Who is Balthasar in Much Ado About Nothing?Hi I have to write an essay on Balthasar in Much Ado About Nothing and I am really stuck. If you could...

In Much Ado About Nothing Balthasar
is a servant and musician whose actions parallel those of the made leads, Don Pedro and
Claudio.  Balthasar flirts with Margaret during the masque and later helps the men
(Leonato, Claudio, and Don Pedro) convince Benedick that Beatrice is in love with him.
 It is important to note that Balthasar's wooing of Margaret comes between Don Pedro's
walking with Hero and Benedick and Beatrice's masked wooing of each other.  So,
Shakespeare uses Balthasar's successful attempts at wooing Margaret to juxtapose the
unsuccessful attempts of Benedick and Beatrice.  Also of note is that Margaret will
later be complicit in deceiving Don Pedro and Claudio of Hero's infidelity with
Borachio.  Although Balthasar does not have a hand in the trick, his song does carry an
important message.

Balthasar sings the song in Act
II:

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor
more;
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on
shore,
To one thing constant never;
Then sigh not so,

But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your
sounds of woe
Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more
ditties, sing no mo,
Or dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men
was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,

But let them go,
And be you blithe and
bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into. Hey, nonny,
nonny.

The song is intended to convince
the women that men's infidelity (cheating) is natural.  The irony, of course, is that a
woman's infidelity (Hero's) is unnatural.  So, while the male-dominated culture condones
Borachio's infidelity, it holds a double-standard for women.  At the wedding, Claudio
refuses to marry Hero and ruins her reputation publicly--a kind of death sentence for a
woman of stature.

So, Shakespeare uses the servants
(Balthasar, Margaret) as foils for their masters.  Balthasar's wooing of Margaret
juxtaposes the unsuccessful attempt by Benedick to woo Beatrice and foreshadows the
successful wooing games later.  His song portrays the gender roles and values of the
Elizabethan culture, exposing the double-standard that men held on women's
reputations.