SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC THE MUSIC LOVERS' SERIES The following, each, $2.00 Great Composers and Their Work By Louis C. Elson Famous Singers of To-Day and Yesterday By Henry C. Lahee Famous Violinists of To-Day and Yesterday By Henry C. Lahee Famous Pianists of To-Day and Yesterday By Henry C. Lahee Grand Opera in America By Henry C. Lahee A History of Opera By Arthur Elson The National Music of America and Its Sources By Louis C. Elson The Organ and Its Masters By Henry C. Lahee Shakespeare in Music By Louis C. Elson Woman's Work in Music By Arthur Elson The following, each, $2.50 Modern Composers of Europe — New Revised Edition By Arthur Elson Orchestral Instruments and Their Use — New Revised Edition By Arthur Elson The following, each, $3.00 American Composers By Rupert Hughes and Arthur Elson The Grand Opera Singers of To-Day — New Revised Edition By Henry C. Lahee The following, price, $4.00 The Love Affairs of Great Musicians By Rupert Hughes El- WILLIAM 5HAKL5PEAREI. FRDM THE PAINTING BY P. KRAMER. Shakespeare irv M\jsic «* ** A Collation of the Chief Musical Allusions in the Plays of Shakespeare^ with an At- tempt at 'Their Explanation and Derivation^ Together with Much of the Original Music t to By LOUIS C. ELSON Author of "Great Composers," "The National Music of America," etc., etc. Illustrated BOSTON * L. C. PAGE 6? t&* l2r* t&* t2P & * J> COMPANY PUBLISHERS jj*WW»?^^*?*^^S»*WW«*««WSWW8I Copyright, 1900 By L. C. Page & Company (incorporated) All rights reserved • • • • « • . v : :• : Six£h Impression, April, 1908 'SeVeritrf Impression, January, 191 4 Made in U. S. A. PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. TO ^rot 3amz& <3zMt, 3L3L©., ©.€.31., #.&.&., etc. (pf Edinburgh University) WITH CORDIAL REMEMBRANCE OF MANY PLEASANT CONFERENCES ON THIS AND KINDRED TOPICS THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR (166198 PREFACE. In preparing this volume on the music of Shake- speare, the author has been animated by a desire to show how closely the great poet allied himself to the Divine Art. Few of the readers of Shakespeare are aware of how much of his musical material can be traced home ; many are unable to follow some of the poet's most subtile metaphors because they are un- familiar with the musical works to which he refers, or with the song or melody which enriches the scene. It is hoped that this effort may in some degree give light upon a few of the dark places in the text. The classification has been difficult, for, in many of the scenes, different branches of music are simultane- ously touched upon. In such cases, in order to preserve the beauty of the text, the author has deemed it best to cite the entire passage, rather than give it piecemeal, and refer back to it as often as necessary ; he hopes that the repetition made impera- tive by such a course will find its apology in the poetic gain of reading a complete thought, or se- quence of thoughts. As far as possible, musical technicalities have been avoided, for Shakespeare's musical allusions were intended, not for musicians only, but for all the world. Louis C. Elson. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGB The Musical Side of the Poet — His Versatility — The Orches- tra in the Time of Shakespeare — Drayton's Description of English In strum ents — Bacon's Summary of Music in Eliza- bethan Days — A Comparison of Bacon and Shakespeare in Their Musical Allusions — A Contribution to the Baconian Controversy — Concerted Music at the End of the'Sixteenth Century 1 1 CHAPTER II. Instruments Mentioned by Shakespeare — " Consorts " — Fifes — Viols — The Recorders — The Bagpipe . . . . 25 CHAPTER III. Instruments, continued — The Virginals — A Musical Error — The Sonnets — Musical Mistakes of Great Authors — Queen Elizabeth and Her Virginal Playing — The Lute — Difficulty of Tuning — Presents of Lute Strings — The Organ . . 37 CHAPTER IV. The Musical Life of England in Shakespeare's Time — The Great Contrapuntal Epoch — Famous English Composers — Status of Musicians^- Shakespeare's Satirical Allusions to Musicians — Brandt's " Ship of Fooles " — Musical Servants 56 vii Vlii CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Shakespeare's Technical Knowledge of Music — " Broken Music" — John Skelton's Diatribe — Time Keeping — Har- mony Prized Above Mere Melody — The Eighth Sonnet — Similar Views of Browning — The Proper Wedding of Poetry and Music — "The Passionate Pilgrim " — Wagner and Her- bert Spencer on the Union of the Two Arts . . . .78 CHAPTER VI. Musical Knowledge of Shakespeare, continued — Surer in Vocal than in Instrumental Work — Technical Vocal Terms — " Setting " a Tune — Burdens — Division, Key, and Gamut — Plain-song 96 CHAPTER VII. V The Dances of Shakespeare — Many Dances Sung — The Dump — Other Dances — England Fond of Lively Dances — The Morris-dance — Masques — These Preceded Operas in England . 119 CHAPTER VIII. Shakespeare's ./Esthetic Appreciation of Music — Index to Characters by Their Appreciation of Music — Famous Per- sons Who Have Disliked Music — Shakespeare's Jests at Music Balanced by His Tributes to the Art — Evening Music — The Music of the Sea — The Music of the Spheres . .151 CHAPTER IX. The Bacchanalian Music of Shakespeare — Early English Drinking-songs — Skelton's Ale-song — Tavern Life and Cus- toms — Catches — Ancient Rounds — " Three-men's Songs " 169 CHAPTER X. Bacchanalian Music, continued — A Scottish Melody Used by Shakespeare — Table-music in Elizabethan Days — Refrains CONTENTS. IX PAGE of Catches and Ballads — Hunt's-ups — Serenades — Morn- ing Songs 199 CHAPTER XI. ^ The Ballads of Shakespeare — Antiquity of English Ballads — Antique Examples — Op helia's^ Ballads — The Pathology of the Mad-s cene — Edgar's Music in " King Lear " — Mad- songs in This Epoch — Autolycus and His Ballads in "Winter's Tale"— Plots of Shakespearian Plays as Found in Ballads — " Greensleeves," as Cited by Shakespeare . 229 CHAPTER XII. Shakespeare's Lyrics — The Lyric Poets of the Elizabethan Epoch — Ben Jonson — Marlowe — Parodies of Other Poets — Doubtful Poems — The Numerous Settings of Shake- speare's Poems — " Take, Oh Take Those Lips Away " — "Come Live with Me and Be My Love" — German Transla- tions and German Musical Settings of Shakespeare — Schu- bert's " Hark, Hark, the Lark " — Purcell . . . .298 CHAPTER XIII. Children as Singers — Shakespeare's Musical Stage-directions — The ** Chorus " — Musical Interludes — Music after Plays — Final Jigs — Trumpet Signals — Drums — Bells — Sennet — Pageants upon Stage — Historical Music . . . .316 CHAPTER XIV. The Musical Influence of Shakespeare — Various Kinds of Music Inspired by Shakespeare's Plays — Influence on Wagner — Berlioz and his Shakespearian Subjects — Con- clusion c 330 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TAGB William Shakespeare .... Frontispiece Michael Drayton .13 Francis Bacon 22 Artist Playing Viol da Gamba . . . .27 Stradivarius, King of Violin - makers ... 29 " ' Lock up my doors : and when you hear the DRUM '" 30 Gentleman Playing Recorder . . . .32 Title-page of "Parthenia" 38 Gentleman Playing Lute 44 The Lute -player 50 Guido of Arezzo and His Protector, Bishop Theodal 81 " « O, Now Be Gone : More Light and Light It Grows"' 116 William Kempe 122 " « Sometimes a Thousand Twangling Instruments Will Hum about Mine Ears'" . . . 183 " ' Shall I Bid Him Go and Spare Not ? '" . . 207 "Tell Me, Where Is Fancy Bred" . . . 225 '"For Bonny Sweet Robin Is All My Joy'" . 240 " < A Pick-axe and a Spade, a Spade '" . . 