Scene Profile – At a Glance
- Location: Hero’s apartment, before dawn on her wedding morning.
- What Happens: Hero dresses for her wedding with Margaret and Ursula. Margaret jokes about the weight of a husband, Hero’s heart is heavy, and Beatrice arrives sick with a cold she will not admit is love. Margaret teases her with Carduus Benedictus, and the gallants come to fetch the bride.
- Key Characters: Hero, Margaret, Ursula, Beatrice.
- Dramatic Function: The women’s scene before the church, and the play’s only scene with no men on stage. It shows Beatrice converted and denying it, lets Margaret shine without knowing what she did last night, and sends Hero to the altar with a heavy heart the audience understands better than she does.
- Famous Quote:
"'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man."
(Margaret, Act 3, Scene 4) - Why It Matters: Everything in the scene is innocent and everything is shadowed: the maid who wore Hero’s clothes at the window talks about her gown, and the bride whose heart is heavy is about to be shamed in it.
Scene Summary
Hero sends Ursula to wake Beatrice and bring her. Margaret thinks the other ruff would be better; Hero will wear this one, and calls her cousin and Margaret fools for disagreeing. Margaret praises the headdress and the gown, and compares it to the Duchess of Milan’s, which she saw and which everyone praises: cloth of gold, cuts laced with silver, pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, skirts with bluish tinsel, but a night-gown beside Hero’s. Hero prays for joy to wear it, since her heart is exceeding heavy, and Margaret replies that it will soon be heavier by the weight of a man. Hero is shocked; Margaret defends herself at length, since marriage is honourable even in a beggar and a husband is a respectable word, and the heavier for a husband is no harm if it is the right husband and the right wife.
Beatrice comes in, speaking, as Hero says, in the sick tune. Margaret proposes a song, Light o’ love, which she will dance to, and Beatrice turns it into a joke about heels and barns. Beatrice notes that it is nearly five o’clock and sighs that she is exceeding ill; Margaret asks whether the sigh is for a hawk, a horse or a husband, and Beatrice says for the letter that begins them all. Margaret observes that if Beatrice has not turned Turk there is no more sailing by the star. Hero shows the gloves the count sent her, which smell excellently; Beatrice is stuffed and cannot smell, and Margaret makes a bawdy joke of that too. Beatrice asks how long Margaret has professed wit, and Margaret says ever since Beatrice left it. Margaret prescribes distilled Carduus Benedictus for Beatrice’s heart, Hero notes that she has pricked her with a thistle, and Beatrice demands to know what moral is in the Benedictus. Margaret denies any moral at all, in a speech that says Beatrice is not in love and will not be and cannot be, that Benedick was another such and now eats his meat without grudging, and that Beatrice looks with her eyes as other women do. Ursula returns: the prince, the count, Benedick, Don John and all the gallants are come to fetch Hero to church. Hero asks them all to help her dress.
For My Heart Is Exceeding Heavy
The scene is a bride dressing, and the play makes it ordinary on purpose: a ruff, a headdress, a gown compared to the Duchess of Milan’s. Under the chatter is a line the audience hears differently from everyone on stage.
Original
God give me joy to wear it! For my heart is exceeding heavy.
(Hero, Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
May God make me happy when wearing it! For my heart is very heavy.
Hero’s heart is heavy and she does not know why; the audience, who heard the watch arrest Borachio in the previous scene, knows what is waiting for her at the church. Margaret’s answer, that the heart will be heavier soon by the weight of a man, is a wedding-morning joke of the usual kind, and her defence of it, that marriage is honourable even in a beggar and a husband is a respectable word, is a small essay on how bawdy talk is innocent between the right husband and the right wife. The irony is double. Margaret is the woman who stood at Hero’s window last night in Hero’s clothes, and the bawdy that is harmless in a bedroom is about to be fatal in a church; the theme of courtship and marriage is handled here in its lightest register, and the lightness is the point, since this is the last scene in which anyone will joke about Hero’s marriage. Her gown is worth ten of the duchess’s, and she will be told in it that she is a rotten orange.
For the Letter That Begins Them All, H
Beatrice arrives converted and will not say so, and the scene becomes a contest between a woman hiding her love and a gentlewoman who has guessed it.
Original
BEATRICE: 'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; tis time you were
ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill: heigh-ho!
MARGARET: For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?
BEATRICE: For the letter that begins them all, H.
(Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
BEATRICE: It’s almost five o’clock, cousin; it’s time you were
ready. I must say, I don’t feel well at all. Hey-ho!
MARGARET: Are you sighing for a hawk, a horse, or a husband?
BEATRICE: For the ‘H’, the first letter of each word.
