In this passage, Leonato still believes Claudio's and Don
Pedro's accusations and is expressing his grief at having had a child who could grow up to allow
herself to be defiled and ruin even his own reputation. Shakespeare particularly shows Leonato's
beliefs and dispair in this passage using repetition of rhetorical questions and other rhetorical
schemes involving repetition as well.
We first see the repetition of rhetorical
questions in the first few lines. When friar demands of Leonato why Hero should not open her eyes
after having fainted, Leonato rhetorically asks:
Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing
Cry
shame upon her? Could she here deny
The story that is printed in her blood?
(IV.i.126-128)
In this passage, since
Leonato believes he already knows the answers to his own questions, Leonato is rhetorically
asking why every living thing should not now be shaming Hero and if she dared deny her
accusations. Rhetorical questions like this are used all throughout this speech, showing us the
nature of Leonato's feelings at this moment.
Leonato also repeats the word
"mine" in this passage, showing us that he is concerned about what Hero's accused reputation will
do to his own. Shakespeare uses a rhetorical scheme referred to as anaphora in which beginning
clauses or phrases are repeated, in order to emphasize Leonarto's present focus on himself and
his own reputation. We see anaphora being used in the lines:
But mine, and mine I loved, and mine I
praised,
And mine that I was proud of--mine so much
That I myself was to
myself not mine. (142-144)
We see
anaphora being used with the repetition of the word "mine" in the beginning of each clause. The
repetition of the word "mine" shows us that he is feeling betrayed by his own daughter and
feeling grieved over how her "fallen" actions will destroy his own reputation, especially as
Governor of Messina.
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