Catching the Benedick
Beatrice and Benedick; their very names tell us that they are surely meant to be together. And of course, so it goes, for “Much Ado About Nothing” is, as the title implies, a comedy—even if the last word implies, by way of an Elizabethan pun, a slightly bawdier comedy than we are given. Indeed, the closest we come to that type of comedy is in Signior Benedick’s very first words in the play: [Don] Pedro:…I think this is your daughter. Leonato: Her mother hath many times told me so. Benedick: Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? Leonato : Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. (I.i.92-96) From there on, the comedy is pretty much all chastity and virtue ( okay, maybe not all ...