The sigh is a cold, she says, and Margaret offers three things to sigh for, a hawk, a horse or a husband, and Beatrice chooses the letter they share. H was pronounced ache, so the answer is a pun and an admission: she is sighing for an ache, and the ache is a husband. Margaret presses with turned Turk, which means changed faith, and Beatrice, who has turned, pretends not to understand. Then the thistle. Carduus Benedictus is holy thistle, a remedy for the heart, and Margaret’s prescription is the scene’s best joke because Hero and Beatrice both hear Benedick in it at once. The theme of wit and communication is passed, for a scene, to Margaret, and she uses it exactly as Beatrice used it at the ball, to say a true thing in a form that can be denied. Her long disclaimer, that she has no moral meaning and does not think Beatrice is in love or will be or can be, is the gulling of Act 3, Scene 1 repeated as teasing: Benedick was such another, and now eats his meat without grudging, and Beatrice looks with her eyes as other women do. Beatrice’s only reply is to ask what pace Margaret’s tongue keeps, which is a complaint she has never had cause to make before.
Language and Technique
- Bawdy: Heavier by the weight of a man, light o’ love with your heels, stables and barns, a maid and stuffed: the scene’s jokes are sexual and all of them are Margaret’s or Beatrice’s, which is how the play lets its women talk when no men are present.
- The pun on H: A hawk, a horse or a husband, and Beatrice sighs for the letter that begins them all: H was pronounced ache, so the answer confesses an ache and names its cause in the same breath.
- Carduus Benedictus: Holy thistle, a herbal remedy for the heart, with Benedick’s name inside it. Margaret prescribes it and Hero says she has pricked her with a thistle; the joke works because everyone on stage hears the name and nobody says it.
- Negation as admission: Margaret’s I do not think you are in love, or will be, or can be, is a denial so elaborate that it affirms; the device is the one Beatrice herself will use in the church, I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing.
- The inventory of a gown: Cloth of gold, cuts, silver lace, pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, skirts, bluish tinsel: Margaret’s description of the Duchess of Milan’s gown is the play’s one passage of pure fashion, and it comes from the woman who wore Hero’s clothes at the window.
Key Quotes from Act 3, Scene 4
Quote 1
Of what, lady? Of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think you would have me say, 'saving your reverence, a husband:' and bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll offend nobody: is there any harm in 'the heavier for a husband'? None, I think, and it be the right husband and the right wife; otherwise 'tis light, and not...
(Margaret, Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Of what, my lady? Of speaking honourably? Isn’t marriage honourable, even in a beggar? Isn’t your fiancé honourable even without being married? I think you’d prefer me to say, ‘I’m sorry, I meant a husband.’ And if offensive interpretation doesn’t twist my true meaning, I won’t offend anyone. Is it offensive to say, ‘heavier with a husband’? No, I don’t think so, if it is between the legitimate husband and wife; but if not, it’d be light and wrong, and not...
Quote Analysis: Margaret’s defence of her joke: marriage is honourable in a beggar, a husband is an honourable word, and there is no harm in the heavier for a husband if it is the right husband and the right wife. The modern verse keeps the argument. It is a gentlewoman’s theory of honour, and it is sounder than the one the men will apply in the church an hour later.
Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.
(Margaret, Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Get some distilled blessed thistle, the Carduus Benedictus, then lay it on your heart: it is the only thing to treat sickness.
Quote Analysis: Margaret’s prescription: holy thistle, laid to the heart, for a qualm. The modern verse keeps the Latin. The name carries Benedick, and the remedy is for the heart, and the scene lets both Hero and Beatrice hear the joke before Beatrice demands to know what moral is in it.
Madam, withdraw: the prince, the count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town, are come to fetch you to church.
(Ursula, Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Madam, time to leave: the prince, the count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the nobility of the town have arrived to escort you to church.
Quote Analysis: Ursula’s summons, listing the men who have come for the bride: the prince, the count, Benedick, Don John and all the gallants of the town. The modern verse keeps the list. Don John is named among the escort, and the audience hears the name as the women cannot; the men coming to fetch Hero to church are the men who will shame her there.
Key Takeaways
- The women’s scene: The play’s only all-female scene is spent on a gown, a cold and a thistle; the talk is bawdy and kind, and no man hears it.
- A heavy heart, explained twice: Hero’s heart is heavy without reason; Margaret makes it a wedding joke, and the audience, who saw the arrest, hears the dread underneath.
- Beatrice converted and denying it: The sigh for the letter H and the demand to know what moral is in Benedictus are the sounds of a woman in love and refusing to say so.
- Margaret’s innocence: The maid who wore Hero’s clothes at the window chatters about Hero’s gown and knows nothing; the scene lets her be witty before the play lets her be blamed.
Study Questions and Analysis
What is the purpose of this scene before the wedding?
