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Title: Shakespeare and Music
       With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries

Author: Edward W. Naylor

Release Date: October 31, 2006 [EBook #19676]

Language: English

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SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE MUSIC OF THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES

BY

EDWARD W. NAYLOR, M.A., MUS. BAC.


LONDON
J.M. DENT & CO., ALDINE HOUSE, E.C.
1896

_All rights reserved._


[Transcriber's Notes:

1. The original text uses a "fraction" format for citations to
Shakespeare's plays, e.g.:

              3
     _Rom._ -----
            5, 25

For clarity, in this e-text the "fractions" have been converted to a
one-line citation, e.g., _Rom._ III, v, 25 (signifying Act III, scene
v, line 25). Where the original does not use the fraction format, the
citation style has not been altered.

2. The original text sometimes misspells "Passamezzo" as "Passemezzo"
and "viol da gamba" as "viol de gamba." These have been corrected in
this e-text.

3. The original text inconsistently uses a breve over the e in
"Parthenia" and "Passameso." For clarity, the breve has been removed
in this e-text, as it is not part of the usual spelling of these
words, and has in fact been omitted from the 1931 revised edition of
the book.]




PREFACE


This book contains little that is not tolerably well known both to
Shakespeare scholars and musicians who have any acquaintance with the
history of music. It is hoped that it may be of some use to a large
class of students of Shakespeare who have no opportunity to gather up
the general information which will be found here. The author also
ventures to believe that some brother musicians will be gratified to
see at one view what a liberal treatment the great Poet has given to
our noble art. It will be observed that settings of Shakespearian
Songs of a later date than the generation immediately succeeding
Shakespeare's death are not noticed. The large number of settings of
the 18th century, by such men as Arne, though interesting musically,
have nothing whatever to do with the student of Shakespeare and the
circumstances of his time. It can only be regretted that so much of
the original music seems to have perished.

The author is greatly indebted to Mr Aldis Wright, who has kindly
looked through the work in MS., and contributed one or two interesting
notes, which are acknowledged in the proper place.

LONDON, _March 1896_.




CONTENTS


                                     PAGE

DESCRIPTION OF FRONTISPIECE            ix

INTRODUCTORY                            1

TECHNICAL TERMS AND INSTRUMENTS        21

MUSICAL EDUCATION                      58

SONGS AND SINGING                      65

SERENADES AND 'MUSIC'                  96

DANCES AND DANCING                    113

PYTHAGOREANISM, etc.                  152

USE OF MUSICAL STAGE DIRECTIONS       165

APPENDIX                              185




DESCRIPTION OF FRONTISPIECE


[Illustration]

[I am indebted for the arrangement of this picture to the kindness of
the authorities at South Kensington Museum, where all these
instruments may be found, except the Pipe and Cornet, which belong to
my friend, Mr W.F.H. Blandford.]


_In the middle, on table._

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S 'VIRGINAL.' Date, latter half of 16th century.
Outside of case (not visible in picture) covered with red velvet.
Inside finely decorated. Has three locks. Is more properly a Spinet,
the case not being square, but of the usual Spinet shape--viz., one
long side (front view), and four shorter ones forming a rough
semi-circle at back.


_Top row, counting from the right._

1. TABOR-PIPE. Modern, but similar to the Elizabethan instrument.
French name, 'galoubet.' Merely a whistle, cylindrical bore, and 3
holes, two in front, one (for thumb) behind. The scale is produced on
the basis of the 1st harmonic--thus 3 holes are sufficient. It was
played with left hand only, the tabor being hung to the left wrist,
and beaten with a stick in the right hand. Length _over all_ of pipe
in picture, 1 ft. 2-1/2 in.; speaking length, 1 ft. 1-1/8 in.; lowest
note in use, B flat above treble staff. Mersennus (1648), however,
says the tabor-pipe was in G, which makes it larger than the one in
the picture. A contemporary woodcut (in Calmour's 'Fact and Fiction
about Shakespeare') of William Kemp, one of Shakespeare's
fellow-actors, dancing the Morris, to tabor and pipe, makes the pipe
as long as from mouth to waist--viz., about 18 inches, which agrees
with Mersennus. A similar woodcut in 'Orchésographie' makes the pipe
even longer. Both represent pipe as conical, like oboe. The length of
the tabor, in these two woodcuts, seems to be about 1 ft. 9 in., and
the breadth, across the head, 9 or 10 in. No snare in the English
woodcut, but the French one has a snare.

2. CORNET (treble), date 16th or 17th century. Tube slightly curved,
external shape octagonal, bore conical. Cupped mouthpiece of horn, 6
holes, and one behind for thumb. Lowest note, A under treble staff.

3. RECORDER. Large beak-flute of dark wood. Three joints, not
including beak. The beak has a hole at the back, covered with a thin
skin, which vibrates and gives a slight reediness to the tone. The
usual 6 finger holes in front, a thumb hole behind, and a
right-or-left little-finger hole in lowest joint.

4. SMALL FRENCH TREBLE VIOL, 17th century. _Back view_, same shape as
of all other viols of whatever size. 6 strings, 4 frets.

5. TREBLE VIOL, as used in England and Italy; label inside--Andreas
(?) Amati, Cremona, 1637. _Side view_, shews carved head and flat
back. 6 strings, 4 frets, ivory nut.

6. TENOR VIOL. English, late 17th century. _Front view_, shewing
sloping shoulders. 6 strings, 7 frets, plain head.

7. VIOL DA GAMBA BOW. Ancient shape. No screw. This shape in use later
than 1756.

8. VIOLONCELLO BOW. Modern shape, with screw.


_Bottom row, counting from left._

1. BASS VIOL, or VIOL DA GAMBA, or DIVISION VIOL. Italian, 1600.
Carved head, inlaid fingerboard, carved and inlaid tailpiece. 6
strings, 7 frets.

2. LUTE. Italian, 1580. Three plain holes in belly, obliquely.
Ornamental back. Flat head. Pegs turned with key from behind. 12
strings--viz., 1 single (treble), 4 doubles, 1 single, and 2 singles
off the fingerboard (basses). 10 frets.

3. ARCH LUTE. Italian, 17th century. 18 strings, 8 on lower neck, 10
on higher, off the fingerboard. The latter are 'basses,' and probably
half of them duplicates. 7 frets on neck, 5 more on belly.




INTRODUCTORY


A principal character of the works of a very great author is, that in
them each man can find that for which he seeks, and in a form which
includes his own view.

With Shakespeare, as one of the greatest of the great, this is
pre-eminently the case. One reader looks for simply dramatic interest,
another for natural philosophy, and a third for morals, and each is
more than satisfied with the treatment of his own special subject.

It is scarcely a matter of surprise, therefore, that the musical
student should look in Shakespeare for music, and find it treated of
from several points of view, completely and accurately.

This is the more satisfactory, as no subject in literature has been
treated with greater scorn for accuracy, or general lack of real
interest, than this of music.

This statement will admit of comparatively few exceptions, one of
which must here be mentioned.

The author of "John Inglesant," Mr Shorthouse, whether he "crammed"
his music or not, has in that book given a lively and quite accurate
picture of the art as practised about Charles I.'s time.

There is no need here to name the many well-known writers who have
spoken of music with a lofty disregard for facts and parade of
ignorance which, displayed in any other matter, would have brought on
them the just contempt of any reviewer.

The student of music in Shakespeare is bound to view the subject in
two different ways, the first purely historical, the second (so to
speak) psychological.

As for the first, the most superficial comparison of the plays alone,
with the records of the practice and social position of the musical
art in Elizabethan times, shews that Shakespeare is in every way a
trustworthy guide in these matters; while, as for the second view,
there are many most interesting passages which treat of music from the
emotional standpoint, and which clearly shew his thorough personal
appreciation of its higher and more spiritual qualities.

Hamlet tells us, and we believe, often without clearly understanding,
that players are _the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time_, and
that the end of playing, both at the first and now, was, and is, to
hold the mirror up to nature, and _to shew the very age and body of
the time, his form and pressure_.

The study of this one feature of the "age and body" of Shakespeare's
time, with the view of clearly grasping the extreme accuracy of the
"abstract and brief chronicle" to be found in his works, will surely
go some way to give definiteness and force to our ideas of
Shakespeare's magnificent grip of all other phases of thought and of
action.

The argument recommends itself--"If he is trustworthy in this subject,
he is trustworthy in all."

To a professional reader at all events, it argues very much indeed in
a writer's favour, that the "layman" has managed to write the simplest
sentence about a specialty, without some more or less serious blunder.

Finally, no Shakespeare student will deny that some general help is
necessary, when Schmidt's admirable Lexicon commits itself to such a
misleading statement as that a virginal is a kind of small pianoforte,
and when a very distinguished Shakespeare scholar has allowed a
definition of a viol as a six-stringed guitar to appear in print under
his name.

Out of thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare, there are no less than
thirty-two which contain interesting references to music and musical
matters _in the text itself_. There are also over three hundred stage
directions which are musical in their nature, and these occur in
thirty-six out of thirty-seven plays.

The musical references in the text are most commonly found in the
comedies, and are generally the occasion or instrument of
word-quibbling and witticisms; while the musical stage directions
belong chiefly to the tragedies, and are mostly of a military nature.

As it is indispensable that the student of Shakespeare and Music
should have a clear idea of the social status and influence of music
in Shakespearian times, here follows a short sketch of the history of
this subject, which the reader is requested to peruse with the
deliberate object of finding every detail confirmed in Shakespeare's
works.


MUSIC IN SOCIAL LIFE.

(_Temp., 16th and 17th centuries._)

Morley, "Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music," 1597, pp. 1
and 2. Here we read of a dinner-party, or "banket," at which the
conversation was entirely about music. Also--after supper--_according
to custom_--"parts" were handed round by the hostess. Philomathes has
to make many excuses as to his vocal inability, and finally is obliged
to confess that he cannot sing at all. At this the rest of the company
"wonder"--and some whisper to their neighbours, "How was he brought
up?" Phil. is ashamed--and goes to seek Gnorimus the music-master. The
master is surprised to see him--as Phil. has heretofore distinguished
himself by inveighing against music as a "corrupter of good manners,
and an allurement to vices." Phil.'s experience of the supper-party
has so far changed his views that he wishes as soon as may be to
change his character of Stoic for that of Pythagorean. Thereupon the
master begins to teach him from the very beginning, "as though he were
a child."

Then follows a long lesson--which is brought to an end by Philomathes
giving farewell to the master as thus--"Sir, I thanke you, and meane
so diligently to practise till our next meeting, that then I thinke I
shall be able to render you a full account of all which you have told
me, till the which time I wish you such contentment of mind and ease
of body as you desire to yourselfe (Master's health had been very bad
for long enough) or mothers use to wish to their children." The Master
replies--"I thanke you: and assure your selfe it will not be the
smallest part of my contentment to see my schollers go towardly
forward in their studies, which I doubt not but you will doe, if you
take but reasonable pains in practise."

Later on in the Third Part (p. 136) Phil.'s brother Polymathes comes
with him to Gnorimus for a lesson in Descant--_i.e._, the art of
extemporaneously adding a part to the written plainsong.[1] This
brother had had lessons formerly from a master who carried a plainsong
book in his pocket, and caused him to do the like; "and so walking in
the fields, hee would sing the plaine song, and cause me to sing the
descant, etc." Polymathes tells us also that his master had a friend,
a descanter himself, who used often to drop in--but "never came in my
maister's companie ... but they fell to contention.... What? (saith
the one), you keepe not time in your proportions: you sing them false
(saith the other), what proportion is this? (saith hee),
sesqui-_paltery_ (saith the other): nay (would the other say), you
sing you know not what, it shoulde seeme you came latelie from a
Barber's shop, where you had _Gregory Walker_ (derisive name for
'quadrant pavan,' 'which was most common 'mongst the Barbars and
Fidlers') or a _curranta_ plaide in the new proportions by them lately
found out, called sesqui-_blinda_, and sesqui-_harken-after_."

[Footnote 1: See Appendix.]

[These mocking terms, sesqui-_paltery_, sesqui-_blinda_, and
sesqui-_harken-after_, are perversions of names of "proportions" used
in the 16th century--as, sesqui-_altera_ (3 equal notes against 2).]

We find, on p. 208, that both Philomathes and Polymathes are young
University gentlemen--looking forward hereafter to be "admitted to the
handling of the weightie affaires of the common wealth."

The lessons end with their request to the master to give them "some
songes which may serve both to direct us in our compositions, and by
singing them recreate us after our more serious studies."

Thus we find that in Elizabeth's reign it was the "custom" for a
lady's guests to sing unaccompanied music from "parts," after supper;
and that inability to take "a part" was liable to remark from the rest
of the company, and indeed that such inability cast doubt on the
person having any title to education at all.

We find that one music master was accustomed to have his gentleman
pupils so constantly "in his company" that they would practise their
singing while "walking in the fields."

Finally--that part-singing from written notes, and also the extempore
singing of a second part (descant) to a written plainsong, was a
diversion of such young University gentlemen, and was looked on as a
proper form of recreation after hard reading.

In the 16th century music was considered an _essential_ part of a
clergyman's education. A letter from Sir John Harrington to Prince
Henry (brother of Charles I.) about Dr John Still, Bishop of Bath and
Wells in 1592, says that no one "could be admitted to _primam
tonsuram_, except he could first _bene le bene con bene can_, as they
called it, which is to read well, to conster [construe] well, and to
_sing well_, in which last he hath good judgment." [The three _bene's_
are of course _le-gere, con-struere, can-tare_.]

Also, according to Hawkins (History of Music, p. 367), the statutes of
Trinity College, Cambridge, founded by Henry VIII., make part of the
Examination of Candidates for Fellowships to be in "Quid in Cantando
possint"; indeed, _all members were supposed capable of singing a part
in choir service_.[2]

[Footnote 2: This statement of Hawkins' seems a little exaggerated. Mr
Aldis Wright tells me that the statutes provided for an examination in
singing for Candidates for Fellowships, and that ability gave a
candidate an advantage, in case of equality. Singing was not required
of all candidates, but the subject was considered on the fourth day of
the examination, along with the essay and verse composition.]

(Long before this, in 1463, Thomas Saintwix, _doctor in music_, was
elected Master of King's College, Cambridge.)

Accordingly, we find Henry VIII., who, as a younger brother, was
intended for the Church, and eventually for the See of Canterbury, was
a good practical musician. Erasmus says he composed offices for the
church. An anthem, "O Lord, the maker of all things," is ascribed to
him; and Hawkins gives a motet in three parts by the king, "Quam
pulchra es."