300 Henry Purcell 314 \ LIST OF MUSIC. Sellinger's Round " Under the Greenwood Tree " . • The Old Melody of " Heart's - ease " . A Song to the Lute in Musicke . The Carman's Whistle .... Light o' Love " Now Is the Month of Maying " {Facsimile) An Evening Hymn {Facsimile) . Examples from Playford's "An Introduction the Skill of Musick" {Facsimile) . Example of " Division " . Trip and Go La Romanesca King Harry the VIII.'s Pavyn Lady Carey's Dump {First Period) . The Kyng's Maske " Take Those Lips Away "... "Wilt Thou Be Fat" {Facsimile) . Example of a " Catch " {Facsimile) . " Where the Bee Sucks "... "Full Fathoms Five" .... " It Was a Lover and His Lass " . " Row the Boat, Norman, Row " "Take Thy Old Cloak about Thee" . "O Mistress Mine" \ TO PAGE 43 63 68 7i 76 100 103 107 112 M5 123 127 136 i43 145 167 177 180 184 187 192 195 202 209 xiv LIST OF MUSIC. PAGE /'Hold Thy Peace" 211 Peg- a- Ramsey 212 "Three Merry Men Be We" 214 Corydon's Farewell to Phillis . . . .216 "Jack, Boy, Ho! Boy!" 221 « What Shall He Have that Kill'd the Deer " {Facsimile) . . . . . . . .224 Hunts -up, or Morning Song 226 "As I Went on Zol Day" {Facsimile) . . .231 « And How Should I Your True Love Know " . 236 " For Bonny Sweet Robin Is All my Joy " . . 242 " Jog on, Jog on the Footpath Way " . . . 248 " Whoop, Do Me no Harm, Good Man ". . . 253 Gernutus, the Jew of Venice .... 255 King Lear and His Three Daughters . . . 262 Titus Andronicus's Complaint .... 269 Greensleeves 287 " Oh ! Willow, Willow, Willow ! " . . .291 " The Aged Lover Renounceth Love " . . . 303 " Come Live with Me and Be My Love " . . 307 "When that I Was a Little Tiny Boy" . . 321 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. CHAPTER I. The Musical Side of the Poet — His Versatility — The Orchestra in the Time of Shakespeare — Drayton's Description of English Instruments — Bacon's Summary of Music in Elizabethan Days — A Comparison of Bacon and Shakespeare in Their Musical Allusions — A Contribution to the Baconian Controversy — Con- certed Music at the End of the Sixteenth Century. Three centuries ago there existed upon the earth a man with a mind so wonderful and versatile that hundreds of commentators and thousands of commen- taries have not exhausted the many topics which he has presented to posterity. 1 It is our purpose, t in this volume, to examine but one pfeas^oi that mincl; • • • • * — its musical side only, — yet even. when co»fiiaed;tci this single field the investigatck.'ie* confronted' wit n an amount of material and a wealth of suggestions that makes the task far larger than would at first sight be imagined. 1 In the Boston Public Library there are more than 3,250 differ- ent works connected with this topic. II 12 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC In order to comprehend many of the Shakespearian allusions, it is necessary to begin by examining the orchestra of his time, for, while voices remain practi- cally the same in all ages, the instruments of music undergo changes that cause the music of one epoch to be very dissimilar from that of another. Such a combination of instruments as a modern would call an "orchestra" scarcely existed at the end of the sixteenth century. During the poet's life, the opera was invented in Italy (i 594-1600) and new combinations of instru- ments began. But the influence of the new school was not felt in England during the lifetime of Shake- speare. Nevertheless, England had been accustomed to combinations of musical instruments from a very early epoch. Chaucer mentions " Cornemuse and Shalmyes And many other maner pipe," which were undoubtedly instruments with which he was acquainted, and also speaks of concerted playing, "'Bothe yh :j>bivced and yn Rede." ■ 1 r Prdf/T.*lt.'Lb\inib^r^ invited the author, in 1894, to join in the search of the solution of the mystic words, " Bothe yn Dowced and yn Rede," which end this citation. But beyond the fact that Grassineau, in 1740, defines it as " Douced, a musical instrument with strings of wire, commonly called a Dulcimer," no reference to u Dowsed " was found in any of the old musical dictionaries to which reference was had. Murray's new Oxford dictionary, how- ever, defines it as " a wind-instrument resembling a flute." MICHAEL DRAYTON. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 3 A detailed account of English instruments of the Elizabethan epoch is given by Michael Drayton (i 563-1631), contemporary and friend of Shake- speare, in his great work entitled " Poly-Olbion," the first part of which was published in 161 3. The following extract is found in the fourth song, and illustrates a trial or contention between the Welsh and the English; the Welsh have displayed their instruments in detail and the English answer them : " The English that repined to be delayed so long, All quickly at the hint, as with one free consent, Strook up at once and sung each to the instrument; (Of sundry sorts there were, as the musician likes) On which the practiced hand with perfect'st fingering strikes, Whereby their right of skill might liveliest be expressed. The trembling lute some touch, some strain the violl best, In setts r which there were seene, the Musick wondrous choice s Some likewise there affect the Gamba with the voice, To shew that England could varietie afforde. Some that delight to touch the sterner wyerie chord, The Cithron, the Pandore, and the Theorbo strike; The Gittern and the Kit the wandering fidlers like. So there were some againe, in this their learned strife, Loud instruments that loved, the Cornet and the Phife, The Hoboy, Sagbut deepe, Recorder and the Flute, Even from the shrillest Shawm unto the Cornemute, Some blow the Bagpipe up, that plaies the country 'round, The Tabor and the Pipe some take delight to sound." III,,.*. llW^ 1 ■ HW I 'II Mil N «*y. _ Most of these instruments will be defined in the ensuing chapters ; it is interesting to find them thus \ 1 Of " sets of viols " more hereafter. 14 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. grouped together in a poem which Shakespeare must have been familiar with. There can be little doubt as to the reliability of Drayton in his list of instruments. The elder Dis- raeli, in his "Amenities of Literature," sums up the " Poly-Olbion " thus : " This remarkable poem remains without a parallel in the poetical annals of any people. ... It is a chorographical description of England and Wales; an amalgamation of antiquarianism, of topography, and of history. . . . This poem has the accuracy of a road-book ! " But we can complete our survey of the musical combinations of the Shakespearian epoch by studying a more prosaic writer than Michael Drayton. Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, has left to the world a very precise description of Elizabethan music in the second and third centuries, or chapters, of his "Sylva Sylvarum." As a passing eccentricity of the time is occu- pying itself with endeavouring to prove that Bacon was really the author of Shakespeare's works, it may be of double interest to compare the stolid cata- loguing of the one with the poetic musical fervour of the other, and in a later chapter, devoted to the dances of Shakespeare, we shall find the poet enthusiastic, the philosopher disdainful, when com- menting upon a similar subject. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 5 Bacon says : " Music, in the practice, hath been well pursued, and in good variety ; but in the theory, and especially in the yielding of the causes of the practique, very weakly; being reduced into certain mystical subtilties, of no use and not much truth. We shall therefore, after our manner, join the contemplative and active part together. . . . " The diapason or eighth in music is the sweetest concord ; insomuch as it is in effect a unison ; as we see in lutes that are strung in the base strings with two strings, one an eighth above another; which make but as one sound. And every eighth note in ascent (as from eight to fifteen, from fifteen to twenty-two, and so on ad infinitum*) are but scales of diapason. The cause is dark and hath not been rendered by any ; and therefore would be better contemplated." After which Lord Verulam goes on to show that the air is forced "to recur into one and the same figure, only differing in greatness and smallness " in making these consonances. We cannot resist stating that Shakespeare makes not a single meta- phor upon these points which Bacon so strongly emphasises. Of the emotions of music Bacon speaks at consid- erable length : " Tones are not so apt altogether to procure sleep as some other sounds ; as the wind, the purling of water, the humming of bees, a sweet voice of one that readeth, etc. ; the cause whereof is for that tones, because they are equal and slide not, do more strike and erect the sense than the other. And overmuch attention hindereth sleep." 