Chapter Sample Questions of Much Ado About Nothing - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

here. Claudio invokes Diana to reinforce Hero's innocence. Hero, in the next line, is Diana's "virgin knight": Shakespeare suggests in this image that virginity is a form of self-protection: a virgin knight would be armed against all assaults on her chastity. By remaining chaste girls in the Renaissance fulfilled a social expectation and so made themselves immune from criticism or slander; furthermore, they protected themselves from the potential risk and pain of sexual involvement outside marriage. Shakespeare, of course, explodes this in Much Ado About Nothing - Hero's chastity is no protection against slander - but he makes Claudio sing an epitaph whose imagery is rooted in the same values that caused Hero's disgrace.