Much Ado About Nothing Animal imagery

Shakespeare often uses animal imagery in exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick and in references to them by other characters, perhaps to suggest the wildness of the love/hate relationship between the two.

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The following exchange between Beatrice and Benedick in Act I, Scene I, demonstrates this point:  BEATRICE.....I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.  BENEDICK.....God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other  shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.  BEATRICE.....Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.  BENEDICK.....Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.  BEATRICE.....A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.  BENEDICK.....I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. (Lines 132-138)  

Benedick declares that if he ever succumbs to the pangs of love, he will be like a trapped animal:  .If I do [submit to love],  hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me;   and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder. (Act I, Scene I, Lines 259-260) 

When Don Pedro tells him that even a "savage bull," must in time yield to the yoke of love, Benedick says:  The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible  ..Benedick bear it [the yoke], pluck off the bull's horns and set  them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,  .and in such great letters as they write 'Here is  .good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign  .'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'  (Act I, Scene I, Lines 264-269) 

When Leonato and Antonio tell Beatrice that her tongue is too cursed to ever get a husband, Beatrice answers,  Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's  .sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst  .cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none. (Act II, Scene I, Lines 19-21) 

Benedick goes to extremes when he compares Beatrice to a harpy, a hideous winged monster in Greek mythology, Will your grace command me any service to the   .world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now   .to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on;   .I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the   .furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of   .Prester John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great   .Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies,   .rather than hold three words' conference with this   ..harpy. You have no employment for me? (Act II, Scene I, Lines 271-279)  

When Beatrice finally acknowledges her love for Benedick, she also implies that she is like an animal who needs to control her feral instincts:    .Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,    .Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand. (Act III, Scene I, Lines 107-108)