1 6 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Yet Shakespeare causes the boy in Brutus's tent — "Julius Caesar," Act iv. Sc. 4 — to fall asleep to music. Bacon, however, fully understood the effects of consonance and dissonance, as witness the following : " There be in music certain figures or tropes ; almost agree- ing with the figures of rhetoric, and with the affections of the mind, and other senses. First, the division and quavering, which please so much in music, have an agreement with the glittering of light ; as the moonbeams playing upon a wave. Again, the falling of a discord to a concord, which maketh great sweetness in music, hath an agreement with the affec- tions, which are reintegrated to the better after some dis- likes; it agreeth also with the taste, which is soon glutted after that which is sweet alone. The sliding from the close or cadence hath an agreement with the figure in rhetoric which they call prater expectatum j for there is a pleasure even in being deceived. ... It hath been anciently held and observed, that the sense of hearing and the kinds of music have most operation upon manners ; as to encourage men and make them warlike; to make them soft and effeminate; to make them grave; to make them light; to make them gentle and inclined to pity, etc. The cause is for that the sense of hearing striketh the spirits more immediately than the other j senses, and more incorporeally than the smelling. For the " "sight, taste, and feeling have their organs not of so present and immediate access to the spirits as the hearing hath. And as for the smelling (which indeed worketh also immediately upon the spirits, and is forcible while the object remaineth), it is with a communication of the breath or vapour of the object odorate; but harmony, entering easily, and mingling not at all, and coming with a manifest motion, doth by custom of often affecting the spirits and putting them in one kind of posture, alter not a little the nature of the spirits, even when SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 7 the object is removed. And, therefore, we see that tunes and airs, even in their own nature, have in themselves some affinity with the affections: as there be merry tunes, doleful tunes, solemn tunes; tunes inclining men's minds to pity; warlike tunes, etc. So as it is no marvel if they alter the spirits, con- sidering the tunes have a predisposition to the motion of the spirits themselves. But yet it hath been noted, that though this variety of tunes doth dispose the spirits to variety of pas- sions conform unto them, yet generally music feedeth that disposition of the spirits which it findeth. We see also that several airs and tunes do please several nations and persons, according to the sympathy they have with their spirits." Shakespeare has stated similar facts, but very much more fluently. Bacon continues : "All instruments that have either returns, as trumpets; or flexions, as cornets ; or are drawn up and put from, as Sack- buts, have a purling sound: but the recorder or flute, that have none of these inequalities, give a clear sound. Never- theless, the recorder itself, or pipe, moistened a little on the inside, soundeth more solemnly, and with a little purling or hissing. Again, a wreathed string, such as are in the base strings of bandoras, giveth also a purling sound. But a lute- string, if it be merely unequal in his x parts, giveth a harsh and untuneable sound ; which strings we call false, being bigger in one place than in another, and therefore wire strings are never false." The. above sentence speaks of many instruments that we shall examine in the next two chapters ; at present we need merely state that the " cornet " was 1 The use of " his " instead of " its " was a characteristic of this and earlier times ; Shakespeare sometimes used the one, sometimes the other, the change taking place in Elizabethan times. 1 8 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. a serpentine, or curved, instrument of wood or of brass, utterly unlike the instrument of the present, having finger-holes along its surface, in the style of a flute ; the name was also applied to an instrument like the oboe, of wood, but with a mouthpiece like a trumpet (see Chapter XIII.). The " sackbut " that is " drawn up and put from," is simply a slide trombone. The " recorder " was a straight flute with a flageolet mouthpiece. The "wreathed string" means a string wound around with wire, as the G string of a violin. Regarding the union of such instruments, or "scoring," Bacon says, very properly: " The sweetest and best harmony is, when every part or instrument is not heard by itself, but a conflation of them all, which requireth to stand some distance off. Even as it is in the mixture of perfumes, or the taking of the smells of several flowers in the air." Farther on, still speaking of the same subject, the union of different instruments, our author says : " All concords and discords are (no doubt) sympathies and antipathies of sounds. And so, likewise, in that music which we call broken music, 1 or consort music, some consorts of instruments are sweeter than others (a thing not sufficiently yet observed): as the Irish harp and base viol agree well, etc. ; but the virginals and the lute, or the Welsh harp and the Irish harp, or the voice and pipes alone, agree not so well. But for the melioration of music there is yet much left (in this point of exquisite consorts) to try and inquire." 1 Of " broken music " and " consorts " we shall speak later on. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 9 We have quoted thus much from the " Sylva Syl- varum" because the work gives as clear and exact a statement of many of the instruments of the Shake- spearian epoch as any volume of its time, and also because it may afford the reader an opportunity to compare the Baconian and Shakespearian estimates of music. Bacon approaches the art with all the exactness of a scientist, Shakespeare with the ardour of a music lover ; Bacon is most precise and careful in every statement, while Shakespeare occasionally makes an error, proving the lack of the investigating mind. Once having touched upon the Baconian con- troversy, we may be permitted to leave a subject foreign to the object of this volume, with the state- ment that, until recently, Shakespeare's knowledge of law was held to be a stumbling-block in the path of those who chose to believe that Shakespeare really wrote his own works ; his amount of legal lore was held to be too great for a humble actor to possess, and even those who laughed cryptograms and Baco- nian ciphers to scorn felt moved to explain this mat- ter by suggesting that the poet was for a time in an attorney's office on his advent in London. Even this hypothesis seems unnecessary. The Hon. Charles Allen, ex-justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, has recently let in a flood of light upon the subject, and proves that Shakespeare was by no means phenomenal in this matter. In his book, 20 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. entitled " Notes on the Bacon-Shakespeare Ques- tion," he shows that when Shakespeare uses a legal word, technically, other litterateurs of his day have done as he, and oftener than he. Dekker, Wilkins, Middleton, Spenser, Donne, Beaumont and