Chappell's Old English Popular Music gives a passage from a letter of
Pasqualigo the Ambassador-extraordinary, dated about 1515, which says
that Henry VIII. "plays well on the lute and virginals, sings from
book at sight," etc. Also in Vol. I. are given two part-songs by the
king, 'Pastyme with good companye' and 'Wherto shuld I expresse.'

A somewhat unclerical amusement of Henry VIII.'s is related by Sir
John Harrington (temp. James I.). An old monkish rhyme, "The Blacke
Saunctus, or Monkes Hymn to Saunte Satane," was set to music in a
canon of three parts by Harrington's father (who had married a natural
daughter of Henry VIII.); and King Henry was used "in pleasaunt moode
to sing it." For the music and words, see Hawkins, pp. 921 and 922.

Anne Boleyn was an enthusiastic musician, and, according to Hawkins,
"doted on the compositions of Jusquin and Mouton, and had collections
of them made for the private practice of herself and her maiden
companions."

It appears from the Diary of King Edward VI. that he was a musician,
as he mentions playing on the lute before the French Ambassador as one
of the several accomplishments which he displayed before that
gentleman, July 19th, 1551.

There is also a letter from Queen Catherine (of Arragon), the mother
of Queen Mary, in which she exhorts her "to use her virginals and
lute, if she has any."

As for Elizabeth, there is abundant evidence that she was a good
virginal player.

The best known MS. collection of virginal music (that in the
Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge) has at least always been known as
Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, and the following quaint story is
quoted by Hawkins from Melvil's Memoirs (Lond. 1752).

"The same day, after dinner, my Lord of Hunsdean drew me up to a quiet
gallery that I might hear some music (but he said he durst not avow
it), where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had
hearkened a while I took by [aside] the tapestry that hung before the
door of the chamber, and stood a pretty space, hearing her play
excellently well; but she left off immediately so soon as she turned
her about and saw me. She appeared to be surprised to see me, and came
forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alledging she was not
used to play before men, but when she was solitary to shun
melancholy." [Queen Elizabeth's Virginal is in South Kensington
Museum.]

To go on with the Royal musicians (who are interesting as such,
because their habit _must have set the fashion of the day_), in James
I.'s reign we find that Prince Charles learnt the Viol da Gamba from
Coperario (_i.e._, John Cooper). Also Playford (temp. Charles II.)
says of Charles I. that the king "often appointed the service and
anthems himself" in the Royal Chapel; "and would play his part exactly
well on the bass-violl,"--_i.e._, the viol da gamba.

George Herbert, who was by birth a courtier, found in music "his
chiefest recreation," "and did himself compose many divine hymns and
anthems, which he set and sung to his lute or viol.... His love to
music was such, that he went usually twice every week ... to the
cathedral church in Salisbury; and at his return would say that his
time spent in prayer and cathedral music elevated his soul, and was
his heaven upon earth." But not only was the poet-priest a lover of
church music, for (Walton's Life goes on) "before his return thence to
Bemerton, he would usually _sing and play his part at an appointed
private music meeting_." This was fourteen years after Shakespeare's
death.

Anthony Wood, who was at Oxford University in 1651, gives a most
interesting account of the practice of chamber music for viols (and
even violins, which, by Charles II.'s time, had superseded the feebler
viols) in Oxford. In his Life, he mentions that "the gentlemen in
privat meetings, which A.W. frequented, play'd three, four, and five
Parts with Viols, as, Treble-Viol, Tenor, Counter-Tenor, and Bass,
with an Organ, Virginal, or Harpsicon joyn'd with them: and they
esteemed a Violin to be an Instrument only belonging to a common
Fidler, and could not endure that it should come among them, for feare
of making their Meetings to be vaine and fidling." Wood went to a
_weekly meeting_ of musicians in Oxford. Amongst those whom he names
as "performing their parts" are four Fellows of New College, a Fellow
of All Souls, who was "an admirable Lutenist," "Ralph Sheldon, Gent.,
a Rom. Catholick ... living in Halywell neare Oxon., admired for his
smooth and admirable way in playing on the Viol," and a Master of Arts
of Magdalen, who had a weekly meeting at his own college. Besides the
amateurs, there were eight or nine professional musicians who
frequented these meetings. This was in 1656, and in 1658 Wood gives
the names of over sixteen other persons, with whom he used to play and
sing, all of whom were Fellows of Colleges, Masters of Arts, or at
least members of the University. Amongst them was "Thom. Ken of New
Coll., a Junior" (afterwards Bishop Ken, one of the seven bishops who
were deprived at the Revolution), who could "sing his part." All the
rest played either viol, violin, organ, virginals, or harpsichord, or
were "songsters."

"These did frequent the Weekly Meetings, and _by the help of public
Masters of Musick_, who were mixed with them, they were much
improved."

There seems to have been little that was not pure enjoyment in these
meetings. Only two persons out of the thirty-two mentioned seem to
have had any undesirable quality--viz., Mr Low, organist of Christ
Church, who was "a _proud_ man," and "could not endure any common
Musitian to come to the meeting;" and "Nathan. Crew, M.A., Fellow of
Linc. Coll., a Violinist and Violist, _but alwaies played out of
Tune_." This last gentleman was afterwards Bishop of Durham.

Thus we find that in the 16th and 17th centuries a practical
acquaintance with music was a regular part of the education of both
sovereign, gentlemen of rank, and the higher middle class.

We find Henry VIII. composing church music, and at the same time
enjoying himself singing in the three-part canon composed by his
friend, a gentleman of rank.

We find that a Fellow of Trinity at the same time was expected to
sing "his part" in chapel as a matter of course. We find Edward VI.,
Mary, and Elizabeth to have all been capable players on lute or
virginals. We find that it was the merest qualification that an
Elizabethan bishop should be able to sing well; and that young
University gentlemen of birth thought it nothing out of the way to
learn all the mysteries of both prick-song (a _written_ part) and
descant (an _extempore_ counterpoint), and to solace their weary hours
by singing "in parts."

Immediately after Shakespeare's time, we find a courtier of James I.,
and the ill-fated Prince Charles himself, both enthusiasts in both
church and chamber music; and lastly, two years after the Regicide, we
find the University of Oxford to have been a perfect hotbed of musical
cultivation. Men who afterwards became Bishops, Archdeacons,
Prebendaries, besides sixteen Fellows of Colleges, and sundry
gentlemen of family, were not ashamed to practise chamber music and
singing to an extent which really has no parallel whatever nowadays.

There is plenty of evidence, though more indirect in kind, that the
lower classes were as enthusiastic about music as the higher. A large
number of passages in contemporary authors shows clearly that singing
in parts (especially of "catches") was a common amusement with
blacksmiths, colliers, cloth-workers, cobblers, tinkers, watchmen,
country parsons, and soldiers.

In _Damon and Pithias_, 1565, Grimme, the _collier_, sings "a bussing
[buzzing] base," and two of his friends, Jack and Will, "quiddel upon
it," _i.e._, they sing the tune and words, while he buzzes the burden.

Peele's _Old Wives Tale_, 1595, says, "This _smith_ leads a life as
merry as a king; Sirrah Frolic, I am sure you are not without some
_round_ or other; no doubt but Clunch [the smith] can _bear his
part_."

Beaumont and Fletcher's _Coxcomb_ has

     "Where were the _watch_ the while? good sober gentlemen,
     They were, like careful members of the city,
     Drawing in diligent ale, and _singing catches_."

Also in B. and F.'s _Faithful Friends_--

     "_Bell._--Shall's have a _catch_, my hearts?

     _Calve._--Aye, good lieutenant.

     _Black._--Methinks a _soldier_[3] should sing nothing else;
     _catch, that catch may_ is all our life, you know."

[Footnote 3: Drayton (James I.'s reign) in his "Battle of Agincourt,"
l. 1199, has--"The common Souldiers free-mens _catches_ sing"--of the
French before the battle (_free_men is a corruption of _three_men).]

[In _Bonduca_, a play of B. and F's., altered for operatic setting by
Purcell in 1695, there is a catch in three parts, sung by the Roman
soldiers.]

In Sir William Davenant's (Davenant flourished 1635) comedy _The
Wits_, Snore, one of the characters, says--

     "It must be late, for gossip Nock, the _nailman_,
     Had catechized his maids, and _sung three catches
     And a song_, ere we set forth."

Samuel Harsnet, in his _Declaration of Egregious Impostures_, 1603,
mentions a 'merry catch,' 'Now God be with old Simeon' (for which see
Rimbault's Rounds, Canons, and Catches of England), which he says was
sung by _tinkers_ 'as they sit by the fire, with a pot of good ale
between their legs.'

And in _The Merry Devill of Edmonton_, 1631, there is a comical story
of how Smug _the miller_ was _singing a catch_ with the _merry Parson_
in an alehouse, and how they 'tost' the words "_I'll ty my mare in thy
ground_," 'so long to and fro,' that Smug forgot he was singing a
catch, and began to quarrel with the Parson, 'thinking verily, he had
meant (as he said in his song) to _ty his mare in his ground_.'

Finally, in _Pammelia_, a collection of Rounds and Catches of 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 parts, edited by Thomas Ravenscroft, and
published in 1609, there is a curious preface, which states that
'Catches are so _generally affected_ ... because they are so consonant
to _all ordinary musical capacity_, being such, indeed, as all such
_whose love of musick exceeds their skill_, cannot but commend.' The
preface further asserts that the book is 'published only _to please
good company_.'

To go on to _instrumental_ music among the lower classes of
Elizabethan and Shakespearian times; there is an allusion in the above
quoted passage from Morley (1597) to the habit of playing on an
instrument in a barber's shop while waiting one's turn to be shaved.
This is also referred to in Ben Jonson's _Alchemist_ and _Silent
Woman_. In the latter play, Cutberd the barber has recommended a wife
to Morose. Morose finds that instead of a mute helpmate he has got one
who had 'a tongue with a tang,' and exclaims 'that cursed _barber_! I
have married his _cittern_ that is common to all men': meaning that as
the barber's cittern was always being played, so his wife was always
talking.

There is a poem of the 18th century which speaks of the old times,

     'In former time 't hath been upbrayded thus,
     That _barber's musick_ was most _barbarous_.'

However true that may have been--at all events it is certain that in
the 16th and 17th centuries it was customary to hear instrumental
music in a barber's shop, generally of a cittern, which had four
strings and frets, like a guitar, and was thought a vulgar
instrument.[4]

[Footnote 4: The Cittern of the barber's shop had four double strings
of wire, tuned thus--1st, E in 4th space of treble staff; 2nd, D a
tone lower; 3rd, G on 2nd line; 4th, B on 3rd line. The instrument had
a carved head. See _L.L.L._ V. ii., lines 600-603, of Holofernes'
head. Also the frontispiece, where the treble viol and viol-da-gamba
have carved heads, both human, but of different types. Fantastic
heads, as of dragons or gargoyles, were often put on these
instruments.]

Another use of instrumental music was to entertain the guests in a
tavern. A pamphlet called _The Actor's Remonstrance_, printed 1643,
speaks of the _decay_ of music in taverns, which followed the closing
of theatres in 1642, as follows:--"Our music, that was held so
delectable and precious [_i.e._, in Shakespeare's times], that _they
scorned to come to a tavern under twenty shillings_ salary _for two
hours_, now wander [_i.e._, 1643] with their instruments under their
cloaks--I mean, such as have any--into all houses of good fellowship,
saluting every room where there is company with, 'Will you have any
music, gentlemen?'"

Finally, in Gosson's "Short Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse," 1587,
we find that "London is so full of unprofitable pipers and fiddlers,
that a man can no sooner enter a tavern, than two or three cast of
them hang at his heels, to give him a dance before he depart." These
men sang ballads and catches as well. Also they played during dinner.
Lyly says--"Thou need no more send for a fidler to a feast, than a
beggar to a fair."

All this leads to the just conclusion, that if ever a country deserved
to be called 'musical,' that country was England, in the 16th and 17th
centuries. King and courtier, peasant and ploughman, each could 'take
his part,' with each music was a part of his daily life; while so far
from being above knowing the difference between a minim and a
crotchet, a gentleman would have been ashamed not to know it.

In this respect, at any rate, the 'good old days' were indeed better
than those that we now see. Even a _public-house song_ in Elizabeth's
day was a canon in three parts, a thing which could only be managed
'first time through' nowadays by the very first rank of professional
singers.




SHAKESPEARE PASSAGES




I

TECHNICAL TERMS AND INSTRUMENTS


We now proceed to consider some representative passages of Shakespeare
which deal with music.

These may be taken roughly in six divisions--viz. (1) Technical Terms
and Instruments, (2) Musical Education, (3) Songs and Singing, (4)
Serenades and other domestic 'Music,' (5) Dances and Dancing, (6)
Miscellaneous, including Shakespeare's account of the more spiritual
side of music.

To begin on the first division. There are many most interesting
passages which bristle with technical words; and these are liable to
be understood by the reader in a merely general way, with the result
that the point is wholly or partly missed. With a reasonable amount of
explanation, and a general caution to the student not to pass over
words or phrases that appear obscure, there is no reason why these
passages should not be understood by all in a much fuller light.

The following lines, though not in a play, are so full of musical
similes that it may be useful to take them at once.

_Lucrece_, line 1124.

     "My _restless discord_ loves no _stops_ nor _rests_;
     A woful hostess brooks not merry guests.
     Relish your _nimble notes_ to pleasing ears;
     Distress like _dumps_, when _time is kept_ with tears."

(Then to the nightingale)--

     "Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
     Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:
     As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
     So I at each sad _strain_ will _strain_ a tear,
     And with deep groans the _diapason_ bear;
     For _burden_ wise I'll _hum_ on Tarquin still,
     While thou on Tereus _descant'st_ better skill.

     And while against a thorn thou _bear'st thy part_,
     To keep thy sharp woes waking....

     These means, as _frets_ upon an _instrument_,
     Shall _tune_ our heart-_strings_ to true languishment."

Here Lucrece tells the birds to cease their joyous notes, and calls on
the nightingale to sing the song of Tereus, while she herself bears
the 'burden' with her groans.

The first line contains a quibble on 'rests' and 'restless' discord.
'Nimble notes' was used in the Shakespearian time as we should use the
term 'brilliant music.' Lucrece was in no humour for trills and runs,
but rather for Dumps, where she could keep slow time with her tears.
The Dumpe (from Swedish Dialect, _dumpa_, to dance awkwardly) was a
slow, mournful dance. [See Appendix.] There is another quibble in l.
1131, on _strain_. A 'strain' is the proper Elizabethan word for a
formal phrase of a musical composition. For instance, in a Pavan,
Morley (Introduction to Practical Music, 1597) says a 'straine' should
consist of 8, 12, or 16 semibreves (we should say 'bars' instead of
'semibreves') 'as they list, yet fewer then eight I have not seene in
any pauan.'

