Much Ado About Nothing (1917) Yale/Appendix A
APPENDIX A
Sources of 'Much Ado about Nothing'
Much Ado about Nothing is a good example of the sort of originality which usually marks Shakespeare's plots. No source other than the poet's own invention has been discovered for those parts of the play which give it its particular charm and interest—the story of Benedick and Beatrice and the delectable folly of Dogberry. The famous scenes constructed about these figures seem to be based solely upon Shakespeare's knowledge of contemporary English character, as he had studied it in cultivated and in plebeian circles respectively. The author turned to books for his material only in the case of the story of Hero and Claudio.
The tale of two lovers, estranged by an envious villain by means of a sham interview between the lady and another man, has been found in the literature of many countries. It is likely that Shakespeare knew it in the form developed by the Italian story-writer, Matteo Bandello (1480–1561), the twentieth tale of whose collection (published at Lucca in 1554) 'telleth how Signor Timbreo di Cardona (Shakespeare's Claudio) being with King Piero of Arragon (Shakespeare's Don Pedro) in Messina, became enamoured of Fenicia Lionata (Shakespeare's Hero, daughter of Leonato), and of the various and unlooked-for chances which befell before he took her to wife.'
In this story we have the same scene of action as in Shakespeare and the same general progress of events, though there are important differences of detail. The names, except Don Pedro and Leonato, are quite unlike. The deception of the lover in Bandello is achieved simply by showing him a man entering a window of Leonato's house; there is no parallel to the disguising of Margaret to simulate her mistress. Again, in Bandello, the denunciation of the heroine is performed less dramatically and also less heartlessly than in Shakespeare, by means of a messenger sent by the deceived lover to her father's house; and the villain himself exposes his plot from subsequent scruples of conscience. Thus Bandello's representatives of both Claudio and Don John are shown in a less odious light than their Shakespearean counterparts. Bandello appears to regard them both as rather excellent young men; Shakespeare, with distinctly different ideals of conduct, is at pains to emphasize his disapproval.
It would hardly be doubted that Shakespeare had read Bandello, if we were certain that he could read Italian. Probably he could, since Italian was the most commonly studied of all the modern tongues in his age and was perhaps more generally understood by educated men than any foreign language is in England to-day. No English translation of Bandello's tale is known to have existed in Shakespeare's lifetime, but a free French version, by François de Belle-Forest, was published in 1582. This may possibly have furnished the poet with the story, but the likelihood that it did so is lessened by the fact that Shakespeare shows no acquaintance with any of Belle-Forest's rather numerous deviations from his original. Another possibility is that Shakespeare knew Bandello's story at second hand, as it had been worked up into some earlier English play. Evidence for such a drama has been found in a record of the Revels Accounts for December 18, 1574, which shows that the Earl of Leicester's players acted a piece called 'theier matter of Panecia' (i.e. Phenicia or Fenicia, Bandello's heroine?), when Shakespeare was ten years old.
For one of Shakespeare's divergences from Bandello noted above—the introduction of Margaret in Hero's clothes—a source exists in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Book V (published, 1516), where a story somewhat similar to Bandello's is related. In all other details Ariosto's version is far less like Much Ado than Bandello's, but the former clearly foreshadows the part of Margaret in his Dalinda, whom he makes the narrator of the tale. In the fourth canto of the second book of the Fairy Queen (published, 1590), Spenser introduces an adaptation of Ariosto's story, again changing the names and putting the narrative into the mouth of the figure corresponding to Claudio. Thus the latter portrays his sentiments while the deception is being practiced upon him:
Eftsoones he came vnto th' appointed place,
And with him brought Pryene [Margaret], rich arayd,
In Claribellaes [Hero's] clothes. Her proper face
I not descerned in that darkesome shade,
But weend it was my loue, with whom he playd.
Ah God, what horrour and tormenting griefe
My hart, my hands, mine eyes, and all assayd?
Me liefer were ten thousand deathes priefe [experience]
Then wound of gealous worme, and shame of such repriefe.
The figures of Dogberry and his companions and their whole connection with the plot were original with Shakespeare, as has been said. How truly the poet depicted the actual constabulary of his time is proved by a genuine letter written August 10, 1586, by Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's chief minister of state, to Sir Francis Walsingham:
'Sir—As I cam from London homward, in my coche, I sawe at euery townes end the nombre of x. or xij. standyng, with long staues, and vntill I cam to Enfield I thought no other of them, but that they had stayd for auoyding of the rayne, or to drynk at some alehouses, for so they did stand vnder pentyces [pent-houses] at alehouses. But at Enfeld fynding a dosen in a plump [group], whan ther was no rayne, I bethought myself that they war apoynted as watchmen, for the apprehendyng of such as ar missyng [i.e. certain escaped traitors]; and thereuppon I called some of them to me apart, and asked them wherfor they stood ther? and on of them answered,—To tak 3 yong men. And demandyng how they shuld know the persons, on answered with these words:—Mary, my Lord, by intelligence of ther fauor. What meane you by that? quoth I. Marry, sayd they, on of the partyes hath a hooked nose.—And haue you, quoth I, no other mark?—No, sayth they. And then I asked who apoynted them; and they answered on Bankes, a Head Constable, whom I willed to be sent to me.—Suerly, sir, who so euer had the chardg from yow hath vsed the matter negligently, for these watchmen stand so oppenly in plumps, as no suspected person will come neare them; and if they be no better instructed but to fynd 3 persons by on of them hauyng a hooked nose, they may miss therof. And thus I thought good to aduertise yow, that the Justyces that had the chardg, as I thynk, may vse the matter more circumspectly.'