Fletcher, Field, Chapman, Massinger, Marston, Nash, Hey- wood, Ford, Shirley, Greene, Peele, Lyly, Webster, Rowley, Cook are cited for their "law," many of them repeatedly. As for Ben Jonson, his love of this "branch of learning" was violent, and scores of pas- sages are quoted from his works. Chapman also has a paragraph in his " All Fools," which contains a hundred technical terms of law, so that, as Judge Allen says, " If Hamlet's collection of legal terms goes to show that the play was written by Bacon, the play of • All Fools ' must have been written by Coke himself." In a remarkably keen and analytical review of this book, 1 and incidentally of the entire controversy, Henry Austin Clapp, Esq., gives a charming glance at the poetic side of the question. He says : " Judge Allen has a capitally good chapter on Bacon's acknowledged verses. And, after quoting Sir Francis's trans- lation of the ist Psalm and portions of his version of the 90th and 1 04th, says, ■ Of course a good poet may write bad verses occasionally,' but the peculiarity of Bacon's case is that never by an accident did he stumble on a good line. The proposition of the Baconians involves the conclusion that the 1 Boston Daily Advertiser, April 21, 1900. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 21 writer of " The Merchant of Venice," " The Tempest," and » A Midsummer Night's Dream " had degenerated into writing such clumsy verse as these translations, and that he deemed the latter worthy of preservation and publication with his name. And Judge Allen might go a very little farther and add that Bacon's careful conserving of his lyrics is nearly proof positive that he was void of poetical taste and discrimination as well as of poetical genius. A man possessed with a scrap of judg- ment in this kind could not have suffered such lyrics to be handed down as the sole authentic examples of his poetic ability. It will not be amiss to reprint here said translation of the i st Psalm: " ■ Who never gave to wicked reed A yielding and attentive ear ; Who never sinner's paths did tread, Nor sat him down in scorner's chair; But maketh it his whole delight On law of God to meditate, And therein spendeth day and night ; That man is in a happy state. « ■ He shall be like the fruitful tree, Planted along a running spring, Which, in due season, constantly A goodly yield of fruit doth bring ; Whose leaves continue always green, And are no prey to winter's power ; So shall that man not once be seen Surprised with an evil hour. "'With wicked men it is not so, Their lot is of another kind : All as the chaff, which to and fro Is tossed a*l mercy of the wind. 22 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. And when he shall in judgment plead, A casting sentence bide he must ; So shall he not lift up his head In the assembly of the just. "• For why? the Lord hath special eye To be the godly's stay at call ; And hath given over, righteously, The wicked man to take his fall.' " Since we now leave Lord Verulam and his incon- testable greatness, we add a final excerpt from another of his works, the " Essayes." In the course of a few chapters the reader will be made acquainted with Shakespeare's love of dancing and revelry ; the follow- ing is Bacon's essay on one of the principal phases of the revelry of that epoch, the masques and triumphs which preceded the introduction of opera into Eng- land. As the essay is short, we quote it entire : "OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. " These things are but Toyes, to come amongst such Serious Observations. But yet, since Princes will have such Things, it is better that they should be Graced with Elegancy, than daubed with Cost. Dancing to Song is a Thing of great State, and Pleasure. I understand it, that the Song be in Quire, placed aloft, and accompanied with some broken Musicke; And the Ditty fitted to the Device. " Acting in Song, especially in Dialogues, hath an extreme Good Grace ; I say Acting, not Dancing, (For that is a Meane and Vulgar Thing ;) And the Voices of the Dialogue would be Strong and Manly (A Base and a Tenour; No Treble;) And Vrancis bacon. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2$ the Ditty, High and Tragicall ; Not Nice or Dainty. Severall Quires, placed one over against another, and taking the Voice by Catches, Antheme-w'ise, give great Pleasure. Turning Dances, into Figure, is a childish Curiosity. And generally, let it be noted, that those Things, which I here set downe, are such as doe naturally take the Sense, and not respect Petty Wonderments. " It is true, the Alterations of Scenes, so it be quietly, and without Noise, are Things of great Beauty and Pleasure : for they feed and relieve the Eye, before it be full of the same Object. Let the Scenes abound with Light, specially Coloured and Varied : And let the Masquers, or any other, that are to come down from the Scene, have some Motions, upon the Scene itselfe, before their comming down : For it draws the Eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure, to desire to see that, it cannot perfectly discerne. Let the Songs be Loud and Cheerefull, and not Chirpings or Pulings. Let the Musicke likewise, be Sharpe, and Loud, and Well Placed. The Col- ours that shew best by Candlelight are : White, Carnation, and a Kinde of Sea-Water-Greene ; and Oes and Spangles, as they are of no great Cost, so they are of most Glory. As for Rich Embroidery, it is lost and not Discerned. Let the Sutes of the Masquers, be Gracefull, and such as become the Person when the Vizars are off ; Not after Examples of Knowne Attires ; Turkes, Soldiers, Mariners, and the Like. Let Antimasques not be long; They have been commonly of Fooles, Satyres, Baboones, Wilde-Men, Antiques, Beasts, Sprites, Witches, Ethiopes, Pigmies, Turquets, Nimphs, Rusticks, Cupids, Statua's Moving, and the like. As for Angels it is not Comi- call enough, to put them in Anti-Masques ; And any Thing that is hideous, as Devils, Giants, is on the other side as unfit. But chiefly, let the Musicke of them, be Recreative, and with some strange Changes. Some Sweet Odours, suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are, in such a Company, as there is Steame and HeVte, Things of Great Pleasure & Re* 24 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. freshment. Double-Masques, one of Men, another of Ladies, addeth State and Variety. But All is Nothing, except the Roome be kept Cleare, and Neat. " For Justs and Tourneys, and Barriers j The Glories of them, are chiefly in the Chariots, wherein the Challengers make their Entry; Especially if they be drawne with Strange Beasts ; As Lions, Beares, Cammels, and the like ; Or in the Devices of their Entrance ; Or in the Bravery of their Liver- ies; Or in the Goodly Furniture of their Horses, and Armour, But enough of these Toyes." CHAPTER II. Instruments Mentioned by Shakespeare — " Consorts " — Fifes — Viols — The Recorders — The Bagpipe. The preceding chapter has shown that, although England had not, as yet, the Italian development of orchestra, 1 it possessed a fair knowledge of concerted music, and used combinations of instruments. These combinations were called " consorts." Shakespeare alludes to them in " Romeo and Juliet," when Tybalt and Mercutio meet (Act iii. Sc. i). " Tybalt. Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo. Mercutio. Consort ! 2 what, dost thou make us minstrels ? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords : here's my fiddlestick ; here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort ! " One finds here the usual Shakespearian pun, and also a subtle reference to the low caste of the musi- cian in this epoch (whereof more hereafter), for 1 " L' Anima e nel Corpo," the first oratorio (Rome, 1600), had a double lyre, a harpsichord, a large guitar, and two flutes, as or- chestra. "Euridice," the oldest opera extant (1600), had a com- bination of harpsichord, large guitar, viol, large lute, flute, and a triple flute. ^ * " Consorts n were often mentioned by Milton. 