'Diapason' meant the interval of an octave. Here Lucrece says she will
'bear the diapason' with deep groans, _i.e._, 'hum' a 'burden' or
drone an octave lower than the nightingale's 'descant.' The earliest
'burden' known is that in the ancient Round 'Sumer is icumen in,' of
the 13th century. Here four voices sing the real music in canon to
these words--

     'Sumer is icumen in, Lhudè sing Cuccu,
     Groweth seed and bloweth mead and springth the wdè nu,
            Sing Cuccu,
     Awè bleteth after lomb, lhouth after calvè cu,
     Bulluc sterteth, Buckè verteth, murie sing cuccu,
            Cuccu, Cuccu,
     Wel singès thu cuccu, ne swik thu naver nu.'--

while all the time two other voices of lower pitch sing a monotonous
refrain, 'Sing cuccu nu, Sing cuccu,' which they repeat _ad infinitum_
till the four who sing the Round are tired. This refrain is called Pes
(or 'foot'), and this is the kind of thing which Lucrece means by
'burden.' The word 'hum' may be considered technical, see the
Introduction, where '_buzzing_ bass' is referred to. The tune, 'Light
o' love' [see Appendix], as we know from _Much Ado_ III, iv, 41, used
to go _without_ a burden, and was considered a 'light' tune on that
account, see _Two Gent._ I, ii, 80.

'Descant,' in l. 1134, wants explaining. To 'descant' meant to sing or
play an _extempore_ second 'part' to a written melody. The point was
that it should be extempore; if written down it ceased to be true
descant, and was then called 'prick-song.' A rough example may be had
in the extempore bass or alto which some people still sing in church
instead of the melody. A more accurate example of descant would be
this--let A sing a hymn tune, say the Old 100th, and let B accompany
him _extempore_ with a separate melody within the bounds of harmony. B
is 'descanting' on the melody that A sings.[5]

[Footnote 5: Appendix, Ex. 1.]

The art of descant in Elizabeth's time corresponded closely with what
we call 'Strict Counterpoint' (_contra_, _punctus_, hence
'prick-song,' or 'written' descant).

The modern equivalent for 'bear a part' (l. 1135) is 'sing a part.'
[See also Sonnet VIII.] Any person of decent education could 'bear a
part' in those days, _i.e._, read at sight the treble, alto, tenor, or
bass 'part' of the work presented by the host for the diversion of his
guests. [See Introduction.]

L. 1140. 'Frets upon an instrument' can still be seen on the modern
mandoline, guitar, and banjo. In Shakespeare days, the viol, lute, and
cittern all had frets on the fingerboard, but they were then simply
bits of string tied round at the right places for the fingers, and
made fast with glue. Their use is referred to in the next line, to
'tune' the strings, _i.e._, to 'stop' the string accurately at each
semitone.

There is a quaint illustration of ll. 1135-6, about the nightingale
singing 'against a thorn' to keep her awake, in the words of a
favourite old part song of King Henry VIII., 'By a bank as I lay,'
where the poem has these lines on the nightingale--

     'She syngeth in the thyke; and under her brest
     A pricke, to kepe hur fro sleepe.'

In close connection with this is the conversation between Julia and
her maid Lucetta, in _Two Gent._ I, ii, 76-93, about the letter from
Proteus.

     _Jul._ Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.

     _Luc._ That I might _sing_ it, madam, to a _tune_:
          _Give me a note_: your ladyship can _set_.

     _Jul._ As little by such toys as may be possible:
          Best sing it to the tune of "Light o' love."

     _Luc._ It is too heavy for so _light_ a tune.

     _Jul._ _Heavy?_ belike, it hath some _burden_ then.

     _Luc._ Ay, and melodious were it, would you sing it.

     _Jul._ And why not you?

     _Luc._                  I cannot _reach so high_.

     _Jul._ Let's see your song.--How now, minion!

     _Luc._ _Keep tune_ there still, so you will _sing it out_;
          And yet, methinks, I do not like this tune.

     _Jul._ You do not?

     _Luc._             No, madam, it is _too sharp_.

     _Jul._ You, minion, are too saucy.

     _Luc._                             Nay, now you are _too flat_,
          And _mar the concord_ with _too harsh a descant_:
          There wanteth but a _mean_ to fill your song.

     _Jul._ The _mean_ is _drown'd_ with your _unruly base_.

     _Luc._ Indeed, I bid the _base_ for Proteus.

Perhaps it is sufficient to remark that many of the italicized words
above are still in ordinary use by musicians--_e.g._, to 'give the
note' in order to 'set' the pitch for singing; to 'keep in tune,' to
'sing out'; or one voice is 'drowned' by another, as the 'mean' (alto)
by the 'bass.' Once more we have quibbles on musical terms--Lucetta
says the 'tune,' _i.e._, Julia's testiness about Proteus' letter, is
'too sharp,' and that her chiding of herself is 'too flat,' meaning,
that neither is in 'concord' with the spirit of the love-letter.
Lucetta recommends the middle course, or 'mean' (alto voice, midway
between treble and bass), 'to _fill_ the song,' _i.e._, to perfect the
harmony. Finally, there is a punning reference (somewhat prophetic) by
Lucetta, to the 'base' conduct of Proteus, in forsaking Julia for
Silvia. Another play upon words should not be missed, viz., in ll. 78
and 79, where 'set' does double duty.

_Rom._ III, v, 25. Romeo and Juliet's parting at daybreak. The lark's
song suggests musical metaphors in Juliet's speech.

     _Romeo._ How is't, my soul? let's talk, it is not day.

     _Jul._ It is, it is; hie hence, be gone, away!
          It is the _lark_ that sings so _out of tune_,
          Straining _harsh discords_, and unpleasing _sharps_.
          Some say, the lark makes _sweet division_;
          _This_ doth not so, for she _divideth us_.

Juliet evidently agrees with Portia that 'nothing is good without
respect.' The lark heralds the dawn, so Romeo must leave her, _ergo_,
the lark sings 'out of tune,' his strains are full of 'discords' and
'sharps.' The last two lines contain an interesting allusion in the
word 'division,' besides the pun on 'she _divideth us_.'

'Division' means roughly, a brilliant passage, of short notes, which
is founded essentially on a much simpler passage of longer notes. A
cant term for the old-fashioned variation (_e.g._, the variations of
the 'Harmonious Blacksmith') was 'Note-splitting,' which at once
explains itself, and the older word 'Division.' A very clear example
of Divisions may be found in 'Rejoice greatly' in the Messiah. The
long 'runs' on the second syllable of '_Rejoice_,' consisting of
several groups of four semiquavers, are simply 'division' or
'note-splittings' of the first note of each group.

The word, however, has a further use, namely, to play 'divisions' on a
viol-da-gamba. This was a favourite accomplishment of gentlemen in the
16th and 17th centuries. Sir Andrew Aguecheek numbered this amongst
his attainments, (see _Twelfth Night_ I, iii, 24); and readers of John
Inglesant will remember that 'Mr Inglesant, being pressed to oblige
the company, played a descant upon a ground bass in the Italian
manner.' Playing a descant on a ground bass meant playing extempore
'divisions' or variations, to the harmony of a 'ground bass' which
(with its proper chords) was repeated again and again by the
harpsichordist, until the viol player had exhausted his capacity to
produce further 'breakings' of the harmony.

In 1665 there was published an instruction book in this art, called
Chelys Minuritionum, _i.e._, the 'Tortoise-shell of Diminutions,'
hence (Chelys meaning a lyre, made of a tortoise-shell) 'The Division
Viol.' The book is by Christopher Sympson, a Royalist soldier, who was
a well-known viol-da-gamba player. The work is in three parts, the
third of which is devoted to the method of ordering division on a
ground.

To give his own words--

'Diminution or division to a ground, is the breaking either of the
bass or of any higher part that is applicable thereto. The manner of
expressing it is thus:--

'A ground, subject, or bass, call it what you please, is prick'd down
in two several papers; one for him who is to play the ground upon an
organ, harpsichord, or what other instrument may be apt for that
purpose; the other for him that plays upon the viol, who having the
said ground before his eyes as his theme or subject, plays such
variety of descant or division in concordance thereto as his skill and
present invention do then suggest unto him.'

[See the Appendix for an example by Sympson.]

Further on, he distinguishes between 'breaking the notes of the
_ground_' and 'descanting upon' the ground.

This phrase, 'breaking' notes, may be taken as a partial explanation
of several passages on Shakespeare, where 'broken music' is referred
to, although it is likely that a better account of this may be found
in the natural imperfection of the Lute, which, being a _pizzicato_
instrument (_i.e._, the strings were plucked, not played with a bow),
could not do more than indicate the harmony in 'broken' pieces, first
a bass note, then perhaps two notes at once, higher up in the scale,
the player relying on the hearer to piece the harmony together.

An entirely different explanation is that of Mr Chappell (in Aldis
Wright's Clarendon Press Edition of Henry V.), viz., that when a
'consort' of viols was imperfect, _i.e._, if one of the players was
absent, and an instrument of another kind, _e.g._, a flute, was
substituted, the music was thus said to be 'broken.' _Cf._ Matt.
Locke's 'Compositions for Broken and Whole Consorts,' 1672.

[Mr Aldis Wright has given me references to Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum,
III., 278, and Essay of Masque and Triumph, which show that 'Broken
Music' was understood to mean _any combination of instruments of
different kinds_. In Sylva Sylvarum Bacon mentions several 'consorts
of Instruments' which agree well together, _e.g._, 'the Irish Harp and
Base-Viol agree well: the Recorder and Stringed Music agree well:
Organs and the Voice agree well, etc. But the Virginals and the Lute
... agree not so well.' All these, and similar combinations, seem to
have been described as 'Broken Music.']

In point, see _Hen. V._ V, ii, 248, where Henry proposes to
Katherine.

     _K. Hen._ Come, your answer in _broken music_; for thy
     _voice is music_, and thy _English broken_; therefore, queen
     of all, Katherine, _break_ thy mind to me in _broken_
     English: wilt thou have me?

Also see _Troilus_ III, i, 52 and ff. (quoted further on).

An entirely separate use of 'break' is in the phrase 'broken time,'
which has the simple and obvious meaning that the notes do not receive
their due length and proportion. In this connection we will take the
passage of King Richard's speech in prison at Pontefract--when he
hears music without, performed by some friendly hands.

_Rich. II._ V, v, 41. King R. in prison.

     _K. Rich._                _Music_ do I hear?
          Ha, ha! _keep time_.--How sour sweet music is,
          When _time is broke_, and no _proportion kept_!
          So is it in the music of men's lives.
          And here have I the _daintiness of ear_,
          To check _time broke_ in a _disorder'd string_;
          But, for the _concord_ of _my_ state and _time_,
          Had not an _ear_ to hear my true _time broke_.

            *       *       *       *       *

          _This music mads me_: let it sound no more:
          For though _it hath holp madmen_ to their wits,
          In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad.

The simile is perfect, and the play upon 'time broke' admirable. In l.
45 Richard reflects on the sad contrast between his quick 'ear' for
'broken time' in music, and his slowness to hear the 'breaking' of his
_own_ 'state and time.' The 'disorder'd string' is himself, who has
been playing his part 'out of time' ('Disorder'd' simply means 'out of
its place'--_i.e._, as we now say, 'a bar wrong'), and this has
resulted in breaking the 'concord'--_i.e._, the harmony of the various
parts which compose the state.

A few words are necessary about 'Proportion.' This term was used in
Elizabethan times exactly as we now use 'Time.' The 'times' used in
modern music can practically be reduced to two--viz., Duple (two beats
to the bar) and Triple (three beats to the bar). But in Elizabeth's
day the table of various Proportions was a terribly elaborate thing.
Of course many of these 'Proportions' never really came into practical
use--but there was plenty of mystery left even after all deductions.

Morley (Introduction, 1597) gives Five kinds of proportions 'in most
common use'--viz., Dupla, Tripla, Quadrupla, Sesquialtera, and
Sesquitertia. The first three correspond to what we still call Duple,
Triple, and Quadruple Time--_i.e._, 2 in the bar, 3 in the bar, and 4
in the bar. ['Bars' were not in general use till the end of the 16th
century, but the principle was the same. The bars themselves are
merely a convenience.]

Sesquialtera is more complicated, and means 'three notes are sung to
two of the same kinde'; and 'Sesquitertia is when four notes are sung
to three of the same kinde.' 'But' (Morley adds), 'if a man would
ingulphe himselfe to learn to sing, and set down all them which
Franchinus Gaufurius [1496] hath set down in his booke De
Proportionibus Musicis, he should find it a matter not only hard but
almost impossible.'

Ornithoparcus, in his Micrologus (1535), gives us an idea of the way
this subject of proportion was treated by more 'learned' writers. He
says (1) that music considers only the proportion of inequality, (2)
that this is two-fold--viz., the greater and the lesser inequality.
(3) The greater inequality contains five proportions, namely,
multiplex, superparticular, superpartiens, multiplex superparticular,
and multiplex superpartiens.

This is more amusing than instructive, perhaps. The three last lines
of this passage refer to the various stories of real or pretended
cure of disease by the use of particular pieces of music. One of the
best known of these diseases is 'Tarantism,' or the frenzy produced by
the bite of the Tarantula, in Italy.

Kircher, a learned Jesuit (1601-1680), gives an account, in his
"Musurgia," of the cure of this madness by certain airs, by which the
patient is stimulated to dance violently. The perspiration thus
produced was said to effect a cure. In his "Phonurgia nova" (1673)
Kircher actually gives the notes of the tune by which one case was
cured.

In this connection, Kircher mentions King Saul's madness, which was
relieved by David's harp playing. This is certainly to the point, and
may well have been in Shakespeare's mind. [See George Herbert's poem,
'Doomsday,' verse 2.]

Our modern Tarantellas derive their name and characteristic speed from
the old Tarantula.

_Lear_ I, ii, 137. Edmund pretends not to see Edgar's entrance.

     _Edmund (aside)._ Pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the
     old comedy: my cue is villainous melancholy, with a _sigh
     like Tom o' Bedlam_.--O! these eclipses do portend _these
     divisions_. _Fa, sol, la, mi._

Songs like 'Tom o' Bedlam,' mad-songs they were called, were very
commonly sung in England in the 17th century. The tune and words of
the original 'Tom a Bedlam' are to be found in Chappell, Vol. I. p.
175. Its date is some time before 1626,[6] and verse 1 begins, 'From
the hagg and hungrie Goblin,' and the whole is as full of ejaculations
of 'Poor Tom' as Act III. of _Lear_.

[Footnote 6: Rimbault's preface to the Musical Antiquarian Society's
reprint of Purcell's opera, "Bonduca," says that Mad Tom was written
by Coperario in 1612, for the Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's
Inn, by Beaumont. This was, 'Forth from my sad and darksome sell.']

