Pg. 133 Act 4 Scene 1 Line 137-151
Leonato mistakenly believes his daughter Hero is a whore. His diatribe against her is bitter and biting. Wondering why he even had a daughter, Leonato says that having her was too much. She is too much of a shame, a stain, and a blemish upon his name that he can not bear to claim her as his daughter. Leonato is so tied up in hero that his conscience feels like it has committed fornication. Being the devout Christian he is, he can not stand to live with this scar upon his own soul.
Even more distressing to Leonato is that at one time he held her up as the apple of his eye. She was as precious to him as his pupil and he would have guarded her with his full strength as eye sight is one of man’s most prized possessions. Leonato might even be going so far as to question what purity and holiness are? Is the Christian virtue of chastity one of the most important virtues? The ideal for a woman in that time was complete virginity. Compared to Shakespeare’s time and place, currently America is obsessed with sex. A woman is not a real woman unless she has had sexual relations and the supposed mark of manhood is having a woman.
Nowadays, if one hasn’t had sex at an early age, one is a loser. Schools are handing out condoms because if kids are having sex, they should at least be having “safe” sex. Many gas station bathrooms have condom dispensers, television shows showcase promiscuous adolescents, and commercials advertise vaccinations for the human papilloma virus.
Society no longer feels that the best way to stay STD free is to refrain from sex. Abstinence is a lost word to America. Some Christians wear promise rings that mean they are waiting for marriage to have sex. Secular, worldly people have no idea why a Christian would do this. Sex is the best fun anyone can have. No longer is fornication a sin and no longer is an adulterer shunned.
For Leonato, Hero being lovely in his eyes is the same as being wonderful in his mind. Someone being pure in the mind does not make them pure in reality. Leonato is declaring that his perception was wrong; His senses had misled him. Leonato even goes as far as saying that the pious action would be to have confessed her as the fruit of an unknown loin, even the loin of the lowest beggar. A common man on the street, hungry, sick, and weak is more of a fitting father for Hero than a Governor. This proclamation is one of the most severe ways of dishonoring a woman.
Family genealogy being of noble birth was one of the highest prizes around the 1600’s. Hero’s sin pulls down the family name. The actions of the children reflect so strongly on the father that it is as if the children were extensions of the man. In Roman times, the paterfamilias was the center, in Shakespearean times it was the Father, and in America today, the center of the family is lost. Men get women pregnant and run off to be with other women, leaving single mothers everywhere.
Claiming that no part of Hero is of Leonato, he is saying that any physical resemblance is pure chance. Seemingly forgetting that each person is guilty for his own sins, and that immorality is only partially inherited, Leonato feels that a complete schism between the two is the only way to remain innocent. Not worrying about original sin, Leonato’s pride is great enough to cover any notion of sin in himself.
Paradoxically, Leonato says that, “mine I loved, and mine I praised, and mine that I was proud on, mine so much that I myself was to myself not mine…” This means that at one time Leonato claimed Hero above him, above his being, and of more worth than himself. Going so far as to say that Hero owned him, later Leonato must disown Hero. By disinheriting her, either Leonato is freeing himself or causing himself to not exist. If his whole identity is wrapped up in another, when that one disappears, the parasite also withers away.
Echoing the fall of Satan, Leonato declares that, “O she, is fall’n.” Once perfect in beauty, riches, glory, and fame, s/he is now at the bottom of the created order. She has fallen into blackness as dark as a pit of ink. Ink that cannot be washed out no matter how much water is used. Leonato proclaims that, “the wide sea hath drops too few to wash her clean again.” This again signifies that at one time she was clean.
This past time of cleanliness was only a brief amount of time before. Grand bodies of water have symbolized “beings” that have the ability to swallow up certain aspects of a person, and literally the person themselves. The ocean can take the boyhood out of a male and turn him into a manly sailor. In the movie The Titanic, the ocean swallows up a necklace that symbolizes a type of love that can not be had.
