The New International Encyclopædia/Hero (Shakespeare)

1307935The New International Encyclopædia — Hero (Shakespeare)

HERO. The quiet daughter of Leonato and cousin of the gay Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Don John causes her waiting woman to impersonate her in a moonlight interview with him, and thus causes her lover to reject her at the altar, but on the discovery of the deception the marriage is carried out. The story of the slander to which she is subjected is generally omitted in modern productions.