The last sentence has yet another play on the double meaning of
'divisions.' A few lines further on Edmund explains what kind of
'divisions' he expects to follow the eclipses--namely, 'between the
child and the parent ... dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in
state,' etc. But the very use of the word in the quoted lines brings
its musical meaning into his head, for he promptly carries off his
assumed blindness to Edgar's presence by humming over his 'fa, sol,
la, mi.' [Burney, Hist., Vol. III. p. 344, has a sensible observation
on this passage--that Edgar alludes to the unnatural division of
parent and child, etc., in this musical phrase, which contains the
augmented fourth, or _mi contra fa_, of which the old theorists used
to say 'diabolus est.']

Guido d'Arezzo (or Aretinus), in his Micrologus (about 1024), named
the six notes of the Hexachord (_e.g._, C, D, E, F, G, A), thus--Ut,
Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La. These were the first syllables of certain words
in the Hymn for the feast of St John Baptist, the words and tune of
which are in Hawkins, p. 163.

    "UT queant laxis
     RE-sonare fibris
     MI-ra gestorum
     FA-muli tuorum
     SOL-ve polluti
     LA-bii reatum, Sancte Joannes."

A rough translation of which is--

     'That thy servants may be able with free hearts to sound
     forth the wonders of thy deeds; release us, O Holy John,
     from the guilt of a defiled lip.'

In the ancient tune of this verse, the notes assigned to the syllables
in capitals were successively those of the scale, C, D, E, F, G, A,
and these same syllables were still used in singing in the 16th
century. It was noticed, however, that the scale could be easily
expressed by fewer names, and accordingly we find Christopher Sympson
(1667) saying, in his 'Compendium,' that Ut and Re are 'superfluous,
and therefore laid aside by most Modern Teachers.' In his book, the
whole scale of _eight_ notes is named thus--Fa, Sol, La, Fa, Sol, La,
_mi_, Fa. A modern Tonic Solfaist would understand this arrangement
quite differently. C, D, E would be called Do (instead of Ut), Re, Mi;
then would follow F, G, A, under the names Fa, Sol, La; and the
'leading note' [top note but one] would be called Ti (instead of Si);
the octave C beginning once more with Do.

The reader will remember that the tonal relation of C, D, E is exactly
the same as that of the next three notes, F, G, A--viz., C--D, a tone;
D--E, a tone; and similarly with F--G, G--A. Therefore the two blocks
of three notes (which are separated by a _semi_-tone) might have the
same names--viz., Fa, sol, la. Thus we have the first _six_ notes of
the scale, Fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la. There only remains one note, the
'leading note,' the B; and this, in Sympson, is named _Mi_. So the
principal thing in the sol-fa-ing of a passage was to 'place the Mi,'
or, as we should now put it, to find 'what key' it is in. Thus, in the
key of C, Mi is in B: in G, Mi is in F sharp: in F, Mi is in E, and so
on, the remaining six notes being named Fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, as
explained above.

Edmund's 'Fa, Sol, La, Mi,' therefore, corresponds to F, G, A, B; or
C, D, E, F sharp; or B flat, C, D, E, etc.; according to the pitch
taken by the singer.

In this connection see the following passage:--

_Shrew_ I, ii, 16.

     _Petr._ 'Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll _wring_ it:
          I'll try how you can _sol, fa_, and _sing it_.'

     [He wrings GRUMIO by the ears.

Here is a pun on 'wring' and 'ring'; and 'sol-fa' is used as an
equivalent for 'sing.'

More important still is 'the gamut of Hortensio,' _Shrew_ III, i, 72.
[Gam-ut was the name of the Ut of lowest pitch, corresponding to the
low G on the first line of our present bass staff, and was marked
specially with a Greek Gamma, hence Gam-ut. The word became a synonym
for 'the Scale.']

In this passage the names of the notes are simply those to be found in
all instruction books of the 16th and 17th centuries.

    'Gam-ut I am, the ground of all accord,
     A-re, to plead Hortensio's passion;
     B-mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord,
     C-fa-ut, that loves with all affection:
     D sol, re, one cliff, two notes have I:
     E la, mi, show pity or I die.'

Here Hortensio puts in his love-verses under the guise of a
musicmaster's Gamut.

The lines may be taken separately as fantastic commentaries on the
syllables themselves, as well as having their ulterior meaning for
Bianca.

For instance, Gam-ut the _lowest_ note then recognised in the scale,
is called 'the _ground_ of all _accord_.' A-re, I suppose, represents
the lover's sigh 'to plead his passion.' B-mi, may be twisted into 'Be
mine,' by the light of the remaining words in the line; while 'D sol
re, one cliff, two notes have I' obviously refers to Hortensio's
disguise. The 'cliff' is what is now called a 'clef,' or 'key,'
because its position on the staff gave the 'key' to the position of
the semitones and tones on the various lines and spaces. The six notes
here mentioned are the G, A, B, C, D, E, in the bass staff. They could
only be written (as they are yet) in _one_ clef--namely, the F clef.
The expression 'two notes have I,' as applied to the D, means that, in
the key of G, D is called Sol; while in the key of C it would have the
name Re; just as Hortensio is Hortensio, and at the same time
masquerades as a singing-master.

It has been mentioned that the art of adding an extempore counterpoint
to a written melody was called 'descant.' The written melody itself
was called the 'Plain-song,' and hence the whole performance,
plainsong and descant together, came to be known by the term
'Plain-song,' as opposed to the performance of plainsong with a
_written_ descant; which was known as 'Prick-song.'

Morley gives us a clear idea that the extempore descant was often a
very unsatisfactory performance, at any rate when it was attempted to
add more than one extempore part at a time to the plainsong. As he
says--'For though they should all be moste excellent men ... it is
unpossible for them to be true one to another.' The following passage
will be more clear on this light.

_H. 5._ III, ii, 3. Fight at Harfleur.

     _Nym._ Pray thee, corporal, stay: ... the humour of it is
     too hot, that is the very _plain-song_ of it.

     _Pistol._ _The plain-song is most just_, for humours do
     abound.

       *       *       *       *       *

     L. 41.

     _Boy_ (speaks of the 3 rogues).... They will steal anything,
     and call it purchase. Bardolph _stole a lute-case_, bore it
     twelve leagues, and _sold it for three half-pence_.

Falstaff's worthy body-guard are getting tired of hard knocks in
fight; Nym compares their late activity to a somewhat florid
'plain-song' [meaning an extempore descant, as explained above];
Pistol says it is a 'just' plainsong. A 'just' plainsong would mean
that the singer had managed his extempore descant 'without singing
eyther false chords or forbidden descant one to another.' Similarly,
there is little doubt that both Ancient and Corporal managed to take a
part in the skirmishings with as little damage as possible to their
sconces.

The speech of the boy at l. 41 hardly enrols Bardolph amongst music
lovers. At all events he stole a lute-case, and seems to have liked it
so much that he carried it 36 miles before his worser nature prevailed
on him to sell it for 1-1/2d.

The next quotation still concerns Jack Falstaff and his crew, all of
whom (and strictly in accordance with history) seem to have been sound
practical musicians. This time they are speaking, not of descant, but
of Prick-song. The chiefest virtue in the performance of Prick-song,
by which Falstaff and Nym probably understood both sacred and secular
part-music, is that a man should 'keep time,' religiously counting his
rests, 'one, two, three, and the third in your bosom,' and when he
begins to sing, that he should 'keep time, distance, and proportion,'
as Mercutio says Tybalt did in his fencing, see _Romeo_ II, iv, 20.

All this is thoroughly appreciated by Falstaff and his corporal in the
following lines:--

_Merry Wiv._ I, iii, 25.

     _Falstaff_ (of Bardolph) ... his thefts were too open; his
     filching was _like an unskilful singer_, he _kept not time_.

     _Nym._ The good humour is to _steal at a minim's rest_.

     ['Minims' is a modern conjecture.]

The metaphor is of an anthem or madrigal, say in four parts. We will
suppose the Hostess of the 'Garter' is taking the _Cantus_, a tapster
the _Altus_, mine Host the _Tenor_, and Nym the _Bassus_. The three
former are all hard at work on their respective 'parts,' one in the
kitchen, another in the taproom, the third in familiar converse
outside the front door. But Nym has 'a minim rest,' and during that
short respite takes advantage of the absorbing occupations of the
other three 'singers' to lay hands on whatever portable property is
within his reach. 'A minim rest' is not much--but the point remains.
Any musician has had experience of what can be done during a short
'rest'--_e.g._, to resin his bow, or turn up the corners of the next
few pages of his music, light the gas, or find his place in another
book.

By an easy transition we pass to the following:--

_Pericles_ I, i, 81. Pericles addresses the daughter of King
Antiochus.

     _Per._ You're a _fair viol_, and _your sense the strings_,
          Who, _finger'd_ to make man his _lawful music_,
          Would draw heaven down and all the gods to hearken;
          But being _play'd upon before your time_,
          Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.

Pericles compares the lawful love of a wife with the performance of a
good viol player, the proper characteristics of which would be, 'in
tune,' and 'in time.' The comparison in l. 84 is of this girl's
lawless passion with the 'disorder'd' playing of a bad violist, who
has got 'out,' as we say; who is playing 'before his time,' thus
entirely spoiling the music, which becomes a dance for devils rather
than angels.

The viol was decidedly the most important stringed instrument played
with a bow that was in use in Elizabethan times. There were three
different sizes.

The reader will get a sufficiently accurate idea, both of the sizes
and the use of viols, if he will consider the treble viol to have
corresponded closely with our modern violin, the tenor viol to the
modern viola [which is also called Alto, Tenor, or Bratsche--_i.e._,
braccio, 'arm' fiddle], and the bass-viol, or viol-da-gamba [so called
because held between the knees], to the modern violoncello.

The principal difference from our modern stringed instruments was that
all the viols had _six_ strings, whereas now there is no 'fiddle' of
any sort with more than four. A secondary difference was, that all the
viol family had _frets_ on the fingerboard to mark out the notes,
whereas the finger-boards of all our modern instruments are smooth,
and the finger of the performer has to do without any help of that
kind.[7]

[Footnote 7: See Frontispiece.]

John Playford, in 1683, published his 'Introduction to the Skill of
Music,' which gives an account of the viols, and Thomas Mace, of
Cambridge, lay clerk of Trinity, in his 'Musick's Monument,' pub.
1676, gives full instructions how many viols and other instruments of
this kind are necessary. From these we learn that viols were always
kept in sets of six--two trebles, two tenors, and two basses--which
set was technically known as a 'Chest' of viols. Mace also says that
the treble viol had its strings just half the length of the bass viol,
and the tenor was of a medium size between these. Also he says that if
you add to these a couple of violins (which were then thought somewhat
vulgar, loud instruments) for jovial occasions, and a pair of 'lusty,
full-sized Theorboes,'[8] 'you have a ready entertainment for the
greatest prince in the world.'

[Footnote 8: Theorbo, a lute with a double neck; so called from
Tiorba, a mortar for pounding perfumes, referring to the basin-shaped
back of a lute.]

The tuning of the six strings on the _bass_-viol was, on the bass
staff, 1st string, or treble, D over the staff; 2nd or small mean, A
on the top line; 3rd or great mean, E in the third space; 4th or
counter-tenor, C in the second space; 5th or tenor, or gamut, G on the
first line; and the 6th or bass, low D, under the staff. On the most
complete viol there would be seven frets, arranged semitonally, so the
compass of the Bass Viol or Viol da Gamba would be about two octaves
and a half, from D under the bass staff to A on the second space of
the treble staff. [In South Kensington Museum is a Viol da Gamba with
no less than twelve frets still remaining. This would make the compass
nearly _three_ octaves.]

The tenor-viol had its top string tuned to G on the second line of the
treble staff; and the remaining five were the same in pitch as the top
five on the bass viol. The treble viol (as mentioned above) was tuned
exactly an octave above the bass.

The tone of the viols is very much like that of our modern bowed
instruments, the principal difference being that they are a little
feebler, and naturally more calm. The reason is that vigorous 'bowing'
is a risky thing on the viol, for, as there are _six_ strings on the
arc of the bridge, more care is required to avoid striking two or even
three at once than on the violin, which has only four.

The amateur of music would keep a 'Chest' of six Viols in his house,
and when his musical friends visited him, they would generally play
'Fancies' (or Fantasias) see _H. 4. B._ III, ii, 323, in several
parts, from two to the full six, according to the number of those
present. Amongst a great number of composers of this kind of music,
some very well known names are, John Jenkins, Chris. Sympson, William
Lawes, Coperario (John Cooper), and the Italian Monteverde. It was
common for the Organ or other keyed instrument to join with the viols
in these pieces, and thus fill out the chords of the 'consort,' as it
was called.

We still have one of the viol tribe left in our orchestra. The
double-bass (or viol-one) is lineal descendant of the Chest of viols.
Its shape, especially at the shoulders, is quite characteristic, and
elsewhere--_e.g._, the blunt curves of the waist, the outline of the
back, and even the shape of the bow.

The practice of playing extempore variations on the viol da gamba has
already been mentioned as one of the elegant accomplishments of a
gentleman in those days. The following two quotations therefore will
not require further remark.

_Tw._ I, iii, 24.

     _Maria_ [of Sir Andrew Aguecheek] ... he's a very fool, and
     a prodigal.

     _Sir Toby._ Fie, that you'll say so! he _plays o' the
     viol-de-gamboys_ ... and hath all the good gifts of nature.

_Richard II._ I, iii, 159. Banishment of Norfolk.

     _Norfolk._ The language I have learn'd these forty years,
          My native English, now I must forego;
          And now my tongue's use is to me no more
          Than an _unstringed viol_, or a _harp_;
          Or like a _cunning instrument cas'd up_,
          _Or_, being open, _put into his hands_
          That knows _no touch to tune the harmony_.

The _violin_ family had only a precarious footing amongst musicians up
to 1650. After that time, the viols declined in favour, and so
rapidly, that at the very beginning of the 18th century, Dr Tudway of
Cambridge describes a chest of viols, in a letter to his son, with
such particularity, that it is clear they had entirely fallen out of
use by 1700. As the viol fell out of fashion, the violin took its
place, and has kept it ever since.

The violin family had come into general and fashionable use under the
patronage of the Court of Louis XIV., and thus the English nation,
true to their ancient habit of buying their 'doublet in Italy, round
hose in France, bonnet in Germany, and behaviour everywhere,' took up
the 'French fiddles,' and let their national Chest of viols go to the
wall.

This growing tendency to adopt French customs, even in music, is
referred to in the following:--

_Hen. VIII._ I, iii, 41. French manners in England.

     _Lovell._ A _French song_, and a _fiddle_, has no fellow.