25 26 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Mercutio is mightily indignant at the minstrel impu- tation — or pretends to be. At the outset we must accustom ourselves to the fact that Shakespeare makes but few attempts to picture the country in which his scene is laid. Musi- cians were not despised in Verona, where Romeo and Juliet reside, but the poet is picturing London instead, and he presents the contemporary English life, whether the scene be laid in Bohemia, Denmark, Italy, or elsewhere. The " consorts " of Shakespeare's time were not only concerted music, but generally composed of such instruments as belonged to one family. If, for example, only viols were employed, the consort was called "whole," but if virginal, lute, or flute, came into the combination, the result was a " broken con- sort," or " broken music," which Shakespeare alludes to more than once, and which will be described in connection with Shakespeare's technical terms. Viols were most employed in these "consorts," and were generally sold to music-lovers in " sets," so that a "chest of viols" usually consisted of six pieces : two trebles, two tenor viols, and two basses. The violin was not among these, nor the contrabass. The golden epoch of violin-making began nearly fifty years after Shakespeare's death ; Stradivarius, Amati, Guarnerius, the kings of violin-making, all came later, and in the first half of the seventeenth century rr ARTIST PLAYING VIOL DA GAMBA. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2J the violin was looked upon in England as rather a vulgar instrument. Even in the eighteenth century Stradivarius had an invoice of violins, which he had sent to England, returned to him with the information that London was not accustomed to paying as much as five pounds for a violin ! The viols alluded to above had generally six strings each, and were fretted, like a guitar. We present herewith a picture (taken from a contemporaneous print) of the viol da gamba of Shakespeare's time, and need only add that the treble viol was just half the size, while the tenor stood between the two in size and compass. The contrabass existed in England at this time, but was called the " violone ; " the word " violon- cello" is a derivative of this, meaning the "little violone." One of the curious musical conceits of the Elizabethan days was to cut a door in the back of the violone and introduce a small boy into the in- strument ; at the concert the contrabass player would render the bass part on his instrument, would sing the "mean," or middle part, and the invisible boy would add a treble, — a trio with but one performer in sight. Many are the allusions to the viols in Shakespeare's works. In "Twelfth Night" (Act i. Sc. 3), Maria calls Sir Andrew Aguecheek " a fool and a prodigal," whereupon Sir Toby Belch defends him with : 28 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Fye, that you'll say so ! he plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature." It was therefore part of a liberal education to play upon the viols ; in fact, many a wealthy gentleman kept his chest of viols at hand for guests to divert themselves with music. Pericles (Act i. Sc. i), addressing the daughter of Antiochus, says : " 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 : Good sooth, I care not for you," comparing unruly passions to disordered viol music. The Duke of Norfolk (in « Richard II.," Act i. Sc. 3), upon hearing his sentence of banishment, bursts forth : " A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And one unlook'd for from your highness' mouth : A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air, Have I deserved at your highness' hand. The language I have learned 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 cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands, That knows no touch to tune the harmony." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 29 While England devoted itself to the viols, the vio- lins had made some headway in France. This fact is alluded to somewhat scornfully by our poet in "Henry VIII." (Act i. Sc. 3), where Lovell says: "A French song and a fiddle has no fellow," and Sands replies, " The devil fiddle them ! " In " Coriolanus " (Act v. Sc. 4), at the entrance of the messenger, we find a varied list of instruments : " Why, hark you {Trumpets and hautboys sounded, a?id drums beate?i, all together. Shouting also withinj] The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes, Tabors, and cymbals, and the shouting Romans, Make the sun dance. Hark you ! \_Shouting again. ] " It is almost needless to say that the ancient Romans did not indulge in sackbuts (slide trom- bones) nor psalteries. Regarding the latter instru- ment, we find the following definition in Grassineau's Dictionary (1740) : " That now in use is a flat instrument in form of a tra- pezium, or triangle truncated atop. It is strung with thirteen wire chords set to unison and octave, and mounted on two bridges on the two sides. It is struck with a plectrum, or little iron rod, or sometimes with a little crooked stick, whence 'tis usually ranked among the instruments of percussion. Its chest, or body, resembles that of a spinet." It was therefore a species of dulcimer, or what the Germans call a Sch^ag-Zither. 30 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. The fife is mentioned more than once in the Shakespearian dramas. In " The Merchant of Ven- ice " (Act ii. Sc. 5), Shylock cries out to Jessica : " What ! are there masques ? Hear you me, Jessica : Lock up my doors : and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casement, then, Nor thrust your head into the public street, To gaze on Christian fools with varnish 'd faces ; But stop mine house's ears, — I mean, my casements : Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter My sober house." The "wry-necked fife" has been the occasion of considerable critical comment. Edward W. Naylor, in his excellent " Shakespeare and Music" (p. i5i), suggests that — * " The adjective ' wry-necked ' refers, not to the instrument itself, which was straight, but to the player, whose head has to be slightly twisted around to get at the mouth-piece. Mer- sennus (b. 1588) says the fife is the same as the tibia Helvetica, which was simply a small edition of the flauto traverso, or German flute. That is, the fife of those days was much the same as the modern fife of the cheaper kind, with the usual six holes, and a big hole near the stopped end, where the breath was applied. The instrument was therefore held across (traverso) the face of the player, whose head would be turned sideways, and hence comes Shylock's de- scription of it as the « wry-necked ' fife." Some editions have "squeaking," changed to " squealing," which, as Richard Grant White points Shylock. — " Lock up 7ny doors : and when you hear the drtimy % (Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 5.) From the painting by R. Smirke. