Hero

Play

Much Ado About Nothing

Summary

Hero is Leonato's gentle and modest daughter, Beatrice's cousin, and the play's unjustly wronged heroine. She is falsely accused of unchastity by the villainous Don John on the night before her wedding, and publicly shamed by Claudio at the altar in the play's most painful scene. She "dies" of shame — a theatrical death to allow Claudio's repentance — and is restored in a quasi-resurrection at the play's end, remarrying Claudio with her face veiled. Though less vocal than Beatrice, Hero's suffering gives the comedy its moral stakes.

Notable Quotations

"And bid her steal into the pleached bower, / Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, / Forbid the sun to enter." *(III.i, stage directions context)*

"Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name / With any just reproach?" *(IV.i)*

Cross-references

• Much Ado About Nothing — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_beatrice — her cousin and fierce defender
• character_claudio_muchadov — the soldier who loves, shames, and remarries her
• character_leonato — her father
• character_don_pedro — the Prince who woos on Claudio's behalf