     _Sands._ _The devil fiddle 'em!_ I am glad they're going,
          For, sure, there's no converting of 'em: _now_,
          An honest country lord, as I am, beaten
          A long time out of _play_, may bring his _plain-song_,
          And have an hour of hearing: and, by'r lady,
          Held _current music_ too.

The only word here that has not already been fully explained is
'current music,' which I suppose to mean simply, that the old
accomplishments of which Lord Sands speaks would be still thought 'up
to date' and in the fashion.

Another instrument in common domestic use was the Recorder. This was a
kind of 'Beak-flute,' like a flageolet. Lord Bacon says it had a
conical bore, and six holes. So it had the general figure of a modern
Oboe, but was played with a 'whistle' mouthpiece instead of a reed.

The six holes may still be seen on any penny whistle, or the brass
flageolets in the music-shops.

The Recorder was known for its sweet tone. Poets used the word
'record' to signify the song of birds, especially of the nightingale.

Hawkins identifies it with the Fistula Dulcis, seu Anglica, and gives
two pictures which help to explain the next quotation.

In South Kensington Museum there is a Recorder[9] made of a dark
wood, which is nothing else but a big flageolet. Its length is 2 ft. 2
in., and its bore is that of the modern flageolet and old flute--viz.,
conical, but with the wide end nearest the player's mouth.

[Footnote 9: See Frontispiece.]

_Hamlet_ III, ii, 346. Enter Players with recorders.

     _Ham._ O! the _recorders_: let me see one....

       *       *       *       *       *

     L. 351.

     ... Will you _play upon this pipe_?

     _Guildenstern._ My lord, I cannot.

       *       *       *       *       *

     _Ham._ It is as easy as lying: govern these _ventages_ with
     your _finger and thumb_, give it _breath_ with your mouth,
     and it will discourse _most eloquent music_. Look you, these
     are _the stops_.

     _Guil._ But these cannot I command to any utterance of
     _harmony_: I have not the skill.

     _Ham._ Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
     _me_. You would _play upon me_: you would seem to _know my
     stops_; ... you would _sound me_ from my _lowest note_ to
     the _top of my compass_; and there is _much music_,
     excellent voice, in _this little organ_ [the recorder], yet
     cannot you make it _speak_. 'Sblood! do you think I am
     _easier to be played on than a pipe_? Call me what
     _instrument_ you will, though you can _fret_ me, you cannot
     _play_ upon me.

The holes in a flute have always been called 'ventages,' because the
'wind' comes through them when the fingers are removed. They were
'governed' 'with the finger and thumb.' One of the illustrations from
Mersennus [b. 1588] shows a conical flute with four holes in front and
two at the back. These latter would, of course, be controlled by the
_thumbs_, while the others would occupy two fingers on each hand.
(Modern flageolets still keep a thumb hole at the back.) There were
other beaked flutes of the same period, of a better class, which had
several keys as well as the holes.

'The stops' referred to by Hamlet are merely the 'ventages.' The act
of covering a hole with the finger or thumb was called 'stopping'; and
further, one example of the Fistula Dulcis given by Mersennus has two
different holes for the lowest note, one on the right and the other on
the left, so that the instrument might be used either by a
right-handed or left-handed person. One of these two duplicate holes
was temporarily _stopped_ with wax. [The passing play upon 'fret' in
the last line should not be missed.]

In the next passage the meaning of stop as applied to Recorders is
punned on by Hippolyta, who carries on the play from Lysander's
horsebreaking metaphor.

_Mids._ V, i, 108. The Prologue speaks with all the punctuation
wrong.

     _Theseus._ This fellow doth not _stand upon points_.

     _Lysander._ He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he
     knows not the _stop_....

     _Hippolyta._ Indeed, he hath played on this prologue like a
     _child on a recorder, a sound_, but _not in government_.

That is--the Prologue has misplaced all his _stops_--like a young
horse that refuses to _stop_--also like a child who has not learned to
_stop_ the holes on the flute _à bec_.

It is singular that the Virginal, which was the most popular of all
the keyed instruments, is nowhere directly named in Shakespeare. There
is, however, a reference to the action of the fingers on its keys in
the following.

_Winter's Tale_ I, ii, 125. Of _Hermione_, Queen of Leontes, King of
Sicilia, and _Polixenes_, King of Bohemia.

     _Leon._ ---- still _virginalling_
          Upon his palm?

The Virginal (generally known as 'a _pair_ of virginals') was most
commonly used by ladies for their private recreation, and from this
circumstance is supposed to derive its name. Queen Elizabeth was fond
of playing on it, but as it was in vogue before her time, there is no
need to connect the name with the Virgin Queen. (Elizabeth's own
Virginal is in South Kensington Museum.[10]) Its keyboard has four
octaves, and the case is square, like that of a very old pianoforte.
The strings of the virginal were plucked, by quills,[11] which were
secured to the 'jacks' [see Sonnet cxxviii.], which in turn were set
in motion by the keys. The strings were wire. The oldest country dance
known, the Sellenger's (St Leger's) Round, of Henry VIII.'s time, was
arranged by Byrd as a Virginal 'lesson' for 'Lady Nevell's booke.'
Another well-known Virginal Book, that at the Fitzwilliam Museum at
Cambridge, commonly known as 'Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book,' is
being published by Breitkopf & Härtel.

[Footnote 10: See Frontispiece.]

[Footnote 11: Plectra of leather were also in use, as well as those of
quill.]

The first music ever printed for the Virginals was 'Parthenia,'
published in London, 1611. This collection contains principally Pavans
and Galliards by Byrd, Bull, and Gibbons. The title 'Parthenia, or the
Maydenhead of the firste musicke,' etc., with a picture of a young
lady playing on the virginal, seems to confirm our explanation of the
name of this instrument.

Next to the viol, the lute[12] was the most popular stringed
instrument. It was used both as a Solo instrument on which to play
sprightly 'Ayres,' or as an accompaniment for the voice, or 'in
consort' with other instruments. Naturally, it figured frequently in
'serenading' especially when a love song had to be sung outside a
lady's window. The general shape of a Lute was that of a mandoline,
but about four times as big. Like the mandoline, it had a flat belly,
and a great basin-shaped back. But in every other respect it was
entirely different. It was used more in the fashion of a guitar, and
its strings (which were of gut) were plucked with the fingers.

[Footnote 12: See Frontispiece.]

Adrian Le Roy's book, published in Paris about 1570, says the six
strings were tuned as follows--1st (minikin), C in third space, treble
staff; 2nd (small mean), G on second line; 3rd (great mean), D under
the staff; 4th (counter-tenor), B flat over the bass staff; 5th
(tenor), F on fourth line; and 6th (base), C in second space.

Scipione Cerreto, however (Naples 1601), gives quite a different
account of the Italian Lute of eight strings, the tuning of which
seems to have extended the compass downwards to C under the bass
staff. Thomas Mace (Musicks Monument, 1676) tells of several
objections against the lute, the most noteworthy of which were--1st,
that it was a costly instrument to keep in repair; 2nd, that it was
out of fashion; and 3rd, that it _made young people grow awry_. Mace
refutes these calumnies, the last of which no doubt was set about on
account of the very awkward shape of the lute back, and the
considerable size of the instrument. Hawkins (Hist. of Music, pp. 730
and 731) gives two pieces for the lute by Mace, or, rather, the same
piece twice, first for one lute, then arranged for two. [Appendix.]

The five lower strings of the lute were 'doubled'--_i.e._, there were
two of each pitch, duplicates, which helped the tone of the chords by
'sympathetic' vibration. So there were really eleven strings, but only
six different pitches. There were eight frets on the fingerboard.

Other varieties were the Arch-Lute[13] and the Theorbo-Lute, both of
which had very long double necks, and a large number of strings. One
Archlute in South Kensington Museum has as many as 24, eleven of which
are duplications.

[Footnote 13: See Frontispiece.]

_H. 6. A._ I, iv, 92.

     _Talbot_ (of Salisbury dying).
          'He beckons with his hand, and smiles on me,
           As who should say, "When I am dead and gone,
           Remember to avenge me on the French."--
           Plantagenet, I will; and _like thee, Nero,
           Play on the lute_, beholding the towns burn.'

_Hen. 4. A._ III, i, 206. Mortimer to Lady Mortimer.

     _Mort._             ... for thy tongue
          Makes Welsh as sweet as _ditties_ highly penn'd,
          _Sung_ by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
          With _ravishing division_, to her _lute_.

For 'ravishing division,' see the remarks on the third of the
foregoing passages, the speech of Juliet about the lark's song [p.
28].

The Lute leads us quite easily from Musical Instruments and Technical
Terms to the second division.




II

MUSICAL EDUCATION


The following passages give a lively picture of what a music-master
might have to put up with from young ladies of quality.

_Shrew._ II, i, 142. Re-enter HORTENSIO with his head broken.

     _Bap._ How now, my friend? why dost thou look so pale?

     _Hor._ For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

     _Bap._ What, will my daughter [Kate] prove a good musician?

     _Hor._ I think, she'll sooner prove a soldier:
          Iron may hold her, but never _lutes_.

     _Bap._ Why, then thou canst not _break her_ to the lute?

     _Hor._ Why, no, for _she hath broke the lute to me_.
          I did but tell her she _mistook her frets_,
          And bow'd her hand to _teach her fingering_,
          When, with a most impatient, devilish spirit,
          "_Frets_ call you these?" quoth she; "I'll _fume_ with them;"
          And with that word she struck me on the head,
          And _through the instrument my pate made way_;
          And there I stood amazed for a while,
          _As on a pillory, looking through the lute_,
          While she did call me _rascal fiddler_,
          And, _twangling Jack_, with twenty such vile terms,
          As had she studied to misuse me so.

_Shrew_ II, i, 277.

     _Bap._ Why, how now, daughter Katherine? in your _dumps_?

_Shrew._ Act III. i. Hortensio and Lucentio, the sham musical and
classical tutors, give a lesson to Bianca. They quarrel which is to
start first.

     _Lucentio._ _Fiddler, forbear_: you grow too forward, sir.

            *       *       *       *       *

     _Hortensio._ But, wrangling pedant, _this is
          The patroness of heavenly harmony_;
          Then give me leave to have prerogative,
          And _when in music we have spent an hour_,
          Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.

     _Luc._ Preposterous ass, that never read so far
          To know the cause why music was ordained!
          Was it not to refresh the mind of man,
          _After his studies_, or his usual pain?
          Then give me leave to read philosophy,
          And _while I pause, serve in your harmony_.

Bianca settles the question, and orders Hortensio (l. 22):

          Take you your instrument, _play you the whiles_;
          His lecture will be done, _ere you have tun'd_.

     _Hor._ You'll leave his lecture, when I am in tune?

     _Luc._ _That will be never_: tune your instrument.

Lucentio now goes on with his 'classics'; further on--

     _Hor._ [Returning]. Madam, _my instrument's in tune_.

     _Bianca._ Let's hear. [_Hor._ plays.] O fie! the _treble jars_.

     _Luc._ _Spit in the hole_, man, and tune again.

            *       *       *       *       *

     _Hor._ Madam, _'tis now in tune_.

     _Luc._                            All but the _base_.

     _Hor._ _The base is right_; 'tis the _base knave that jars_.

Hortensio now takes his place, and addresses the classical Lucentio--

     L. 58.

     _Hor._ You may go walk, and give me leave awhile:
          My _lessons_ make no music in _three parts_.

            *       *       *       *       *

     L. 63.

     _Hor._ Madam, before you _touch_ the instrument,
          To learn the _order of my fingering_,
          I must begin with _rudiments_ of art;
          To teach you _gamut_ in a briefer sort.

            *       *       *       *       *

     _Bianca._ Why, I am _past my gamut_ long ago.

     _Hor._ Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.

The first of these three passages will be quite clear to the reader in
the light of the remarks on the lute already made. The second should
be read in connection with the name of the doleful dance above
mentioned, the Dump. [See Appendix.]

The third quotation contains interesting allusions to the
peculiarities of the lute. Lines 22-25 are very naturally accounted
for. The lute, having at least eleven strings, took a long time to get
into tune. Even our modern violins, with only four strings, want
constant attention in this respect; and the lute, therefore,
especially in the hands of an amateur, might well get a name for being
a troublesome instrument. The reference to the 'treble' and 'bass'
strings (_i.e._, the 1st and 6th) has been explained before. 'Spit in
the hole, man,' Lucentio's very rude advice to Hortensio, will direct
our attention to the variously shaped 'holes' which were made in the
belly of all stringed instruments to let out the sound. On the lute,
this hole was commonly a circular opening, not clearly cut out, but
fretted in a circle of small holes with a star in the middle. But this
was not the only way. A lute in South Kensington Museum has _three_
round holes, placed in an oblique line, nearly at the bottom of the
instrument.[14] The holes on the viol were generally in the form of
crescents, and were put one on each side of the bridge. On the modern
violins, as everybody has seen, they are in the shape of
[Illustration], and are known as '_f_' holes.

[Footnote 14: See Frontispiece.]

Line 59, about 'lessons in three parts,' is of interest. Primarily, it
is another form of 'Two's company, three is none'--but its musical
meaning is very plainly present. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was
very common to call the pieces of music in any volume for an
instrument by the name 'Lessons.' The first meaning, of course, was
that they were examples for the pupil in music, but the word was used
quite freely with the purely general signification of 'Pieces' or
'Movements.'

One more word deserves remark--viz., 'to touch,' in line 63. This is
used technically, and means strictly 'to play' on the instrument. The
word comes both in meaning and form from Ital., _toccare_.

_Toccata_ was a common word for a Prelude (often extempore), intended
as a kind of introduction to two or three more formal movements. The
Italian for a peal of bells is _tocco di campana_, and we have the
word in English under the form _tocsin_, an alarm bell. The
trumpet-call known as 'Tucket,' which occurs seven times in the stage
directions of six Shakespeare plays, and is also found once in the
text (_Henry V._ IV, ii, 35), also is derived from _toccare_.
Similarly with the German 'Tusch,' a flourish of trumpets and other
brass instruments, which may be heard under that name to the present
day.

The next passage confirms Morley's account of the high estimation in
which music was held as a part of a liberal education. Baptista
evidently considers 'good bringing up' to include 'music, instruments,
and poetry.' Moreover, the visiting master was to be well paid,--'to
cunning men I will be very kind.'

_Shrew_ I, i, 81.

     _Bianca._ Sir to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
          My books, and _instruments_, shall be my company,
          On them to look, and _practise by myself_.

            *       *       *       *       *

     _Baptista_ (To Hortensio and Gremio).
          Go in, Bianca. [_Exit_ Bianca].
          And for I know, she taketh most delight
          In _music_, _instruments_, and _poetry_,
          Schoolmasters will I keep within my house,
          Fit to instruct her youth.--If you, Hortensio,
          Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
          Refer them hither; for _to cunning men
          I will be very kind_, and liberal
          To mine own children in _good bringing up_.