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 3 1 out, is a more appropriate word in this connection. The very word " wry-necked M was used by another writer in the time of Shakespeare. A pertinent passage from Barnaby Rich's "Aphorisms" (1618), quoted by Boswell, runs : " The Fife is a wry-necked musician, for he looks away from his instrument." But the old fife itself had a sufficiently crooked mouthpiece to be described as "wry-necked." Both Knight and R. G. White think that the instrument itself was meant, and Knight suggests that it may be an imitation of the lines of Horace, — " Prima nocte domum claude ; neque in vias, Sub cantu querulae despice Tibia," — which certainly refers to the instrument and not to the musician. We think, since the adjective can be applied both to the instrument and its player, that the more evident meaning may be adhered to. In " Much Ado About Nothing " (Act ii. Sc. 3) Benedick speaks of the fife as less refined than the pipe. In reading the passage one thinks uncon- sciously upon Othello's rougher delight in "the spirit-stirring drum and ear-piercing fife." Bene- dick's soliloquy runs : " I do much wonder, that one man, seeing how much an- other man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love : And such a man is Cla^dio. I have known, when there was r, 32 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. no music with him but the drum and fife ; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe." Somewhat akin to the fife, but a more developed instrument, was the recorder. This was a straight flute, with a mouthpiece very like that of the flageo- let (see illustration). Bacon's description of it, in the preceding chapter, presents rather a primitive instrument ; yet it was preferred in England to the German flute, our modern instrument. Shakespeare draws one of his finest metaphors from this instrument. In " Hamlet " (Act hi. Sc. 2), when Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are spying upon the prince, Hamlet suddenly turns upon them with a musical sarcasm. " Enter the Players, with Recorders. Hamlet. O, the recorders : — let me see one. — To with- draw with you. — Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil ? Guildenstern. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly. Hamlet. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe ? Guildenstern. My lord, I cannot. Hamlet. I pray you. Guildenstern. Believe me, I cannot. Hamlet. I do beseech you. Guildenstern. I know no touch of it, my lord. Hamlet. 'Tis as easy as lying : govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. GENTLEMAN PLAYING RECORDER. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. • 33 t Guildenstem. But these cannot I command to any utter- ance of harmony ; I have not the skill. Ha?nlet. 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 pluck out the heart of my mystery ; 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 ; yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood, 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." It is possible, in Benedick's allusion to "tabor and pipe," above given, that the recorder was meant, for the word " pipe " was used in as general a sense, in Shakespeare's time, as " tibia " among the ancient Romans, — many instruments were embraced in the term. The technical points in the scene in " Ham- let " are quite correct ; the thumb was used, as the poet indicates ; the change of metaphor from the recorder to " what instrument you will " is evidently done to allow the obvious pun on the word " fret," for, of course, frets would only be found on stringed instruments. A more legitimate pun upon the recorder is found in "Midsummer Night's Dream" (Act v. Sc. i), after the Prologue of " Py ramus and Thisbe " has muddled all his punctuation : " Theseus. This fellow does not stand upon points. Lysander. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt ; he knows not the stop. V 34 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Hippolyta. Indeed he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder, a sound, but not in government." There is genuine humour in each of the three speeches, and the suggestion of the sound being right and the sense wrong, like a child playing an instrument, is charmingly dainty and feminine. • The bagpipe was too characteristic an instrument for Shakespeare to pass by, and we find several allusions to it in the plays. Musicians may affect disdain of this instrument as much as they please, yet no musical instrument is so interwoven with history as the bagpipe. Every European nation seems to have used it in ancient times, and the fact that in Italy there is a bagpipe called "zumpogna," an evi- dent derivation from the Greek sumphonia t would indicate that the Hellenic music, which is so ecstat- ically praised by the ancient writers, may have pos- sessed the bagpipe drone occasionally. Shakespeare alludes to a local bagpipe in the first part of " Henry IV." (Act i. Sc. 2). " Falstaff. S 'blood ! I am as melancholy as a gib cat, or a lugged bear. Prince Henry. Or an old lion ; or a lover's lute. Falstaff. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe." Steevens thought that "a Lincolnshire bagpipe" was only a jesting allusion to frogs croaking in the marshes, but Malone set this error right by quoting SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 35 the following from "A Nest of Ninnies," by Robert Armin (1608) : " At a Christmas-time, when great logs furnish the hall fire : when brawne is in season, and indeed all revelling is regarded ; this gallant knight kept open house for all commers, were beefe, beere and bread was no niggard. Amongst all the pleasures provided, a noyse of minstrells and a Lincolnshire bagpipe was prepared ; the minstrells for the great chamber, the bag- pipe for the hall ; the minstrells to serve up the knights' meate, and the bagpipe for the common dauncing." Richard Grant White scoffingly says : " It is im- possible to believe that the drone of any one bagpipe could be more melancholy than that of any other." Nevertheless, there must have been some peculiar quality about this instrument to make two authors specify it by name. Another allusion to the bagpipe, by Shakespeare, has also puzzled many commentators. Shylock ("Merchant of Venice," Act iv. Sc. 1) twice alludes to the instrument (an allusion quite out of place in Venice), the second time speaking of a " woollen bag- pipe." Naylor passes this by with the question, " What is a * woollen bagpipe ' ? " Steevens thought that " swollen bagpipe " was meant ; Collier's folio of 1632 gives it as "bollen bagpipe;" White thinks that the adjective refers to the baize covering, which is as likely a solution as any. The bagpipe is mentioned by English poets before 36 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. the Elizabethan time. Even Chaucer says of his miller : " A baggepipe coude wel he blowe and soune." The Canterbury pilgrims are mentioned in the same poem as performing their journey to the tones of the same instrument. Cornet and serpent have already been described in the preceding chapter. The former is called for in some of the stage directions of Shakespeare, to which we shall devote an especial page. CHAPTER III. Instruments, continued — The Virginals — A Musical Error — The Sonnets — Musical Mistakes of Great Authors — Queen Eliza- beth and Her Virginal Playing — The Lute — Difficulty of Tun- ing — Presents of Lute Strings — The Organ. One of the most used musical instruments of the Elizabethan epoch was the virginals, a tiny and primi- tive piano on which the strings were plucked by little pieces of quill, set in " jacks." The tone of the vir- ginals was faint and more like a mandolin than any other instrument. Shading was impossible upon it ; the player produced a constant, and rather irritating, pizzicato, which must have been a deadly foe to any- thing like expression. Yet the instrument was very popular. Every barber's shop of that time had its lute or its virginals (for the instrument was always spoken of in the plural) for the customers to play upon while awaiting their turn to be shaved. 1 As late as 1666, Pepys, speaking of the great fire in London, says : " River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water, and only I observed that hardly 1 In this connection it may be added that the striped pole which indicates the American barber's shop is derived from the bleeding arm in a white bandage which the old English barber-surgeons displayed at their doote. 