Much Ado About Nothing

Horns—of both the animal and the musical variety—were a common symbol of cuckoldry in Shakespeare’s time. Men whose wives cheated on them were said to have horns on their heads. The shape of a horn and the comparable shape of a penis provided additional fodder for horns to appear as punchlines when making fun of men for worrying about sex or infidelity.

The characters in Much Ado About Nothing can’t get enough of this symbol, and horns appear throughout the play. Benedick tells his friends, for example, that “if ever the sensible Benedick bear [the yoke of marriage], pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead” (1.1.257-59). Claudio retorts that marriage would make his friend “horn-mad” (1.1.264), their exchange of witticisms suggesting that infidelity is a source of shared humor.

The cuckold’s horns appear in related forms, too, such as a recheat (a hunting horn’s music) and a bugle. In another speech, Benedick declares, “That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me” (1.