We find further on, in the same play, that to bring one's lady-love a
music master was thought a handsome compliment.

_Shrew_ I, ii, 170.

     _Hortensio._ 'Tis well: and I have met a gentleman,
          Hath promis'd me to help me to another,
          _A fine musician to instruct our mistress_.

Moreover, in _Pericles_ IV, vi, 185, we find that Marina, daughter of
Prince Pericles, can '_sing_, weave, sew, and _dance_.' Also see V, i,
78, where Marina actually does sing, to rouse her father from his
melancholy.




III

SONGS AND SINGING


It is impossible here to give even an outline of the history of Songs
and Singing in England. The general statement must suffice that vocal
music, accompanied by viols and harps, with songs and catches, were
common in the year 1230 in France; and any reader of Chaucer and Gower
may see for himself that vocal music was flourishing in the 14th
century in England. The English Round or Catch, mentioned above,
'Sumer is icumen in,' is most probably of the 13th century, and that
alone would be sufficient to characterise the popular vocal music of
that day. This composition is advanced in every way, being very
melodious, and at the same time showing that vocal harmony (_i.e._,
singing in parts) was greatly appreciated.

To proceed to a time nearer the age with which we are concerned--in
Henry VII.'s reign, there were many songs written, some for voices
only, and some with instrumental accompaniment. Amongst the former
are two songs in three parts, the music by William Cornyshe, Junior,
which are given in Hawkins.

Skelton wrote the words of the first, 'Ah, beshrew you by my fay,'
which is very coarse in tone, as was frequently the case with him; and
the second one, 'Hoyday, jolly ruttekin,' is a satire on the drunken
habits of the Flemings who came over with Anne of Cleves. Mrs Page
(_Wiv._ II, i, 23) refers to these Dutchmen, where, after receiving
Falstaff's love-letter, she exclaims, 'what an unweighed behaviour
hath this _Flemish Drunkard_ picked (with the devil's name!) out of my
conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?'

The following is a curious picture by 'Skelton, Laureate,' of an
ignorant singer, who appears to have been throwing mud at the poet.
Skelton gives us a sad account both of his morals and his music.

The 3rd verse begins--

     With hey troly loly, lo whip here Jak,
     Alumbek, sodyldym syllorym ben,
     Curiously he can both _counter_ and knak,
     Of Martin Swart, and all his merry men;
     Lord, how Perkyn is proud of his Pohen,
     But ask wher he findeth among his _monachords_
     An holy-water-clark a ruler of lordes.
     He cannot fynd it in _rule_ nor in _space_,
     He _solfyth_ too haute, hys _trybyll_ is too high,
     He braggyth of his byrth that borne was full base,
     Hys musyk _withoute mesure, too sharp_, is _his 'my'_,
     He trymmeth in his _tenor_ to _counter_ pardy,
     His _descant_ is besy,[15] it is without a _mene_,
     Too fat is his fantsy, his wyt is too lene.

     He tumbryth on a _lewde lewte_, Rotybulle Joyse,
     Rumbill downe, tumbill downe, hey go, now now,
     He _fumblyth in his fyngering_ an ugly rude noise,
     It seemyth the sobbyng of an old sow:
     He wolde be made moch of, and he wyst how;
     Well sped in spindels and tuning of travellys
     A bungler, a brawler, a picker of quarrels.

     Comely he clappyth a _payre of clavicordys_
     He _whystelyth_ so swetely he maketh me to swet,
     His _discant_ is dashed full of _discordes_,
     A red angry man, but easy to intrete; etc.

[Footnote 15: 'Besy,' that is, 'busy,' meaning 'fussy,' a bad fault in
descant, as it is to this day in counterpoint.]

Further on we read--

     For lordes and ladyes lerne at his scole,
     He techyth them so wysely to _solf_ and to _fayne_,
     That neither they sing wel _prike-song_ nor _plain_.

Skelton's main objection to this person is that he, being in reality
of very humble origin, presumed on his very doubtful musical abilities
to gain a footing amongst his betters. As he says, 'For Jak wold be a
Jentilman that late was a grome.'

Evidently 'Jak' had managed to make good his position as a fashionable
teacher of singing, in spite of the defects plainly mentioned in the
above verses. In the first verse, 'counter' is a musical term, here
used with the meaning of 'to embroider' the tale. 'Knack' is still
used in Yorkshire for 'affected talk.' 'Monachord' is the ancient
one-stringed fiddle called Tromba Marina, and is here used as a joke
on 'monachi' or 'holy water clarks.' In verse 2, '_rule_ and space' is
simply 'line and space,' _i.e._, on the musical staff. 'Solfyth too
haute' is 'Solfa's too high.' The 'my' which was 'too sharp' is the
Mi, the seventh note of the scale, mentioned above as the critical
point in Solfa. In verse 3, 'lewde lewte' means merely 'vulgar lute';
and 'Rotybulle Joyse' is the title of an old song. The 'payre of
clavicordys' is the clavichord, which in 1536 was a keyed instrument
of much the same kind as the virginals,[16] with about three and a
half octaves. It was used by nuns, and therefore had its strings
muffled with bits of cloth to deaden the sound.

[Footnote 16: It was the _German_ clavichord that had 'tangents' of
brass at the ends of the key levers. These tangents cut off the proper
length of the string, and made it sound at the same time. The Italians
called an instrument with a 'jack' action like the virginal by the
name clavichord.]

The last three lines quoted mention 'solfa' and 'fayne.' The latter is
'feigned' music, or Musica Ficta, which at this time was the art of
dislocating the 'Mi,' so as to change the key. It was seldom that more
than one flat was found in those days, and this would move the Mi from
_B_ to _E_, thus constituting 'fayned' music.

This account will give a general idea of the kind of songs and singing
that were to be found in 1500.

Popular songs, 'Rotybulle Joyse,' with a burden of 'Rumbill downe,
tumbill downe,' etc., accompanied by a 'lewde lewte'; clavichord
playing; solfaing; singing of both 'prick-' and 'plain-' song, with
Musica Ficta; besides the delectable art of 'whysteling'; seem to have
been matters in ordinary practice at the beginning of the 16th
century. Add to these the songs in three parts, with rounds or catches
for several voices, and we have no mean list of musicianly
accomplishments, which the men of Shakespeare's day might inherit.

In Shakespeare, besides the songs most commonly known (some of which
are by earlier authors), there are allusions to many kinds of vocal
music, and scraps of the actual words of old songs--some with
accompaniment, some without; a duet; a trio; a chorus; not to mention
several rounds, either quoted or alluded to.

It will be useful here to refer to a few of these less known examples.

_L.L.L._ I, ii, 106. The Ballad of 'The King and the Beggar.' Moth
says "The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages
since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would
neither serve for the writing, nor the tune."

_Id._ III, i, 2. Moth begins a song 'Concolinel,' which Armado calls a
'sweet air.'

Various snatches of ballads, ancient and modern--_e.g._,

(_a_) By Falstaff. _H. 4. B._ II, iv, 32, 'When Arthur first in court
began,' 'And was a worthy king.'

(_b_) By Master Silence. _H. 4. B._ V, iii, 18. 'Do nothing but eat,
and make good cheer,' etc.; 'Be merry, be merry, my wife has all,'
etc.; 'A cup of wine, that's brisk and fine,' etc. 'Fill the cup, and
let it come,' etc.; 'Do me right, And dub me knight,' etc.; 'and Robin
Hood, Scarlet, and John.'

(_c_) By Benedick, _Much Ado_ V, ii, 23. 'The god of love.'

(_d_) The old tune 'Light o' love' [see Appendix], the original words
of which are unknown. _Much Ado_ III, iv, 41, 'Clap us into "Light o'
love;" that goes without a burden; do you sing it, and I'll dance it.'
Here is one verse of 'A very proper Dittie,' to the tune of "Lightie
Love" (date 1570).

     "By force I am fixed my fancie to write,
     Ingratitude willeth me not to refrain:
     Then blame me not, Ladies, although I indite
     What lighty love now amongst you doth rayne,
     Your traces in places, with outward allurements,
     Dothe moove my endevour to be the more playne:
     Your nicyngs and tycings, with sundrie procurements,
     To publish your lightie love doth me constraine."

There were several songs of the 16th century that went to this tune.
See also Shakespeare, _Gent._ I, ii, 80, and Fletcher, _Two Noble
Kinsmen_ V, ii, 54.

(_e_) Song by Parson Evans, _Wiv._ III, i, 18; 'To shallow rivers,'
for words of which see Marlowe's 'Come live with me,' printed in the
'Passionate Pilgrim,' Part xx. [see tunes in Appendix]. Sir Hugh is in
a state of nervous excitement, and the word 'rivers' brings 'Babylon'
into his head, so he goes on mixing up a portion of the version of Ps.
cxxxvii. with Marlowe.

(_f_) By Sir Toby. _Tw. Nt._ II, iii, 79, 85, 102. Peg-a-Ramsey,
'Three merry men be we,' 'There dwelt a man in Babylon,' 'O! the
twelfth day of December,' 'Farewell, dear heart.' [For tunes, see
Appendix].

(_g_) _As You Like It_ II, v. Song with Chorus, 'Under the greenwood
tree,' 2nd verse '_all together here_.'

(_h_) By Pandarus, _Troil._ III, i, 116. Song, 'Love, love, nothing
but love,' accompanied on an 'instrument' by the singer himself.

(_i_) Another, _Id._ IV, iv, 14, 'O heart, heavy heart.'

(_j_) _Lear_ I, iv, 168, two verses sung by the Fool, 'Fools had ne'er
less grace in a year.'

(_k_) Ballads by Autolycus, _Winter's Tale_ IV, ii, 1, 15. 'When
daffodils,' 'But shall I go mourn for that.' _Id._ sc. ii. end, 'Jog
on' [see Appendix]; _Id._ sc. iii. 198, 'Whoop, do me no harm, good
man' [Appendix]; _Id._ l. 219, 'Lawn, as white as driven snow'; _Id._
l. 262, Ballad of the 'Usurer's wife,' to a 'very doleful tune'; _Id._
l. 275, Ballad of a Fish, 'very pitiful'; _Id._ l. 297, A song _in
three parts_, to the tune of 'Two maids wooing a man,' "Get you hence,
for I must go"; _Id._ l. 319, Song, 'Will you buy any tape' (_cf._ The
round by Jenkins, b. 1592, 'Come, pretty maidens,' see Rimbault's
Rounds, Canons, and Catches).

(_l_) Duet by King Cymbeline's two sons; Funeral Song over Imogen,
_Cymb._ IV, ii, 258, 'Fear no more the heat of the sun.'

(_m_) Stephano's 'scurvy tunes,' _Temp._ II, ii, 41, 'I shall no more
to sea,' 'The master, the swabber,' etc. [Appendix]. _Id._ l. 175,
Caliban's Song, 'Farewell, master,' etc.

(_n_) Song accompanied by lute. _H._ 8. III, i. 'Orpheus.'

Besides these there are allusions to the names of various popular
tunes and catches, of which the music is still to be had. Amongst
these are--

'The Hunt is up' [Appendix]. See _Rom. and Jul._ III, v, 34. Juliet
says of the lark's song, 'that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee
hence with _hunts-up_ to the day.' Any rousing morning song, even a
love-song, was called a _hunts-up_. The tune of this song was also
sung (in 1584) to 'O sweete Olyver, leave me not behind the,' but
altering the time to 4 in a bar. See _As You Like It_ III, iii, 95.

'Heart's ease' [Appendix], the words of which are not known. Tune
before 1560. See _Romeo_ IV, v, 100.

_Id._, 'My heart is full of woe.'

_Id._ l. 125. 'When griping grief' [Appendix], by Richard Edwards,
gentleman of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, printed in the 'Paradyse of
daynty Devises' (printed 1577). Hawkins gives four verses, the first
of which is here quoted by Shakespeare, but with several variations--

     '_Where_ griping grief the hart _would_ wound,
     And doleful domps the mind oppresse,
     _There_ Musick with her silver sound
     _Is wont with spede to give_ redresse;
     Of troubled minds, for every sore,
     Swete Musick hath a salve in store.'

The last verse is charming--

     'Oh heavenly gift, that turnes the minde,
     Like as the sterne doth rule the ship,
     Of musick whom the Gods assignde,
     To comfort man whom cares would nip;
     Sith thou both man and beast doest move,
     What wise man then will thee reprove.'

'Green Sleeves' [Appendix].

_Wiv._ II, i, 60.

     _Mrs Ford._ ... I would have sworn his disposition
     [Falstaff's] would have gone to the truth of his words; but
     they do _no more adhere_ and _keep place_ together, than the
     _Hundredth Psalm_ to the _tune of 'Green Sleeves_.'

Also see _Wiv._ V, v, 20. The tune is given in its most complete form
by Chappell, and is probably of Henry VIII.'s time. The ballad was
published in 1580, with title, 'A new Northerne dittye of the Ladye
Greene Sleeves.' Verse 1 is as follows:--

     "Alas my love, you do me wrong
     To cast me off discourteously,
     And I have lovèd you so long,
     Delighting in your company.
     Greensleeves was all my joy,
     Greensleeves was my delight,
     Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
     And who but my Lady Greensleeves."

The 'Hundredth Psalm' (All people that on earth do dwell) will only
adhere and keep place with the tune of Green Sleeves to a certain
extent. If the reader will try to sing it to the tune in the Appendix,
he will find that in the first half he is led into several false
accents; while the second half is quite unmanageable without altering
the notes. There is, however, a form of the tune in Hawkins which is
much further off 'the truth of the words,' for it has exactly the
right quantity of _notes_, but the _accents_ are all as wrong as
possible, thus--

[Transcriber's Note: In the passage below, "u" represents a breve and
"-" a macron.]

       -    u    -     u   -     u    -
     _All_ peo-_ple_ that _on_ earth _do_

        u     u   u    u    u    u      -    u     -
     _Dwell_ sing to _the_ Lord with _cheer_ful _voice_.

It may be that this form of 'Green Sleeves' was known better than the
older one in Shakespeare's day.

'Carman's whistle' [Appendix].

_H. 4. B._ III, ii, 320. Falstaff soliloquises on Shallow's lies
concerning his wild youth.

     _Fal._ He (Shallow) came ever in the rearward of the
     fashion, and _sung those tunes_ ... that he heard the
     _carmen whistle_, and sware--they were his _fancies_, or his
     _goodnights_.... The _case of a treble hautboy_ was a
     mansion for him, a court.

The Carman's Whistle was a popular Elizabethan tune, and was arranged
as a virginal lesson by Byrd. This arrangement can be had most readily
in Litolff's publication, 'Les maîtres du Clavecin.'

