Philip Weller caricature
Philip and Weller hugging

Welcome to my web site, now under development for more than twenty years.
-- Philip Weller, November 13, 1941 - February 1, 2021
Dr. Weller, an Eastern Washington University professor of English and Shakespearean scholar for more than 50 years.

Note to Much Ado About Nothing, 4.1.162: "And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire, / To burn the errors that these princes hold / Against her maiden truth"

Return
to
Much Ado About Nothing,
Act 4, Scene 1, lines 162.

And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire, / To burn the errors that these princes hold / Against her maiden truth: —In the friar's metaphor, the "errors" are not just mistakes, but heresies, violating what should be a religious belief in the truth of Hero's maidenhood. Heretics were burned at the stake in order to burn away heretical errors. princes: Don Pedro is certainly a prince (the ruler of a principality, Arragon), but the friar seems to be also referring to Don John and Claudio.