plot of
lechery – I mean ‘treachery’ – that this country has ever known.
Bertrand Evans (1960) called the effect discrepant awareness and counted the audience holding an advantage over the characters for most of the play’s scenes; this arrest is what gives the house its advantage for the rest of it. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1880) observed that without this particular constable the action and catastrophe of the whole play could never have taken place at all, and the sentence covers both halves: the watch Dogberry charged are the ones who catch the villains, and the constable who charged them is the one who cannot report the catch in time. The theme of deception and noting is undone here, in the rain, by men told to sleep; the next four scenes are the play finding out.
Why are the watch’s instructions and the arrest both in prose?
Because the whole scene is below the rank at which this play speaks verse. Dogberry, Verges, the watch, Borachio and Conrade are all commoners or servants, and the play gives them prose throughout; the one moment anyone invokes the prince, in the prince’s name, stand, is a formula rather than a rise in register. The prose is also the medium of error. Dogberry’s malapropisms, the watch’s recovered for discovered and lechery for treachery, Borachio’s drunken digression on fashion: all of it depends on words going slightly wrong in a way that verse, with its fixed line, would not allow.
The modern text makes a particular choice with the wrong words: where the original simply has Dogberry say salvation or senseless or tolerable, the translation has him say the wrong word and then correct it in the same breath, so that a modern reader hears both the slip and the intention. George Bernard Shaw (1898) thought this play’s value lay in the music of its words rather than their sense, and the watch scene is the counter-example: there is no music in it, only sense arriving by the wrong route. The theme of wit and communication has its highest and lowest forms in this play, Beatrice’s and Dogberry’s, and the scene is where the lowest does the most work.