The 'fancies' referred to above are the 'Fantazies' already remarked
on (chest of viols); and the 'Goodnights' are songs _in memoriam_, or
dirges.

'Fortune my foe.' [Appendix]. _Merry Wives_ III, iii, 62. _Falstaff_
(to Mrs Ford). 'I see what thou wert, if _Fortune thy foe_ were not,
Nature thy friend.' This old tune is at latest of Elizabeth's time,
and was sung to the ancient ballad of "Titus Andronicus." The first
verse of 'Fortune my foe' is as follows:--

     "Fortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me?
     And will thy favour never better be?
     Wilt thou, I say, for ever breed my pain,
     And wilt thou not restore my joyes again?"

'Ophelia's Songs.' _Hamlet_ IV, v. [Appendix]. 'How should I your
true love know'; 'Good morrow, 'tis St Valentine's day'; 'They bore
him barefaste'; 'Bonny sweet Robin'; 'And will he not come again.'

The one line of 'Bonny sweet Robin' is all that remains of the song,
except the title, which is also the first line--viz., 'My Robin is to
the greenwood gone.' The line Shakespeare gives would be the last. One
tune to it is at any rate older than 1597.

Lastly, there are the old catches, 'Hold thy peace,' sung by Toby, Sir
Andrew, and Feste in _Twelfth Night_ II, iii; 'Jack boy, ho boy, news,
The cat is in the well,' etc., referred to by Grumio in _Shrew_ IV, i,
42; besides 'Flout 'em and scout em,' sung by Stephano, Trinculo, and
Caliban in _Tempest_ III, ii; and 'What shall he have that killed the
deer,' for the foresters in _As You Like It_ IV, ii, 5. The original
music of the first two, probably much earlier than Shakespeare, is in
the Appendix. A Round for four voices by John Hilton (flourished 1600)
to 'What shall he have,' is probably the first setting, and may be
seen in Rimbault, p. 19. Purcell (1675) set 'Flout 'em' as a catch for
three voices, which is in Caulfield's Collection of Shakespeare Vocal
Music, 1864. These last two are poor specimens of Catches, so they are
not printed here. [The proper reading of 'Flout 'em,' in the 4tos and
1st Fol. is 'Flout 'em and _cout_ 'em! and _skowt_ 'em, and flout
'em! Thought is free.']

The following passage contains a large quantity of the history of
songs in the 16th century, and is one of the most important to be
found in Shakespeare. Autolycus sells ballads 'of all sizes' among his
wares; the country folk, Mopsa, Dorcas, and the Clown, buy them, and
afterwards sing them; and the rustic servant distinctly prefers the
pedlar's vocalisation to their accustomed 'tabor and pipe,' or even to
the 'bagpipe.'

_Winter's Tale_ IV, iii, 181.

     _Servant._ O master! if you did but hear the _pedlar_ at the
     door, you would _never dance again after a tabor and pipe_;
     no, the _bagpipe_ could not move you. He _sings several
     tunes_ faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he
     had _eaten ballads_, and all men's ears grew to his tunes.

     _Clown._ He could never come better: he shall come in. _I
     love a ballad_ but even too well; if it be doleful matter,
     merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung
     lamentably.

     _Serv._ He hath _songs_, for man or woman, _of all
     sizes_.... He has the prettiest _love-songs_ for maids; so
     without bawdry, which is strange; with such _delicate
     burdens_ of "dildos" and "fadings," "jump her and thump
     her"; ... "_Whoop, do me no harm, good man._"

     L. 212.

     _Clo._ Pr'ythee, bring him in, and let him _approach
     singing_.

     _Perdita._ Forewarn him, that he use _no scurrilous words_
     in 's tunes.

     L. 259.

     _Clo._ [to Autolycus]. What hast here? _ballads_?

     _Mopsa._ 'Pray now, buy some: I love a _ballad in print_, o'
     life, for _then we are sure they are true_.

     _Autolycus._ Here's one to a _very doleful tune_ ... [of a
     usurer's wife].

     L. 273.

     _Clo._ Come on, lay it by: and let's first see _more
     ballads_....

     _Aut._ Here's _another ballad, of a fish_, that ... sung
     this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: ... the ballad
     is _very pitiful_, and as true.

     L. 285.

     _Clo._ Lay it by too: another.

     _Aut._ This is a _merry ballad_, but a _very pretty_ one.

     _Mop._ Let's have some merry ones.

     _Aut._ Why, this is a passing merry one, and _goes to the
     tune of_ "Two maids wooing a man," there's scarce a maid
     westward but she sings it: _'tis in request_, I can tell
     you.

     _Mop._ We can _both_ sing it: if _thou'lt bear a part_
     [_i.e._, Autolycus], thou shalt hear; 'tis in _three parts_.

     _Dorcas._ We had the _tune_ on't a month ago.

     _Aut._ _I can bear my part_; you must know, _'tis my
     occupation_: have at it with you.

     [They sing 'Get you hence,' in three parts.]

     _Clo._ We'll have the song out anon _by ourselves_.

     L. 328.

     _Servant._ Master, there is _three_ carters, _three_
     shepherds, _three_ neat herds, _three_ swine herds, that
     have made themselves all _men of hair_: they call themselves
     _Saltiers_; and they have a _dance_, which the wenches say
     is a _gallimaufry_ of gambols, because they are not in't....

       *       *       *       *       *

     L. 609.

     _Aut._ _My clown_ (who wants but something to be a
     reasonable man) grew so in love with the wenches' _song_,
     that he would not stir his pettitoes, _till he had both tune
     and words_.

The tabor and pipe, in the servant's first speech, were common popular
instruments. The tabor, of course, was a small drum, which was used as
accompaniment to the pipe, a small whistle with three holes, but with
a compass of 18 notes. (See Frontispiece.) In its curiously
disproportionate compass, it may be compared to the modern 'Picco'
pipe of the music shops. Mersennus (middle of 17th century) mentions
an Englishman, John Price, who was an accomplished player. It is
played on by Ariel, see a subsequent quotation from _The Tempest_ III,
ii, 126 and 152. Also _Much Ado_ II, iii, 13; and the tabor alone, in
_Twelfth Night_ III, i.

The Bagpipe[17] was very similar to the instruments of that name which
still exist. At the present moment there are four kinds in
use--Highland Scotch, Lowland Scotch, Northumbrian, and Irish. The
last has bellows instead of a 'bag,' but in other ways they are very
much alike. They all have 'drones,' which sound a particular note or
notes continually, while the tune is played on the 'chanter.'
Shakespeare himself tells us of another variety--viz., the
Lincolnshire bagpipe, in _Hen. 4. A._ I, ii, 76, where Falstaff
compares his low spirits to the melancholy 'drone of a Lincolnshire
bagpipe.'[18]

[Footnote 17: The Bagpipe appears on a coin of Nero. Also there is a
figure of an _angel_ playing it, in a crosier given by William of
Wykeham to New Coll., Oxon., in 1403.]

[Footnote 18: What is a 'woollen bagpipe'? See _Merchant_ IV, i, 55.]

The servant's second speech refers to the character of the words of
the popular ballads, which were too often coarse and even indecent.

'Love-songs' are quite a large class, frequently referred to. For
instance, _Two Gent._ II, i, 15.

     _Val._ Why, how know you that I am in love?

     _Speed._ Marry by these special marks.
          First, you have learn'd ...
          _To relish a love song_, like a robin-redbreast;

_Rom._ II, iv, 15.

     _Mercutio._ 'Alas, poor Romeo! he is already dead;
          ... run thorough the ear _with a love-song_.'

besides the passage from _Twelfth Nt._ II, iii, quoted further on,
where Feste offers Sir Toby and Sir Andrew their choice between 'a
love-song, or a song of good life.'

The 'delicate burdens,' 'dildos and fadings,' 'jump her and thump
her,' are to be found in examples of the period. A Round of Matt.
White, 'The Courtier scorns the country clowns' (date about 1600) has
for its third and last line 'With a fading, fading, fading, fading,'
etc. 'Whoop, do me no harm' has already been spoken of.

In l. 214 of the _Winter's Tale_ passage, Perdita again takes
precaution against Autolycus using 'scurrilous words.'

From l. 285 to l. 327, the passage refers to a very interesting
department of 16th century singing--viz., the habit of performing
songs in three vocal parts. The singers were called Threeman-songmen,
and the songs themselves 'Threeman songs,' or 'Freemen's Songs.'
[_Freemen_ is simply a corruption of _Threemen_. Mr Aldis Wright tells
me it is analogous to _Thills_ or _Fills_, for the shafts of a waggon.
Rimbault, in the preface to 'Rounds, Canons, and Catches,' is highly
indignant with Ritson's 'inconceivably strange notion' that Freemen is
only a form of Threemen. Rimbault's reason was that 'Deuteromelia'
(1609) does contain Freemen's Songs in _four_ parts. Mr Aldis Wright
also gives me the expression '_six_-men's song,' from Percy's
Reliques, also these definitions, which will all go to settle the
matter: Florio, Italian Dictionary, 1611; _Strambotti_, country
gigges, rounds, catches, virelaies or _threemen's songs_; _Cantarini_,
such as sing _threemen's songs_; _Berlingozzo_.... Also a drunken or
_threemen's song_.

Cotgrave, French Dict. 1611; Virelay. m. A virelay, round, _free_mans
song].

Giraldus Cambrensis says that singing in parts was indigenous to the
parts beyond the Humber, and on the borders of Yorkshire. Threeman
singing may still be heard (not as an exotic), in Wales and the West
of England. This last is referred to in the above passage, 'There's
scarce a maid westward but she sings it'--viz., the song in three
parts.

Shakespeare is strictly historical in making a pedlar, and two country
lasses, capable of 'bearing a part' in a composition of this sort.

The company of 'men of hair,' calling themselves 'Saltiers,' may
derive their name from the dance, 'Saltarello.' Gallimaufry is
'Galimathias,' a muddle, or hotch potch. (See _Merry Wives_ II, i,
115).

The threemansong men are more particularly described in _Winter's
Tale_ IV, ii, 41.

     _Clown._ She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the
     _shearers; three-man song-men all, and very good ones_, but
     they are _most of them means and bases_; but _one Puritan_
     amongst them, and he _sings psalms to hornpipes_.

These musical harvesters square closely with the account given in the
Introduction, of music amongst the lower classes. Here were 24 good
glee singers, with the single defect that their tenors were very weak,
'most of them means [altos] and basses.' The Puritan was most
accommodating, and his singing the words of psalms to the tune of the
hornpipe would tend to shew that the Old Adam was not all put away as
yet. His compromise with his conscience reminds one of the old stories
(all too true) of church singers in the 15th and 16th centuries, who
would sing the by no means respectable words of popular comic ditties
to the solemn strains of the mass 'l'homme armé,' or whatever
well-known melody the music happened to be constructed on.

An example of a threemansong will be found in the Appendix, 'We be
soldiers three.'

Shakespeare also alludes to _sacred_ part-music. Falstaff, by his own
account, was a notable singer of Anthems, in which holy service he had
lost his voice; he was familiar with members of the celebrated choir
of St George's Chapel at Windsor; and was not above practising the
metrical Psalmody in his sadder moments.

_H. 4. B._ I, ii, 182.

     _Chief Justice._ Is not your _voice broken_, your wind
     short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part
     about you blasted with antiquity, and will you yet call
     yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

     _Falstaff._ My lord.... For my _voice_, I have _lost it
     with_ hollaing, and _singing of anthems_.

_H. 4. B._ II, i, 88.

     _Hostess._ Thou didst swear to me ... upon Wednesday in
     Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his
     father to a _singing-man of Windsor_.

_Hen. 4. A._ II, iv, 137. Falstaff laments the degeneracy of the
times.

     _Fal._ There live not three good men unhanged in England,
     and one of them is fat, and grows old; God help the while! a
     bad world, I say. _I would I were a weaver; I could sing
     psalms or anything._

This last sentence connects curiously with Sir John Oldcastle, the
leader of the Lollards, who were noted for their psalm singing, which
indeed gave them the name. These Flemish Protestants, who had fled
from the persecutions in their own country, were mostly _woollen_
manufacturers, and were distinguished for their love of Psalmody,
throughout the western counties, where they settled. Hence the
allusion to 'weavers' and 'Psalms.' But according to the Epilogue of
_Hen. 4. B._, 'Oldcastle died a martyr, and _this is not the man_.'

Falstaff knew well what a Ballad was too--as the following shews:--

_Hen. 4. A._ II, ii, 43.

     _Fal._ (to Hal.). Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent
     garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not
     _ballads made on you all_, and _sung to filthy tunes_, let a
     cup of sack be my poison.

Two other worthy knights claim our attention in the next quotation,
which contains many interesting allusions. _Inter alia_; Sir Toby
gives Feste sixpence to sing a song; Sir Andrew follows it up with a
'testril.' The Clown then sings them 'O mistress mine.' [For the
original music see Prof. Bridge's 'Shakespeare Songs,' Novello, a
collection which every reader of Shakespeare ought to have. Price 2s.
6d.] Then, at Sir Toby's suggestion, they all three sing a catch, or,
in his own words, 'draw _three_ souls out of _one_ weaver,' an
allusion to the _three_ vocal parts which are evolved from the _one_
melody of the catch, as well as a sly reference to 'weavers' singing
catches. (See Introduction.) They sing 'Thou knave,' for which see the
Appendix. It is not a good catch, but sounds humorous if done smartly,
and perhaps its very roughness suits the circumstances. Next, after
Maria's entrance, Toby either quotes the titles, or sings odd lines of
four old songs [Appendix]; and when Malvolio comes in, furious with
the noise they are making in the middle of the night, he applies
precisely those epithets to their proceedings that our histories lead
us to expect--_e.g._, 'gabbling like _tinkers_,' '_alehouse_,'
squeaking out your '_cozier's_ catches' ['cozier' is 'cobbler']. Sir
Toby's puns on 'keep time' in ll. 94 and 115 ought not to be missed.
To 'keep time' is almost the only virtue a catch singer _must_ have.

_Tw._ II, iii, 18.

     _Sir To._ Welcome, ass. Now _let's have a catch_.

     _Sir And._ By my troth, the fool has an _excellent breast_.
     I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so
     _sweet a breath to sing_, as the fool has.

     L. 30.

     _Sir And._ Now, _a song_.

     _Sir To._ Come on; there is _sixpence_ for you; let's have
     _a song_.

     _Sir And._ There's a _testril_ of me too; if one knight give
     a----

     _Clown._ Would you have a _love-song_, or a _song of good
     life_?

     _Sir To._ A love-song, a love-song.

     _Sir And._ Ay, ay; I care not for good life.

     [_Clown_ sings 'O mistress mine.']