The salty oceans also contain the compound of food seasoning that enhances flavor and preserves by its drying power. Hero is now so bland that no amount of taste improvement can make her “edible or palatable” again. Her purity is no longer preserved by the ingredient. Jesus told his disciples to be the salt of the earth. Christians must “irritate,” or battle against the forces of evil exemplified in immoral philosophies like abortion and euthanasia. In American Colonial times, stinging salt was spread on the wound of somebody to fight infection.
The word charitable is used in an interesting way in the beginning lines of the quotation. Leonato thinks it “good” to help the baby of a beggar, and yet he will not offer to care for his own child. Is it Christian virtue that dictates for the caring of the helpless? Leonato should then offer forgiveness to his own daughter as Jesus offered absolution to a woman caught in the very act of adultery.
The Governor should stop casting stones and examine his own life. Leonato should take more time to explore this mess instead of immediately accusing Hero. Ultimately, the audience knows that Hero is innocent, so what makes Leonato so sure that she is guilty? The word of his “friends” convinces him over the word of his own family.
Towards the ending of the quote, Leonato describes the ink well as a “pit of ink.” The stain on Hero is so deep as to have an unknowable end. She is not stained by an amount of ink that is carried in a bottle; her impurity runs right into the dirt of the earth. A pit is an ambiguous term. The underworld has been described as a pit in Old Testament literature. Does this mean that Hero has descended into an evil that is right from the bowels of hell? In his other quotes, Leonato says he will even “strike at her life” if she had not “died.” This violence to cover sin is a shadow of the Jewish custom of stoning the adulteress.
The themes of the selection include one verses many, and good verses evil. Hero represents one and Leonato claims that one is too many. If somebody has zero of something they have nothing at all. Maybe this is why the play is called Much Ado About Nothing. Leonato wishing Hero out of existence causes there to be an absence or abyss. It is as if Hero turns into a black hole that sucks in the life of all the other characters until the spacetime warp reverses and spits everybody back out. Each character is in some way connected with Hero and her implosion causes a chain reaction. Men start challenging one another to duels and the women begin the peck-a-little-talk-a-little (gossip) routine made famous by The Music Man.
The word “foul” in the end of the selection has an interesting connection to Macbeth. The three witches warn that “fair is foul and foul is fair.” If fair is taken to mean fair like a lady, this palinode offers unique insight. Macbeth might include the idea that a woman is wicked. The witches surely represent this. Even today, men call women by a name that sounds similar. Men might do this because they fear the power of women. Truly, Hero causes, “double trouble” for the climax of the play.
Hero’s stain is even related to a swamp. The Living Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English language defines mire as “Wet, swampy soil; mud; a marsh” and also as, “to be unable to advance.” Because of her iniquity she is deemed to be a muddy soul. The double meaning of mired could also reflect on her inability to advance as a woman. This is not because of her being female, but because of the organization of society by men for men.
Leonato’s obsession with “myself” and “mine” might be cause for an examination of the state of his ego. Is his center of being so large that he thinks everybody is supposed to work for his well-being. Mr. Nicholson would enjoy his Beautiful Theory to work out, but nobody would completely dedicate their life to his happiness that they lose their own being in the process. The union of two souls in marriage is a special case of the union of two beings. Each being actually becomes fuller by being united with a complement to its being. The grandest example of this union is between the Church, or Bride of Christ, and Jesus, the Bridegroom.
A summary of the passage could be given as follows: A man is disillusioned over the virginity of a woman. In reality she is still a flower.
The overall play is of words and could thus symbolize the lack of meaning that they can communicate. Words can make false statements and accusations. Words can ruin reputations, and families, and marriages. Babbling is full of sound that ultimately has no meaning. People are just as linguistically isolated with the same language as people who were scattered by their language change at the tower of Babel. In The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there is a babel fish implant that allows one to communicate between different languages. Even this device does not solve all communication problems.
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