Scene Profile – At a Glance
- Location: A prison in Messina, on the wedding day.
- What Happens: Dogberry and Verges examine Borachio and Conrade before the sexton. The watch give their evidence, the sexton reports that Don John has fled and Hero has died, and orders the prisoners taken to Leonato. Conrade calls Dogberry an ass.
- Key Characters: Dogberry, Verges, the Sexton, Borachio, Conrade, the Watch.
- Dramatic Function: The scene that converts the watch’s overheard gossip into a written record. It supplies the evidence that will undo the slander in Act 5, and gives Dogberry his great speech.
- Famous Quote:
"O that I had been writ down an ass!"
(Dogberry, Act 4, Scene 2) - Why It Matters: While Hero lies supposedly dead and the gentry mourn a lie, the truth is being taken down by a sexton in a prison, and the man presiding wants only one thing recorded: that he was called an ass.
Scene Summary
Dogberry opens the examination by asking whether the whole dissembly has appeared, Verges calls for a stool and cushion for the sexton, and when the the Sexton asks which are the malefactors Dogberry answers that he and his partner are. Put right, he has the prisoners brought before him, takes their names, records that Conrade is a gentleman and that both men hope they serve God, with God written first, and tells them it is proved already that they are false knaves. Conrade says they are none; Dogberry takes Borachio aside to tell him privately that it is thought they are false knaves, and Borachio says the same.
The sexton points out that this is not the way to examine anyone: the watch, who are the accusers, must be called. Dogberry agrees that it is the eftest way. The first watchman reports that Borachio said Don John was a villain, which Dogberry calls flat perjury; the second reports that Borachio received a thousand ducats from Don John for accusing Hero wrongfully, which Dogberry calls flat burglary; the first adds that Claudio meant, on that evidence, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and Dogberry condemns the villain into everlasting redemption. The sexton confirms the story with news from outside: Don John has stolen away this morning, Hero was accused exactly as described, refused, and died of grief. He orders the prisoners bound and taken to Leonato, and goes ahead with the examination.
As the watch bind him, Conrade calls Dogberry a coxcomb and then, twice, an ass. Dogberry is outraged that the sexton is not there to write it down, and delivers his inventory: he is a wise fellow, an officer, a householder, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina, a man who knows the law, rich enough, a man who has had losses, with two gowns and everything handsome about him. The prisoners are taken away, and Dogberry wishes that he had been writ down an ass.
Which Be the Malefactors?
The scene opens with the constable identifying himself as the criminal, and the joke sets the terms for the examination: a man who cannot keep the parts of a trial straight is about to conduct one.
Original
SEXTON: Which be the malefactors?
DOGBERRY: Marry, that am I and my partner.
(Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
SEXTON: Which ones are the offenders?
DOGBERRY: Well, that is me and my partner.
Dogberry’s errors have a pattern, and the pattern is self-regard. He answers for the malefactors because he assumes any question about importance must be about him; he writes down that Conrade is a gentleman because rank is the first thing to record; he puts God before the villains because the order of names on a page matters to him more than the evidence; and he examines the prisoners by telling them, in confidence, that they are thought to be false knaves. Every step is procedure mistaken for substance. The sexton, the one literate official in the room, has to tell him twice how an examination works, and the theme of wit and communication is at its broadest here: a man who cannot say what he means, trying to establish the truth by the forms of saying. What saves the scene from mere clowning is that the forms work. The watch are called, the record is kept, and the truth gets into writing.
Flat Burglary as Ever Was Committed
Once the sexton takes over, the evidence arrives in three plain sentences from two watchmen, and each is greeted by a wrong word from the constable.
Original
SECOND WATCHMAN: Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of
Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.
DOGBERRY: Flat burglary as ever was committed.
(Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
SECOND WATCHMAN: Indeed, that he had received a thousand gold coins from
Don John for wrongfully accusing Lady Hero.
DOGBERRY: This is flat burglary – I mean ‘perjury’ – no, ‘bribery’ – as ever was committed.
The watch say exactly what they heard: Don John called a villain, a thousand ducats paid for accusing Hero wrongfully, Claudio meaning to disgrace her before the whole assembly. Dogberry hears perjury where there was none, burglary where there was bribery, and redemption where he means damnation, and each mistake is a small comedy about a man who knows the names of crimes but not what they name. The sexton’s summary is the first time anyone in the play has said the whole truth in order, and it comes from a clerk: Don John has fled, Hero was accused as described, refused, and died. The theme of deception and noting is undone in this room, by a record, before any of the deceived know it has happened. The scene is also, quietly, a lesson in the theme of status and class: the gentry’s word was taken in church without evidence, and here the word of two watchmen is taken down because a sexton insists on hearing it.