37 >r 38 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. one lighter or boat in three, that had the goods of a house in, but there was a Pair of Virginalls in it." It is singular that Shakespeare only alludes to this instrument once in his plays, although here the meta- phor is a fine one. It occurs in " Winter's Tale " (Act i. Sc. 2), when the jealous Leontes watches his queen, Hermione, with Polixenes, and sees her take the Bohemian's hand, while he angrily mutters, " Still virginalling upon his palm." The action of the virginal player was not very dif- ferent from that of the pianist, as will readily be seen from the accompanying print of the title-page of the first collection of virginal music. Perhaps the lack of allusions to the instrument in Shakespeare may be explained by a peculiar error that occurs in one of his sonnets, and which may show that he had not a very perfect knowledge of the instrument. It is a poem written to the "dark lady," 1 the 128th sonnet, and here, for once, the writer speaks at some length of the musical instru- ment : " How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st, The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, 1 Possibly Mrs. Fytton, who was Lord Pembroke's mistress. Th« Earl of Pembroke was William Herbert (" W. H."), who succeeded to the title in 1601. PARTHEN1A or THE MAYDENHEAD of the first musicke that our Atas jwirfafjcr tUcVffigftNJiLLS s r (IMPOSED GcniiiiwjfhuMj, . wstS&ttril* (fyfc-7 fom&firjl ^r.t'tms.^m t pmt^.^f f f e . J ^r ] f- TITLE-PAGE OF " PARTHENIA. \ SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 39 Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ! To be so tickled, they would change their state And situation with those dancing chips, O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss." The fifth line is here a puzzle and possibly an error. It is not the odd accent on the third word, for "envy" was sometimes pronounced "en^" in Shakespeare's time, but the "jacks" of the instru- ment could by no means leap to kiss the lady's hand, any more than the hammers of the piano of the present could touch the fingers of a Paderewski. The same error, it will be noted, occurs in the final lines of the sonnet. Shakespeare is not the only'poet of the time who used the virginal jacks for a metaphor, but none of his contemporaries speak of the hand and the jack coming near each other. Lord Oxford satirically wrote (or said), referring to Raleigh's favour at court and the execution of Essex : " When * Jacks ' start up, heads go down ! " Mid- dleton, in his " Father Hubbard's Tales," describes the frozen Charity with : " Her teeth chattered in her head and leaped up and down Like virginal jacks.N 40 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Dekker, in " Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the Humourous Poet" (published in 1602), says: " Lord ha' mercy upon us ! we women fall and fall still ; and when we have husbands, we play upon them like virginal jacks, they must rise and fall to our humours, or else they'll never get any good strains of music out of us." Yet we may acknowledge that the word "jack" may have been substituted for "key," in the sonnet, either by poetic license or by carelessness. We shall find one or two other musical slips in our poet, in the course of these chapters, but they can- not detract from the tremendous amount of musical knowledge displayed, nor from the glorious enthusi- asm with which the poet has gilded our art. We may recall, in this connection, that another most musical poet, Browning, in his "Toccata of Martini Galuppi," speaks of — " Sixths, diminished, sigh on sigh." There happen to be two horns to this last dilemma. While Richter and some other harmonists do not re- cognise the diminished sixth, Albrechtsberger (the teacher of Beethoven), in the eighteenth division of his great theoretical book, both recognises the chord of the diminished sixth and gives an example. But he speaks of it as very rare, nor do we discover such intervals " sigh on sigh " in Galuppi's works, and, as the diminished sixth is an enharmonic change of the SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 4 1 perfect fifth, a succession of them would produce something very like consecutive fifths, which Ga- luppi would have held a crime, although Bach is not altogether innocent of them. Tennyson has given us a combination (in " Maud ") of "flute, violin, bassoon," that would not please the teacher of orchestration, and a fairly long list of the musical errors of poets and of novelists might be made out ; but it will be readily perceived that the Shakespeare and the Browning errors (if they are such) can be readily defended. But the sparse allusions that Shakespeare has made to the virginals are the more to be wondered at when it is recalled that his patroness and frequent auditor, Queen Elizabeth, loved the instrument and was very proud of her skill upon it. 1 Her pride in this matter once led Sir James Melvil, the ambas- sador from the Scottish queen, into rather an awk- ward position. He thus speaks of the incident in his "Memoirs :" " The same day after dinner, my Lord of Hunsden 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 awhile I took by the tapestry that hung by the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, I entered within the chamber, and 1 Spite of Elizabeth's parade of her love of music, it must be stated that she was extremely parsimonious to her band of musicians. v 42 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 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 for- ward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alleging she was not used to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy. She asked how I came there ? I answered, as I was walking with my Lord Hunsden, as we passed by the chamber door, I heard such a melody as ravished me, whereby I was drawn in ere I knew how ; excusing my fault of homeli- ness as being brought up in the court of France where such freedom was allowed ; declaring myself willing to endure what kind of punishment her Majesty should be pleased to inflict upon me for so great offence. Then she sate down low upon a cushion, and I upon my knees by her ; but with her own hand she gave me a cushion to lay under my knee ; which at first I refused, but she compelled me to take it. She inquired whether my queen or she played best. In that I found myself obliged to give her the praise." Melvil was ambassador from Mary Stuart in 1564, and there is every reason to suppose that the neat little comedy described above had been quietly ar- ranged by Queen Elizabeth herself, for our diplomat informs us that, before the stolen musical interview, she had asked him many questions about his queen : How she dressed ? what was the colour of her hair ? whether that, or hers, was best ? which of the two was fairest ? which was higher in stature ? Melvil describes the first interview thus : "Then she asked what kind of exercises she used? I an- swered that when I received my despatch the queen was lately come from the Highland hunting: that when her more serious affairs permitted, she was taken up with the reading of his- SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 43 tories : that sometimes she recreated herself in playing upon the lute and virginals. She asked if she played well ? I said, reasonably for a queen." It would be interesting to know just what Queen Elizabeth played for the bold ambassador. There is a piece of virginal music extant which was an especial favourite with the queen, and was, in fact, arranged for her, from an old English melody, by her own music-teacher, Doctor Byrd. It was called " Sel- linger's Round," and is probably one of the oldest English country dances extant. The name was probably "St. Leger's Round " originally, and it was also called "The Beginning of the World" in its early days. We append a copy of this as Queen Elizabeth played it on the virginals. SELLINGER'S ROUND. As played by Queen Elizabeth. Harmonies by Dr. Byrd. Moderato. , , ^ 4-4- ™1 S -#^-* m ZJTJt± •l^l riZA +-* rri m nRj. * rn rri 44 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. ^ m^mM m . ;s= Lfel F^ SEi afct -*-t ^ |T1 IT U pn ra-u ran ran -*Tj j B ^ r f rr ran i ;>.