Chapter 21 of 24 · 2'16"
Claudio accepts the penance laid on him and agrees to give Hero the honour he denied her, calling it the end of his revenge. Borachio clears Margaret face to face, while Dogberry keeps pushing his own small grievance. The scene closes on a farewell.
Dogberry's Last Complaint
Claudio accepts his punishment and promises to honour Hero's memory, saying his revenge is over. He thanks the kindness shown him and takes his leave for the night. Borachio is brought face to face with Margaret and defends her innocence, and Dogberry adds one last complaint before leaving.
The final movement of the play is about putting things back together, and its tone keeps slipping between solemn and silly. Claudio plays the penitent properly — 'Give her the right you should have given her cousin, and so dies my revenge' — and his thanks are genuine enough to move the man he wronged: 'Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.' Beside this, Borachio's defence of Margaret matters more than it looks, because it clears an innocent woman from the plot while the play still believes Hero is dead. Then Dogberry arrives to insist that an insult to him be 'remembered in his punishment,' and the solemn scene turns comic on purpose. His farewell, 'God prohibit it,' is a blessing that wishes the opposite, the last of the malapropisms that make him who he is.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“Give her the right you should have given her cousin, and so dies my revenge.”
Forgiveness is framed as a plain exchange: give her back her due, and revenge ends itself.
Formal
“Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.”
It turns being moved to tears into something another person's kindness does to you.
Formal
“This naughty man shall face to face be brought to Margaret, who was packed in all this wrong.”
It stages justice as a face-to-face reckoning and names who else was tangled in the wrong.
Formal
“Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, the offender did call me "ass".”
A joke of register: the constable uses legal phrasing to report one insulting word.
Formal
“I leave with your worship an arrant knave, which I beseech you to correct yourself, for the example of others.”
The clerkly phrasing and the demand to punish as an example make pomposity the punchline.
Formal
“I humbly give you leave to depart, and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it!”
A botched blessing: he means well, says the opposite, and the solemn tone sells the joke.
Formal
Up next · 22woo peaceablyThe scene: Benedick and Beatrice Woo by QuarrellingHe believes Hero is dead because of the accusation he made, and the penance is a way to honour her memory. He says that once he restores her honour, his revenge is over.
It is the end of the matter as far as he is concerned. By giving Hero the honour he denied her, he gives up the anger that drove him to accuse her.
She was named in the scheme against Hero, and he is asked to face her. He insists she was innocent and did not know what she was doing.
The prisoner insulted him, and he wants that insult recorded and counted when the man is punished. He complains that it was never written down.
Dogberry means to offer a kind farewell, but his words come out backwards: may God prevent any happy meeting again. It is one of his comic mistakes of the wrong word.
