Borachio is one of Don John’s followers and the architect of the nearly fatal plot to smear Hero’s honour. His name comes from the Spanish borracho – drunk – and it is his drunken confession to Conrade which proves his undoing. Although he is Don John’s social inferior, Borachio is perhaps more intelligent: after all, it is his evil genius which conceives the illusion of Margaret at the window. Nevertheless, Borachio is not without remorse. In response to Leonato’s accusation that Margaret was “packed in all this wrong,” Borachio passionately defends her innocence: he claims that she “always hath been just and virtuous / In anything that I do know by her.” Unlike Don John, Borachio bears no real malice towards the Prince or Hero, he is merely a mercenary who is happy to accept money from unsavoury people.