To slow the play down and let the audience feel what is about to be lost. The previous scene ended with the watch arresting Borachio; the next is Dogberry failing to tell Leonato; and the one after that is the church. Between the arrest and the catastrophe Shakespeare puts the bride in her bedroom with her women, talking about ruffs and the Duchess of Milan’s gown, and the ordinariness is the device. Hero says her heart is heavy and does not know why; Margaret makes a joke of it; the audience knows exactly why, and the knowledge turns a dressing scene into something closer to a vigil.
These gloves the count sent me; they are an excellent perfume.
(Hero, Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
These gloves the count sent me… they have a lovely smell.
The scene is also the play’s one all-female scene, and the register changes with the company. Carol Cook (1986) read the play as a masculine struggle to keep control of how women are represented, and this is the one scene in which that control is absent: the women talk bawdily, mock each other and say what they like, and nothing they say is noted by anyone who can use it. Gail Kern Paster, in the Folger edition, remarks how little the play asks of Margaret, who is allowed to be courted as Hero in Hero’s clothes and never required to explain; here she is allowed to be witty instead. The theme of gender and patriarchy is present by its absence. The gloves the count sent, with their excellent perfume, are the last gift Hero will have from him before he hands her back.
How do we know Beatrice is in love, and why won’t she admit it?
From the symptoms, which the scene lets Margaret diagnose. Beatrice arrives speaking in the sick tune, as Hero says, and claims a cold; she sighs, and when Margaret asks whether the sigh is for a hawk, a horse or a husband she says for the letter that begins them all, which is H, pronounced ache. She cannot smell the gloves because she is stuffed, and she asks how long Margaret has professed apprehension, meaning wit, as if the wit had been taken from her. Then the thistle: Carduus Benedictus, laid to the heart, and Beatrice hears the name and demands to know what moral is in it. Everything she says is a denial and every denial confesses.
Benedictus! Why Benedictus? You have some moral in this Benedictus.
(Beatrice, Act 3, Scene 4)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Benedictus! Why Benedictus? You are implying something with this Benedictus.
She will not admit it because admitting it would end the war, and the war is how she has lived. August Wilhelm Schlegel (1808) observed that the lovers of jesting must fix a point beyond which they do not indulge their humour or be mistaken for buffoons by trade, and Beatrice has not yet found the point; in the church, three scenes on, she will. Anna Jameson (1832) saw in her high intellect and high animal spirits meeting like fire and air, and here the fire is damped by a cold. William Hazlitt (1817) found something delightfully picturesque in the way Beatrice is described as coming to hear the plot contrived against her, and this scene is the picturesque aftermath: the gulled woman, two scenes later, pretending to have a cold. The theme of love and romance in this play is love caught rather than declared, and Margaret catches her.
What does Margaret’s role in this scene tell us about her part in the plot?
That she does not know what she did. Margaret stood at Hero’s window the night before in Hero’s clothes, courted by Borachio, while the prince and Claudio watched from the orchard; the audience has had it from Borachio’s own mouth. Here she is a gentlewoman fussing over her mistress’s collar, praising her gown, joking about the weight of a husband and teasing Beatrice about Benedick, and nothing she says suggests a woman who knows she has done harm. The play never shows her at the window and never has her explain; in the last scene Leonato says she was in some fault but against her will, and Borachio swears she knew nothing of what she did when she spoke to him.
The scene is where that innocence is established, by letting her be funny. Her defence of the husband joke, that there is no harm in it between the right husband and the right wife, is a better account of honour than the one Claudio will give in the church, and it comes from the woman whose body was used to destroy Hero’s. Harry Berger Jr. (1982) observed that in Messina women are responsible for their sins but men are not, and Margaret is the test case: she is the only woman in the play actually involved in the slander, and the play treats her reprimand as the least of its concerns. The theme of deception and noting needed a maid in a gown, and the scene shows the maid, in another gown, talking about fashion.
Why is the scene in prose, and what does the bawdy talk do?
Because it is women talking in a bedroom, and the play reserves verse for ceremony and for men in public. The prose is quick, familiar and sexual, and the sexual jokes are the scene’s way of being honest about what a wedding is: a husband’s weight, heels and barns, a maid stuffed with cold. Margaret’s long defence of the first joke is an argument that plain speaking about marriage is not indecent if the thinking is clean, and the argument is sound. The men’s scenes have been full of cuckold jokes; the women’s scene is full of bedding jokes, and the difference is that the women’s are kind.
The bawdy also sets up the church. Claudio will accuse Hero of knowing the heat of a luxurious bed, and the audience will have just heard the only sexual talk in Hero’s apartment, which is a gentlewoman’s joke about the right husband. George Bernard Shaw (1898) thought the charm of the play lay in the music of its words rather than their wit, and this scene is an exception: its wit is Margaret’s and it is sharp, and the prose has no music at all, only speed. The theme of wit and communication is handed for twenty lines to a servant, and Beatrice, the play’s great wit, is reduced to asking what pace Margaret’s tongue keeps.
