Leonato

Play

Much Ado About Nothing

Summary

Leonato is the Governor of Messina, Hero's father, and Beatrice's uncle — the patriarch who hosts Don Pedro's company and presides over the play's social world. Good-natured and hospitable, he is gulled by Don John's slander just as thoroughly as the younger men, and in his rage and shame publicly disowns Hero at the altar. His grief when he believes Hero dead from shame is the play's most wrenching moment of paternal anguish, and his eventual reconciliation with Claudio — conditional on a public act of penance — carries the play's moral weight.

Notable Quotations

"Dost thou look up? / Wherefore? For thy sins?" *(IV.i)*

"O, she is fallen / Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea / Hath drops too few to wash her clean again." *(IV.i)*

Cross-references

• Much Ado About Nothing — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_hero — his daughter, falsely accused on her wedding day
• character_beatrice — his niece
• character_don_pedro — the prince he hosts
• character_claudio_muchadov — his daughter's suitor, who shames her publicly