The First Quarrel in Much Ado
An Analysis of Beatrice and Benedick's Sparring
The quarrel between Beatrice and Benedick at the beginning of Much Ado About Nothing demonstrates character and theme as well as witty badinage.
The first quarrel between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (I.i.110-139) is one of the play’s big set-pieces, a good example of the kind of verbal sparring the play is famous for. It is the first time we see the future lovers, and the main characters of the play, speaking to each other. Good actors should be able to make this a particularly memorable sequence for the audience, – it was brought to life brilliantly in Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Much Ado About Nothing.
The quarrel is more than mere verbal fireworks, however. Amidst the flying badinage Shakespeare reveals touches of the characters of Beatrice and Benedick, and even hints at the concerns of the play to follow.
As soon as one examines the back-and-forth dialogue, it becomes obvious that Beatrice is always responding to, or commenting upon, what Benedick has said. Her opening barb, “I wonder you will still be talking, Signor Benedick. Nobody marks you” is a remark upon his quip about Leonato’s aged appearance. His riposte “Why, my good Lady Disdain, are you still living?” is quickly turned back on him as Beatrice replies “Is it possible Disdain should die when she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick?”.
This is very sharp stuff, which usually fetches appreciation from the audience, and in each case, Beatrice is criticising, or using, Benedick’s own words. When he hopes that she shall never take a lover “lest some gentleman or other may escape a predestinate scratched face”, she opines that “Scratching could not make it worse an ‘twere such a face as yours were.” When he ends the flyting with a comparison of her tongue to a horse, she complains that it was a “jade’s trick”, employing the same horse imagery. In fact Benedick himself notices this, and calls her “a rare parrot-teacher”, implying that she repeats words over and over again – only for Beatrice to come back with a pun on the idea of birds as talkative and beasts as “dumb”.
This gives us the impression that Beatrice is wittier than Benedick - after all, insulting someone isn’t clever, it's much harder to turn someone else’s words back upon them. It also implies something about the position of women in this society – they can be witty, stylish and clever, but they are always on the back foot. It is paralleled in the love plots, where women must wait for men to propose before they can speak on the subject of marriage. Beatrice laments this passive role she must occupy in her speech at IV.i. where she cries “Oh God! That I were a man”, and wishes she could take action against Claudio for herself, without needing Benedick to do it for her. Even her most dramatic line, "Kill Claudio", is delivered as a response to Benedick's expansive offer "Come, bid me do anything for thee." Beatrice's serious demand overturns the spirit of his romantic cliche, just as her bantering wit use Benedick's own words to confound him, but in both cases she requires the man to speak first, in order than she can make something of his words.
Benedick’s words are worth studying as well. His apparent non-sequitur with “But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, you excepted” suggests two things which will have a bearing on the later plot. Firstly, his vanity – the Prince and his friends will have no trouble persuading him that Beatrice is secretly in love with him, since all other women are. Secondly, why should he bring up the fact that, of all women, only Beatrice doesn’t adore him? Even in this first argument there is a suggestion that their sparring is fuelled by something more than the hostility they display...
