Literal meaning. That literal meaning is open to misinterpretation as this phrase is frequently written as ‘music has charms to soothe the savage beast’.

The phrase ‘music has charms to sooth a savage breast’ sounds Shakespearian but in fact comes to us from The Mourning Bride, a poem by William Congreve, 1697:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.

However, that isn’t the end of the story as the commonly circulated ‘music has charms to soothe a savage beast’ can’t be said to be entirely incorrect. Many years before Congreve published his poem, the Latin epic poem Pharsalia, which was written by the Roman poet Lucan, contained lines which must have been Congreve’s source. The poem was Englished, that is, translated into English, by the English courtier Thomas May and published in several editions in the 1620s and 30s. It includes these lines:

…Whose charming voice and matchless musick mov’d
The savage beasts, the stones, and senseless trees,

So, in Congreve’s poem, music:

Soothes a savage breast, softens rocks and bends oak.

In May’s poem, music:

Moves savage beasts, stones and trees.