Much Ado About Nothing Quotes on Love

Speaker: “My liege, your Highness now may do me good.”Audience: “My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how,And thou shalt see how apt it is to learnAny hard lesson that may do thee good.” Speaker: ClaudioAudience: Don PedroSituation: Love in this play is also the love between friends – Don Pedro is loyal to Claudio and cares for him. Although Don Pedro is Claudio’s superior in age and status, he’s willing to do what he can in Claudio’s service.
Speaker: [to Hero] “Well, niece, I trust you will be rul’d by your father.”Audience: “Yes faith. It is my cousin’s duty to make cursy and say,’Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all that, cousin, let himbe a handsome fellow, or else make another cursy, and say,’Father, as it please me.’ “ Speaker: AntonioAudience: Beatrice (and Hero and Leonato)Situation: Familial love is another form of love in the play, and in this instance it’s expressed as duty. Hero’s subservience to her father’s will is not because she’s a girl, but because she’s a daughter, and she obeys her father out of love. Beatrice, also out of love for her cousin, reminds Hero that there’s some wiggle room in familial obedience.
“I do much wonder that one man, seeing how muchanother man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love,will, after he hath laugh’d at such shallow follies in others,become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio.” Speaker: BenedickAudience: SelfSituation: It’s poetic justice that Benedick means to deride Claudio with this speech, but knowing what we know about Benedick a few acts from now, Benedick could very well be describing himself.
“O god of love! I know he doth deserveAs much as may be yielded to a man:But Nature never framed a woman’s heartOf prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,Misprising what they look on, and her witValues itself so highly that to herAll matter else seems weak: she cannot love,Nor take no shape nor project of affection,She is so self-endeared.” Speaker: HeroAudience: Ursula (and Beatrice)Situation: This is an interesting insight into Hero’s thinking. We learn more about Hero’s notions of love from her conversation about Beatrice and Benedick than from her own thoughts about her marriage to Claudio. Hero seems to realize that in order to love another, one must sacrifice some self-love. She’s rationalized that love is not about self-indulgence, but self-sacrifice, which explains some of her willingness to love Claudio even after he’s wronged her.In this scene, she knows Beatrice is listening. She wants Beatrice to try and let her guard down and let her pride go to let Benedick love her.