with each other without knowing it," thinks Harold Goddard in his book The Meaning of Shakespeare. The readers think the same thing at this point of the play. "Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell!" exclaims Beatrice when she learns about Bene*censored*'s love. Bene*censored* also "bids good-by to wit-cracking and opens his arms to Beatrice" (Goddard, 276). Shakespeare made the two characters fall in love, and he makes the impression that he was preparing them for this great love since the beginning of the play. William J. Rolfe writes that "being, as we have seen, ready to love, they become inflamed with mutual passion, but have not declared it to each other." In the plot their passion lasts only till the moment they declared it to each other. The final part of the play changes the relationships of these two couples again. Bene*censored* and Beatrice find out that they both learnt about their passion from other people at the same time. They realize that they both fell for the joke. They do not deny that they love each other, but they both understand that it is not the passionate love they feel towards each other. Beatrice says that she loves Bene*censored* "truly, but in friendly recompense". Charles Cowden-Clarke agrees that "there is no avowal of passion . . . It is merely an acquiescent one - 'If thou dost love me, my kindness shall incite thee' to tie the knot." They have a great companionship, but not love. Nobody believes in Claudio's love anymore, either. Thomas Marc Parrott says in the Shakespearean Comedy that "only in romantic comedy could such a character be at last rewarded with the hand of the lady he had so publicly slandered." It makes the reader angry that Hero is still willing to marry him after what he had done to her. The reader begins then doubting whether the love was ever real between the characters of the comedy. Why did it take so little effort to influence the chara...
