Much Ado Synopsis

Leonato, Governor of Messina, is host to Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, who has come from suppressing a rebellion by his bastard brother, Don John. With Pedro are John, now “reconciled” to him; Claudio, a young Florentine lord, of whom John is bitterly resentful; and a Paduan lord, Benedick, said to be a confirmed bachelor and engaged in a “merry war” with Leonato’s niece, Beatrice, apparently a confirmed spinster. Claudio loves Leonato’s daughter, Hero; Don John swears to thwart him. After a masked ball the wedding of Claudio and Hero is planned. Borachio, Don John’s follower, tells him that having seen that the Prince and Claudio are listening, he will exchange love vows by night with Hero’s gentlewoman, dressed in her mistress’s clothes, at Hero’s bedroom window.

Pedro, Claudio and Leonato ensure that Benedick (hidden in a garden arbour) hears them discuss Beatrice’s presumably passionate love for him. Hero and Ursula play a similar trick on the listening Beatrice (here the passion is Benedick’s). On the night before the wedding Don John offers to give the Prince and Claudio proof of Hero’s unfaithfulness. Later, Borachio heard boasting about his successful deceit to a drunken comrade, is arrested by the Watch and taken to Dogberry, the constable. Before Leonato can know anything, the wedding ceremony is due. In the church Claudio denounces Hero, who faints. The Prince proposed that Hero who be reported dead and hidden until the truth is known. Beatrice, much grieved, urges Benedick to kill Claudio. At length all is revealed and the penitent Claudio promises to marry a niece of Leonato, said to be the image of the “dead” Hero. She is, of course, Hero herself; Beatrice and Benedick, as expected, resolve their “merry war,” and news comes that Don John has been taken prisoner.

-The Pocket Companion to Shakespeare’s Plays by J C Trewin