Much Ado About Nothing

Don Pedro is a visiting Prince from Aragon, former commanding officer of Claudio and Benedick and friend to Leonato. While his noble authority carries much weight in Messina, there is a certain carefree youthfulness about him to suggest he is younger than Leonato, perhaps not much older than Claudio and Benedick, with whom he shares a deep friendship.
 

In Messina’s landscape of mistaken identity and manipulation, Don Pedro is broadly a benevolent presence, although his mistake nearly costs Hero her life. Prior to the beginning of the play, we presume he has righteously triumphed over his brother and tried to effect a reconciliation by welcoming him to Messina with open arms, rather than imprisoning him. While Don John’s villainy may seem obvious to an audience – his curt silences, his scheming, the way he’s often dressed entirely in black by directors – Don Pedro is a generously inclined character who wants to share his good fortune with others. Even his false condemnation of Hero as a “common stale” stems from a righteous desire to protect Claudio, his friend, from shame and scandal. This is, of course, casually misogynistic but it is a misogyny shaped by cultural mores as well as an all- pervading sense of cuckoldry anxiety, rather than malicious hatred of women.

Interestingly, Don Pedro stands out as a single nobleman among the happy scenes of wooing which play out in Messina. Symmetrically, this links him to his brother, John the bastard: they are both single men flanked by two young gallants. Don Pedro is the light which contrasts with Don John’s darkness, the matchmaker to Don John’s matchbreaker, encapsulating the classic good vs. evil dichotomy which is typical of a comedy. In both plot and sub-plot (if Benedick and Beatrice can rightly be called a sub-plot), Don Pedro is the architect of romance, wooing Hero on behalf of Claudio and promising to bring Benedick and Beatrice into a “mountain of affection” through an elaborate scheme of overheard gossip. Meanwhile, John schemes to undo his brother’s good work through a series of malicious hoaxes. Don Pedro’s role in the play is rather like the mythical cupid: he even jokes that “if we can [bring Benedick and Beatrice together], Cupid is no longer an archer, his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods.”
However, for all his apparent skill as a matchmaker, Don Pedro is no match for Benedick in either wit or social power. After he witnesses what he thinks is Hero being unfaithful, the Prince is transformed from confident “love-god” to Don John’s fool. Even here, he remains loyal to Claudio – he vows that “as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her.” At the aborted wedding, it is Benedick, and not Don Pedro, who suspects Don John of renewed treachery, suggesting that, like Claudio, Don Pedro struggles to see beyond the surface of events.

Since this is a comedy, Don Pedro takes no blame for his part in the slander: he has been duped and the other characters immediately accept this. It’s worth noting, however, his lack of agency at the end of the play. While the messenger’s words “my lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight” are addressed to Don Pedro, it is Benedick who answers him, indicating a shift in the social order. Having been a dupe, the legitimacy of Don Pedro’s authority is reduced – all that he retains is his title and class privilege.