"Hush'd on Purpose to Grace Harmony": Wives and Silence in "Much Ado about Nothing"

Abstract

In Act II, scene 3 of Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio describes to his liege Don Pedro the twilight's quiet mood as they prepare to hear the singer Balthasar: How still the evening is, as hush'd on to grace harmony! (II. iii. 38-39).1 Claudio means, of course, that the stillness of the evening is the perfect setting for the melodious sounds which are to follow, for the ideal listener blesses the musician with silent attendance. But the harmony represented by music in Much Ado is a marital, as much as a musical, concord. When Benedick calls for pipers to strike up a dance at the end of the play, the harmony produced is, as A. R. Humphreys has noted, the symbol of happy marriage (218n), a union which I will contend would seem all the more agreeable to the men of Messina if their female partners (particularly Beatrice, she who blesses) remained hushed on purpose to grace the harmony of the relationship.