Much Ado About Nothing Claudio Quotes

This is one of the first times that marriage is spoken of explicitly, and it’s presented as an object of unwitting deception. Claudio apparently has been as anti-marriage as Benedick, but now that he wants to marry Hero, he notes that even he can’t trust his own word. 

Claudio’s great failing is that he’s easily manipulated into suspicion, which leaves him wide open to be deceived.

In a fit of Shakespearean irony, Hero is condemned as a deceiver for telling the truth.

Claudio thinks all bets are off when it comes to love; that romantic love can supersede or intrude upon friendship. As a result, he’s convinced that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself.

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.

Claudio declares his love for Hero again as soon as he hears of her innocence. His sudden renewed love of Hero makes us feel as though his love is not actually as deep as we’d want it to be; his love was destroyed by outside circumstance and is resolved by outside circumstance too. We wonder whether Claudio will be able to weather other miscommunications when the pair is married—or will he be as quick to judge as he is currently, even if he’s wrong?

So obviously the "Ethiope" stuff is hyper-racist, but the take-home of this comment—at least in Shakespearean times—is that for Claudio, marriage isn’t about love. It’s a formal arrangement that is just another way of doing your duty. Here, Claudio’s marriage to Leonato’s "niece" is just a way for him to pay his dues to the old man.

This is particularly nasty of Claudio. Rather than just canceling the wedding if Hero is disloyal, he’s hell-bent on disgracing her in front of the whole congregation. His plan is more about vengefully ruining her reputation than it is about escaping a loveless, dishonest marriage.

Claudio is hung up on how Hero appears – he thinks her image as a virtuous girl is false, masking her true nature. Reputation is linked with appearances – Hero blushes like a virgin, but Claudio thinks she isn’t one. Her reputation as a maiden rests on how she appears; in insisting that how Hero seems is not how she is, Claudio effectively undoes her reputation.

It’s interesting here that Hero, instead of simply stating that she is completely innocent, asks Claudio how she "seemed" to him. However, Claudio’s entire point is that she seemed innocent, and was not. Unlike Claudio, Hero implies that her reputation should be based on her actions, rather than on accusations and other peoples’ opinions.

This is a really telling commentary about priorities in the play. Claudio’s epitaph clears Hero’s reputation, but says nothing of his love for her.

Claudio says war thoughts had once dominated his mind, but that the battle is over, he’s been transformed into a lover. This transformation is not something he had any agency over—he talks about it passively, like falling for Hero is something that happened to him, as opposed to something he came to of his own volition. There’s a warning here—he’s been transformed and moved by an outside force, not his own internal feelings—it’s a sign that perhaps he’ll be easily moved against his love for Hero by an outside force too. (Which does happen. Ta da!)

This is a difficult passage to read, as it’s the first instance where Leonato chooses Claudio’s word over his daughter’s. He demands that Hero answer Claudio’s question, indicating that he’s already trusting Claudio instead of defending his daughter. Ultimately, this episode is sickening because of our intuition that Leonato’s role—because he knows his daughter and her honor—is to stand up for her, not to indulge Claudio in this public spectacle. 

Hero’s reputation is on the line, and in the end, as a woman, her word isn’t worth much against a man’s. This episode reminds us of the constant cuckoldry jests in the play. Though they were jokes, they seriously refer to the distrust men had for their wives, and we’d bet it also makes them hesitate to stand up for their daughters.

Claudio isn’t only disgusted by the acts he thinks Hero has committed, but it’s clear he thinks that his own pride is wounded by almost marrying such a woman. He feels he’s been deceived about love in general, and this (perhaps more than her betrayal) is what wounds him. These words are particularly important, as they are his parting comments before leaving Hero for dead.

Claudio is really outrageous here – he’s just found out he wrongfully accused Hero and he thinks he caused her death. Instead of just hanging his head in shame and being sorry, he feels the need to point out that he was misled, so none of this was really his fault. It seems Claudio is more concerned with protecting his pride than mourning over his part in Hero’s death. Even that he’s willing to submit himself to punishment seems more about the appropriate formalities of dealing with his wrong than any actual regret or repentance he has.

Even Claudio recognizes that seeming to fall in love quickly is a mark of immaturity.

To Leonato’s face, Claudio makes a big show of respecting his age, but it’s clear from this comment that Claudio is not exactly Mr. Reverence. Age doesn’t seem to command respect for Claudio; he approaches it more as a weakness than a reason for reverence, which is pretty immature of him. It’s another strike against Claudio’s character.