     _Sir And._ A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.

     _Sir To._ A contagious breath.

     _Sir And._ Very sweet and contagious, i'faith.

     _Sir To._ To _hear by the nose_, it is _dulcet in
     contagion_. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall
     we rouse the night-owl in a _catch_, that will _draw three
     souls out of one weaver_? Shall we do that?

     _Sir And._ An you love me, let's do't: I am _dog at a
     catch_.

     _Clo._ By'r lady, sir, and _some dogs_ will _catch well_.

     _Sir And._ Most certain. Let our _catch_ be, "Thou Knave."

     _Clo._ "Hold thy peace, thou knave," knight? I shall be
     constrained to _call thee knave_, knight.

     _Sir And._ 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to
     call me knave. _Begin_, fool: it begins, "_Hold thy peace_."

     _Clo._ I shall never begin, if I hold my peace.

     _Sir And._ Good, i'faith. Come, begin.

     [_They sing a catch._]

     _Enter_ MARIA.

     _Mar._ What a caterwauling do you keep here!

       *       *       *       *       *

     _Sir To._ My lady's a Cataian; we are politicians;
     Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramsey, and "_Three merry men be we_."...
     _Tilly-valley_, lady! [_Sings._] "There dwelt a man in
     Babylon, lady, lady!"

       *       *       *       *       *

     _Sir To._ [_Sings._] "O! the twelfth day of December."----

     _Mar._ For the love o'God, peace!

     _Enter_ MALVOLIO.

     _Mal._ My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have you no
     wit, manners, nor honesty, but to _gabble like tinkers_ at
     this time of night? Do ye make an _alehouse_ of my lady's
     house, that ye squeak out your _cozier's catches_ without
     any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of
     place, persons, or _time_ in you?

     _Sir To._ _We did keep time, sir, in our catches._ Sneck up!

L. 103-114, another song, "Farewell, dear heart" [Appendix].

It is perhaps necessary to explain the nature of a Catch, or Round,
more clearly. The two names were interchangeable in the 16th and 17th
centuries. It was not till quite modern times that 'Catch' implied a
necessary quibble in the words, deliberately arranged by the writer.
First, a Catch or Round of the best type of Elizabethan times
consisted of _one melody_, generally perfectly continuous. Secondly,
the said melody was always divisible into a certain number of _equal
sections_, varying from three to six, or even eight; and as many
sections as there were, so many voices were necessary. Thirdly, each
of these equal sections was deliberately arranged so as to make
_Harmony_ with every other.

Here are the words of a Round of the 17th century, which is divisible
into three equal sections, and therefore is sung by three voices.

     1. 'Cuckoo! Hark! how he sings to us.
     2. Good news the cuckoo brings to us;
     3. Spring is here, says the cuckoo.'

Now, the way for three persons, A, B, and C, to sing this Catch or
Round, is as follows:--

A begins [see above, line 69, '_Begin_, fool'] line 1, and immediately
proceeds to line 2; at this very instant, B in his turn begins line 1,
and acts similarly. When A has reached the first syllable in line 3,
and B is at 'Good' in line 2, it is time for C also to begin at line
1. As soon as A has finished line 3, he begins again; and so on with
the others--'round' and 'round' till they are tired of 'catching' each
other up.

Thus when they are all three fairly set going, their _one_ melody
produces _three part_ harmony, and the catchers have drawn 'three
souls out of one weaver.'

The principle in all other Catches or Rounds is exactly the same,
however great the number of parts.

In the following we have another case of catch-singing. The original
music of 'Flout 'em' has not come down to us.

_Tempest_ III, ii, 122.

     _Stephano._ Come on, Trinculo, _let us sing_.

     [They sing a _catch_, 'Flout 'em and scout 'em.']

     _Caliban._ That's not the tune. [Very likely, as they
     were tipsy.]

     [ARIEL _plays the tune on a tabor and pipe_.]

     _Ste._ What is this same?

     _Trin._ This is the _tune of our catch_, played by the
     picture of Nobody.

            *       *       *       *       *

     L. 136.

     _Cal._ Be not afeard; the isle is _full of noises_,
          _Sounds_, and _sweet airs_, that give delight, and hurt not.
          Sometimes a thousand _twangling instruments_
          Will hum about mine ears; and sometime _voices_, &c.

     _Ste._ This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I
     _shall have my music for nothing_.

     L. 152.

     I would, I could _see_ this taborer: [Ariel] he _lays it
     on_.

Also _Id._ III, ii, 119.

Stephano, like most of the scamps in Shakespeare, is a good musician.
He leads the catch, appreciates Ariel's tabor playing (l. 152), and is
overjoyed to think that he will have all his music 'for nothing' (l.
145) in the magical isle.

Finally, in the _Taming of the Shrew_, we have the title of another
old catch, of which the music has survived--viz., 'Jack, boy.'

_Shrew_ IV, i, 42.

     _Curtis._ Therefore, good Grumio, the _news_.

     _Grumio._ Why, "_Jack, boy! ho, boy!_" and as much _news_ as
     thou wilt.

The words of this catch, which takes four voices, are--

     'Jack, boy, ho! boy, news;
     The cat is in the well,
     Let us ring now for her knell,
     Ding, dong, ding, dong, bell.'

The music [see Appendix], like that of so many other catches, is
anonymous, and is of some date long before Shakespeare.

_As You_ V, iii, 7.

     _Touchstone._ By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a
     _song_.

     _2 Page._ We are for you; sit i' the middle.

     _1 Page._ Shall we _clap into 't roundly, without hawking,
     or spitting_, or _saying we are hoarse_, which are the _only
     prologues to a bad voice_?

     _2 Page._ I' faith, i' faith; and _both in a tune_, like two
     gipsies on a horse.

[Song follows, 'It was a lover.' Could be sung as a _two_-part
madrigal quite easily. See Bridge's 'Shakespeare Songs,' for Morley's
original setting.]

     _Touch._ Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
     matter in the ditty, yet the _note_ was very _untuneable_.

     _1 Page._ You are deceived, sir; _we kept time_; we _lost
     not our time_.

     _Touch._ By my troth, _yes_; I count it but _time lost_ to
     hear such a foolish song. God be wi' you; and _God mend your
     voices_. Come, Audrey.

The First Page's speech at l. 9. is most humorously appropriate. 'Both
in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse,' is a quaint description of a
duet. There is yet another pun on 'lost time' in ll. 36-8.

Jaques' cynicism comes out even in his limited dealings with music.

_As You_ IV, ii, 5.

     _Jaques._ Have you no _song_, forester, for this purpose?

     _2 Lord._ Yes, sir.

     _Jaq._ Sing it; _'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it
     make noise enough_.

Song follows, 'What shall he have, that kill'd the deer,' Rimbault, p.
19. Music by Hilton, date about 1600, probably the original setting, a
Round for four foresters.

This section will conclude with two quotations about singing of a more
serious turn.

_Tw._ II, iv, 1.

     _Duke._ _Give me some music._--Now, good morrow, friends.
          Now, good Cesario, but that _piece of song_,
          That _old and antique song_, we heard last night;
          Methought, it did relieve my passion much,
          More than _light airs_, ...
          Come; but _one verse_.

     _Curio._ He is not here, so please your lordship, that
     should sing it.

     _Duke._ Who was it?

     _Cur._ Feste, the jester, my lord: ...

     _Duke._ Seek him out, and _play the tune the while_.

     L. 20.

     [To Cesario]--How dost thou like _this tune_?

     _Viola._ _It gives a very echo_ to the seat
          Where love is thron'd.

     L. 43.

     _Duke._ Mark it, Cesario; _it is old, and plain_;

     [_Clown_ sings 'Come away, death.']

     L. 67.

     _Duke._ There's for thy pains.

     _Clo._ _No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir._

     _Duke._ I'll pay thy pleasure then.

'Light airs' in line 5 means 'vain fiddling jigs'--_i.e._, lively
instrumental music. Lines 20-22 and 43 are worth remembering for many
reasons.

The next and last passage requires no remark, except that 'organ pipe
of frailty' means simply the voice of the dying king.

_King John_ V, vii, 10. Death of K. John.

     _Prince Henry._ Doth he still rage?

     _Pembroke._                        He is more patient
          Than when you left him: _even now he sung_.

     _P. Hen._ _O vanity of sickness!..._
          ... 'Tis _strange that death should sing_.
          I am the _cygnet_ to this pale faint _swan_,
          Who _chants a doleful hymn_ to his own death,
          And, from the _organ-pipe of frailty_, sings
          His soul and body to their lasting rest.




IV

SERENADES AND 'MUSIC'


The history of Serenades is as ancient as that of Songs. In the middle
of the 15th century, Sebastian Brant, a lawyer, wrote in Dutch his
'Stultifera Navis,' or 'Ship of Fools,' a severe satire on things in
general, and popular amusements in particular. The book was afterwards
translated into Latin, and thence into English. Here are some of the
verses that treat of Serenades in the year 1450.

     'The furies fearful, sprong of the floudes of hell,
     Bereft _these vagabonds_ in their minds, so
     That by no meane can they abide ne dwell
     Within their houses, but out they nede must go;
     More wildly wandring then either bucke or doe.
     Some with their _harpes_, another with their _lute_,
     Another with his _bagpipe_, or a foolishe _flute_.

     'Then measure they their _songes_ of melody
     _Before the doores of their lemman deare_;
     Howling with their foolishe songe and cry,
     So that their lemman may their great folly heare:
     'But yet moreover these fooles are so unwise,
     That _in cold winter_ they use the same madness.
     When all the houses are lade with snowe and yse,
     O madmen amased, unstable, and witless!
     What pleasure take you in this your foolishness?
     What joy have ye to wander thus by night,
     Save that _ill doers alway hate the light_?'

Another verse explains that not only the foolish young men of _low_
birth were given to this practice, but also--

             'States themselves therein abuse,'
     'With _some yonge fooles of the spiritualtie_:
     The foolish _pipe_ without all gravitie
     Doth eche degree call to his frantic game:
     The darkness of night expelleth feare of shame.'

Brant had no great opinion of the music provided either. He describes
their singing before their lady's window--

     'One barketh, another bleateth like a shepe;
     Some rore, some _counter_, some their _ballads fayne_:
     Another from singing geveth himself to wepe;
     When his soveraigne lady hath of him disdayne.'

Finally--a Parthian shot--

     'Standing in corners like as it were a spye,
     Whether that the wether be whot, colde, wet, or dry.'

Thus, one hundred years before Shakespeare was born, Serenades of
voices and instruments were common, and in general practice by all
classes of young men, and not only laymen, but also yonge fooles of
the spiritualtie.

The instruments mentioned are such as were still in use in
Shakespeare's time--viz., harp, lute, 'foolish' pipe, bagpipe, and
'foolish' flute, besides the several varieties of song, which
evidently included both solo and part singing--'feigned' ballads for a
single voice [ballads, that is, in the more refined 'keys' of 'Musica
Ficta'], and 'Countering,' which implies that two voices at least took
part.

The following passage is an example of this nocturnal serenading by a
company of gentlemen.

_Two Gent._ III, ii, 83.

     _Proteus_ (advises Thurio)
          'Visit by night your lady's chamber window
          With some _sweet concert_: to their _instruments_
          Tune a _deploring dump_:'

     _Thu._ And thy advice this night I'll put in practice.
          Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
          Let us into the city presently,
          _To sort some gentlemen well skilled in music_.

Proteus advises Thurio to get a 'consort' (probably of viols) to play
a 'dump' under Silvia's window. He goes to arrange for some of his
friends to attend for this purpose. The serenade takes place in the
next Act, where, in the 2nd scene, line 17, it is called 'evening
music,' but does not include the 'dump,' for Thurio has 'a sonnet that
will serve the turn,' so they sing 'Who is Silvia.'

Here is the passage, which is full of quibbles on musical terms.

_Two Gent._ IV, ii, 16.

     _Proteus._ ... 'Now must we to her window,
          And give _some evening music to her ear_.'

     L. 24.

     _Thu._ ... Now, gentlemen,
          _Let's tune._

     L. 28.

     _Host_ (to Julia, in boy's clothes). I'll bring you where
     you shall _hear music_, and see the gentleman that you ask'd
     for.

     _Jul._ But shall I _hear him speak_?

     _Host._ Ay, that you shall.

     _Jul._ _That will be music._

     L. 54.

     _Host._ How do you, man? (_i.e._, Julia) the _music likes
     you not_.

     _Jul._ You mistake: the _musician_ (_i.e._, Proteus) _likes
     me not_.

     _Host._ Why, my pretty youth?

     _Jul._ He _plays false_, father.

     _Host._ How? _out of tune on the strings_?

     _Jul._ Not so; but yet _so false_, that he grieves my very
     _heart-strings_.

     _Host._ You have a _quick ear_.

     _Jul._ Ay; I would I were deaf! it makes me have a _slow
     heart_.

     _Host._ I perceive, _you delight not in music_.

     _Jul._ Not a whit, when it _jars_ so.

     _Host._ Hark! what fine _change_ is in the music.

     _Jul._ Ay, that _change_ (Proteus' unfaithfulness) is the
     spite.

     _Host_ (misunderstanding again). You would have them
     _always_ play but _one thing_?

     _Jul._ I would always have _one_ (Proteus) play but one
     thing.

     L. 85.

     _Silvia_ (from window). 'I thank you for your music,
     gentlemen.'

The next passage is of a serenade in the early morning. Cloten
arranges for the musicians (who seem in this case to be professional
players) to give two pieces, one instrumental, followed by a song.

_Cymbeline_ II, iii, 11. Cloten serenades Imogen.

     _Cloten._ I would this _music would come_. I am advised to
     give her _music o' mornings_; they say, it will penetrate.

     _Enter Musicians._

     Come on: _tune_. If you can penetrate her with your
     _fingering_, so; we'll try with _tongue_ too: ... _First_, a
     very excellent good-conceited thing; _after_, a wonderful
     sweet air, with admirable rich words to it,--_and then_ let
     her consider.

     [The musicians perform 'Hark! hark! the lark.']

     So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your
     _music the better_; if it do not, it is a vice in _her
     ears_, which _horse-hairs_, and _calves'-guts_, ... can
     never amend.

In l. 14, 'fingering' and 'tongue' correspond to 'playing' and
'singing.' The first is to be a 'Fancy' for viols, 'a very excellent
good-conceited thing'; the second is the 'wonderful sweet air,' Hark!
hark! the lark.

'Good-conceited' means having many 'conceits.' These 'fancies' were
always contrapuntal, and the various artificial contrivances,
answering of points, imitations, and what not, are referred to under
this title. The mention of 'horse-hairs and calves'-guts' makes it
clear that the instruments in this 'morning music' were Viols.

Another 'evening music' is provided by Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

_Pericles