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Updated: June 25, 2025
Leonato, in the utmost horror, said to the prince, "My lord, why speak not you?" "What should I speak?" said the prince. "I stand dishonored that have gone about to link my dear friend to an unworthy woman. Leonato, upon my honor, myself, my brother, and this grieved Claudio did see and bear her last night at midnight talk with a man at her chamber window."
"There is," said the friar, "some strange misunderstanding in the prince and Claudio;" and then he counselled Leonato, that he should report that Hero was dead; and he said, that the death-like swoon in which they had left Hero, would make this easy of belief; and he also advised him, that he should put on mourning, and erect a monument for her, and do all rites that appertain to a burial.
The kind friar then led Leonato and Hero away to comfort and console them, and Beatrice and Benedick remained alone; and this was the meeting from which their friends, who contrived the merry plot against them, expected so much diversion; those friends who were now overwhelmed with affliction, and from whose minds all thoughts of merriment seemed for ever banished.
Leonato agreed to this proposal, and the prince found no great difficulty in persuading the gentle Hero herself to listen to the suit of the noble Claudio who was a lord of rare endowments and highly accomplished, and Claudio, assisted by his kind prince, soon prevailed upon Leonato to fix an early day for the celebration of his marriage with Hero.
And the repentant Claudio implored forgiveness of the old man Leonato for the injury he had done his child; and promised that, whatever penance Leonato would lay upon him for his fault in believing the false accusation against his betrothed wife, for her dear sake he would endure it.
"If," he said to Leonato, "we pretend, when Beatrice is near enough to overhear us, that Benedick is pining for her love, she will pity him, see his good qualities, and love him.
Claudio's confession of his love for Hero so wrought upon the prince that be lost no time in soliciting the consent of Leonato to accept of Claudio for a son-in-law.
The kind friar then led Leonato and Hero away to comfort and console them, and Beatrice and Benedick remained alone; and this was the meeting from which their friends, who contrived the merry plot against them, expected so much diversion; those friends who were now overwhelmed with affliction, and from whose minds all thoughts of merriment seemed for ever banished.
Benedick, in astonishment at what he heard, said, "This looks not like a nuptial." "True, O God!" replied the heart-struck Hero; and then this hapless lady sank down in a fainting fit, to all appearance dead. The prince and Claudio left the church without staying to see if Hero would recover, or at all regarding the distress into which they had thrown Leonato.
'What shall become of this? said Leonato; 'What will this do? The friar replied: 'This report of her death shall change slander into pity: that is some good; but that is not all the good I hope for. When Claudio shall hear she died upon hearing his words, the idea of her life shall sweetly creep into his imagination.
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