Dogberry

Play

Much Ado About Nothing

Summary

Dogberry is the self-important constable of Messina, commander of the night watch, and one of Shakespeare's great comic creations. He is magnificently prone to malapropisms — substituting grand-sounding wrong words for the right ones — and his instructions to the watch are a masterwork of blundering pomposity. Yet it is his bumbling watchmen who accidentally overhear and arrest Borachio and thus uncover Don John's plot against Hero. Dogberry is the comic instrument of justice, and his wounded dignity when called an ass ("Write it down that they hope they serve God; and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains!") is one of the play's purest delights.

Notable Quotations

"Comparisons are odorous." *(III.v, malapropism for "odious")*

"O that I had been writ down an ass!" *(IV.ii)*

"You are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name... Why then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of a knave." *(III.iii)*

Cross-references

• Much Ado About Nothing — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_leonato — the governor he reports to, who dismisses him too quickly
• character_hero — whose innocence his watchmen inadvertently prove