Writ Down an Ass
The scene ends with the constable insulted and the sexton gone, and Dogberry, deprived of his clerk, delivers the speech the play has been saving for him.
Original
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. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder, and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and every thing handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!
(Dogberry, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Don’t you suspect – I mean, ‘respect’ – my role? Don’t you suspect – ‘respect’ – my experience? Oh, if only he was here to write down that he called me an ass! But don’t forget that I am an ass; although it’s not written down, don’t forget that I am an ass. No, you villain, you are full of piety – I mean ‘impiety’ – and the witnesses will prove it. I am a wise man, and, what’s more, an officer, and, what’s more, a householder, and, what’s more, as attractive as any person here in Messina, and I understand the laws, so there; and I’m a rich enough man, so there; and I’m a man who has known hardship, and I have two gowns and I own lots of lovely things. Take him away! Oh, if only it was written down that I am an ass!
It is the greatest comic speech in the play and the joke is that every item is true. He is an officer, a householder, a man who knows the law and has had losses; he has two gowns; and he is an ass, and he knows which of these he most wants in writing. The speech turns on a word he gets right by mistake: suspect for respect, which is what he means, and what everyone in the play does to him. The desire to be writ down is the scene’s last turn of its subject. Dogberry has spent the examination insisting that things be written, God first, the prince’s officer called coxcomb, and now the one thing he wants recorded is the insult, because the record is where he exists. The theme of wit and communication gives him the words and the theme of status and class the reason nobody listens: in the next act he will bring the prisoners to the prince and give his evidence in a list with the numbers in the wrong order, and the prince will ask the villain instead.
Language and Technique
- Malapropism: Dissembly for assembly, exhibition for commission, eftest for deftest, opinioned for pinioned, suspect for respect, redemption for damnation: Dogberry reaches for a word and takes its neighbour, and the modern text shows each slip by letting him correct himself.
- Legal procedure as comedy: The scene has the furniture of a court, a sexton with a stool, names written down, witnesses called, and the comedy is the gap between the forms and the man presiding, who answers the first question with his own name.
- The written record: Write down is said again and again. The scene is about getting the truth onto paper, and the paper is what reaches Leonato while the gentry are still in mourning; Dogberry’s own wish is for one more line on it.
- The inventory: A wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder: the repeated and which is more builds a list in which each item is less than the last and the speaker thinks it is more.
- Prose throughout: The whole scene is prose, as every Dogberry scene is. Verse in this play belongs to rank and ceremony; the watch and the constable never rise to it, and the truth they establish is in plain words.
Key Quotes from Act 4, Scene 2
Quote 1
Write down, that they hope they serve God: and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters, it is proved already...
(Dogberry, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Write down that ‘they hope they serve God’; and write ‘God’ first; for in God’s name, God should be written before the names of these villains! Gents, it’s already proven...
Quote Analysis: Dogberry’s first instruction to the sexton, and the scene’s method in miniature: write it down, and write God first. The order on the page matters to him more than what the prisoners say, and the modern verse keeps both the instruction and the piety. It is comic and it is also the instinct that makes the scene work, since the record he insists on is what will clear Hero.
Master constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.
(Sexton, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Master constable, this is not the right way to interrogate them: you have to call the watchmen who accuse them to the court.
Quote Analysis: The sexton takes charge. He is the only person in the room who knows how a hearing works, and his correction is the moment the scene stops being a farce about procedure and becomes a procedure. The modern verse keeps the plainness. Dogberry’s reply, that this is the eftest way, is his way of agreeing to something he has just been told.
O villain! Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.
(Dogberry, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Oh, you villain! You will be condemned into everlasting redemption – I mean ‘damnation’ – for this.
Quote Analysis: Dogberry’s sentence on Borachio: everlasting redemption, by which he means damnation. The modern text gives the correction in his own mouth. It is the funniest of his inversions because it is exactly wrong, and because the man he is condemning is, as it happens, about to be the agent of Hero’s redemption, by confessing.
Key Takeaways
- The clerk finds the truth: Dogberry cannot examine anyone; the sexton calls the watch, and the whole plot is taken down in three sentences of evidence.
- Wrong words, right facts: Perjury, burglary and redemption are all the wrong words, and the thousand ducats, the window and Claudio’s intention are all correct.
- Paper outruns the prince: The examination reaches Leonato before the gentry know anything; while they mourn a lie, the record of it exists.
- Writ down an ass: Dogberry’s inventory of his own virtues ends with the one thing he wants recorded, the insult; the record is where he lives.
Study Questions and Analysis
What does the examination scene reveal, and why does it come here?
It reveals the whole plot in writing. The two watchmen who arrested Borachio and Conrade in Act 3, Scene 3 repeat what they overheard: that Don John was called a villain, that Borachio took a thousand ducats from him for accusing Hero wrongfully, and that Claudio meant, on that evidence, to disgrace her before the whole assembly. The sexton adds what has happened since, that Don John has fled, Hero was accused exactly as described, and has died, and orders the prisoners bound and taken to Leonato. The scene comes directly after the church: while Leonato is being persuaded to give out that Hero is dead, the evidence that will clear her is being written down in a prison.
And this is more, masters, than you can deny. 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.
(Sexton, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
And this is more than you can deny, gentlemen. Prince John snuck away in secret this morning; Hero was accused as described, and just like this, Claudio refused to marry her, and she died suddenly of her grief.
The placing is the point. Bertrand Evans (1960) called the play’s method discrepant awareness, the audience knowing more than the characters, and this scene widens the gap to its fullest: the audience now knows that the truth is on paper and on its way to Leonato, and will watch the next scene’s grief, challenges and penance knowing that none of them is necessary. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1880) observed that without this particular constable the action and catastrophe of the play could never have taken place at all, and the examination is where his usefulness is converted into evidence. The theme of deception and noting is resolved in the play’s lowest room by its lowest officials, a scene ahead of anyone who matters.
Why does Dogberry want to be “writ down an ass”?
Because the record is where he exists. Dogberry has spent the scene insisting that things be written: the prisoners’ names, Conrade’s rank, that they hope they serve God with God first, that the prince’s officer was called coxcomb. When Conrade calls him an ass and the sexton has already gone, he is outraged not at the insult but at the absence of a clerk to record it. The inventory that follows, officer, householder, pretty piece of flesh, a man who knows the law and has had losses and has two gowns, is his case for being somebody, and the speech ends with the one line of evidence he most wants entered: that he was called an ass.
The word that drives the speech is suspect, which he uses for respect, and the slip is exact: nobody respects his place, and everybody suspects it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1818) remarked that a drunken constable was common enough and not hard to draw, and asked his readers to examine what goes to make up a Dogberry; this speech is the inventory, given by the man himself. William Hazlitt (1817) saw in Dogberry and Verges a standing record of pretension without understanding, and the phrase standing record is apt, since a record is what Dogberry wants to be. The 1600 quarto prints the name of Will Kemp, the company’s clown, in place of Dogberry’s in this scene, so the speech was written for a specific comedian and his way of being ponderous. The theme of wit and communication includes this: a man with no command of words who wants the words to remember him.
What is the sexton’s role in the scene?
He is the one official who knows how to hold an examination, and the scene is built on the contrast between him and the man nominally in charge. He asks the right first question, which are the malefactors, and gets Dogberry’s name; he corrects the procedure, telling the constable that the accusers must be called and not the accused interrogated by whisper; he asks the watch what else, three times, until the story is complete; and he draws the conclusion, with the morning’s news from outside, that the prisoners cannot deny. Then he goes to Leonato with the written examination, which is what reaches the governor in Act 5.
Master constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato's: I will go before and show him their examination.
(Sexton, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Master constable, tie these men up and bring them to Leonato: I will go ahead and show him the report of the interrogation.
The sexton is a clerk, a parish officer who can write, and the play gives him the competence it denies the constable without giving him a name. The point is social as well as comic. Jean E. Howard (1987) read the play as returning control of what is believed to the better sort, and the sexton is the instrument: a literate functionary who turns the watch’s gossip into a document the gentry can act on. Without him, Dogberry would still be writing God first. The theme of status and class is at work in the room: the evidence of two night watchmen counts for nothing until a man with a pen records it, and even then the prince, in the next scene, will give up on the constable who delivers it and ask the prisoner instead.