£$ 9? a m&= *& 4: }rr\ A Bf *t r Rivalling the virginals in popular favour, and far superior to it in musical effect, was the lute. The lute came into Europe in the middle ages from Spain, where the Moors used the instrument, applying to it the Arabic name "Al ud." Many were the modifi- cations of this instrument. We give a reproduction of an old print of a lute- player with his instrument, but there were many other kinds used at the same GENTLEMAN PLAYING LUTB. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 45 epoch ; one sort possessed a number of open, harp- like strings, in addition to the fretted, or guitar-like ones, and this instrument was particularly difficult to set in tune and required retuning at each change of key. If Shakespeare neglected the virginals, he made up for it by many allusions to, and metaphors founded upon, its rival, the lute. " The Taming of the Shrew " is classed by some commentators as among the "doubtful plays," but few refuse to recognise the hand of Shakespeare in some of its subtle touches, and nowhere are these more evident than in the musical scenes. In the first of these (Act ii. Sc. I), we find Katharine venting her furious temper upon her music-teacher, — the disguised lover of Bianca, — Hortensio : " Re-enter Hortensio, with his head broken. Baptista. How now, my friend? why dost thou look so pale ? Hortensio. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale. Baptista. What, will my daughter prove a good musician ? Hortensio. I think she'll sooner prove a soldier ; Iron may hold her, but never lutes. Baptista. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute ? Hortensio. 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, Hie struck me on the head, 46 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 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 she had studied to misuse me so. Petruchio. Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench ; I love her ten times more than ere I did : O, how I long to have some chat with her ! Baptista. Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited : Proceed in practice with my younger daughter ; She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns, — Signior Petruchio, will you go with us ; Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you ? Petruchio. I pray you do, I will attend her here, — [Exeunt Baptista, Gremzo, Tramo, and Hortensia And woo her with some spirit when she comes. Say, that she rail, — why, then I'll tell her plain, She sings as sweetly as a nightingale ; Say, that she frown, — I'll say, she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew ; Say, she be mute, and will not speak a word, — Then, I'll commend her volubility, And say — she uttered piercing eloquence ; If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, As though she bid me stay by her a week : If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day When I shall ask the banns, and when be married. --— But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak." We have quoted the last sentence of this scene for a purpose aside from the immediate examination of the lute. Shakespeare has induced myriads of musical settings (some of which we shall examine in their SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 47 proper place), but seldom have the poet's words undergone such a startling transformation as the phrases of Petruchio, altered to fit a female singer, and made into a dainty soprano song by Sir Henry Bishop. Here is the modern version : " Should he upbraid, I'll own that he prevail, And sing as sweetly as the nightingale. Say that he frown, I'll say his looks I view, As morning roses newly tipped with dew. Say he be mute, I'll answer with a smile, And dance and play, and wrinkled Care beguile." And the above rhymes are ticketed as being "by Shakespeare ! " To return to the lute : the difficulty of tuning the instrument, and the time consumed in its constant retuning at changes of key, can scarcely be exagger- ated. Mattheson (about 1720) wrote of the instru- ment : " If a lute-player have lived eighty years, he has probably spent about sixty years tuning his instrument ! " This defect in the instrument is excel- lently delineated in the scene where Hortensio, dis- guised as a music-teacher, seeks to drive away Lucentio (disguised as a Latin teacher) from the side of Bianca, that he may give his lesson (" Taming of the Shrew," Act hi. Sc. 1). " Enter Lucentio, Hortensio, and Bianca. Lucentio. Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir; Have you so soon forgot the entertainment Her sister Katharine Welcomed you withal? 48 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 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. Lucentio. Preposterous ass ! that never read so far To know the cause why music was ordain'd ! Was it riot, 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. Hortensio. Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine. Bianca. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong, To strive for that which resteth in my choice : I am no breeching scholar in the schools ; I'll not be tied to hours, nor 'pointed times, But learn my lessons as I please myself, And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down ; Take you your instrument, play you the whiles ; His lecture will be done, ere you have tuned. Hortensio. You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune? [To Bianca; Hortensio retires. Lucentio. That will be never : — tune your instrument." Lucentio now makes his declaration of love in the guise of a Latin lesson, construing " Hac ibat Simois" from Ovid in the following totally novel fashion : " Bianca. Where left we last? Lucentio. Here, madam : — * Hac ibat Simois; hie est Sigeia tellus; Hie steterat Priami regia celsa senis.' Bianca. Construe them. Lucentio. * Hac ibat,' as I told you before, — 'Simois,' {/ SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 49 I am Lucentio, — 'hie est,' son unto Vincentio of Pisa, — * Sigeia tellus,' disguised thus to get your love, — ' Hie stet- erat,' and that Lucentio that comes a wooing, — « Priami,' is my man Tranio, — 'regia,' bearing my port, — 'celsa senis, 1 that we might beguile the old Pantaloon. Hortensio. Madam, my instrument's in tune. \Returning. Bianca. Let's hear : [Hortensio plays. fy ! the treble jars. Lucentio. Spit in the hole, man, and tune again. 1 Bianca. Now let me see if I can construe it : « Hac ibat Simois,' I know you not; — ' Hie est Sigeia tellus,' I trust you not ; — ■ Hie steterat Priami,' take heed he hear us not ; — * regia,' presume not ; — ' celsa senis,' despair not. Hortensio. Madam, 'tis now in tune. Lucentio. All but the bass. Hortensio. The bass is right ; 'tis the base knave that jars." A little later Hortensio is permitted to begin his music lesson, which he does somewhat angrily, say- ing to Lucentio : " You may go walk, and give me leave awhile, My lessons make no music in three parts. Lucentio. Are you so formal, sir ? well, I must wait, And watch withal ; for, but I be deceived, Our fine musician groweth amorous. \Asi4e. Hortensio. Madam, before you touch the instrument, To learn the order of my fingering, 1 must begin with rudiments of art : To teach you gamut in a briefer sort, More pleasant, pithy and effectual, Than hath been taught by any of my trade, And there it is in writing,, fairly drawn. 1 The " peg-hole " of the instrument is here spoken of ; a techni- cal point connected witXtuning. 50 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Bianca. Why I am past my gamut long ago. Hortensio. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio. Bianca. \Reads~\ Gamut, 1 ■ 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 clef two notes have I ; ' E la mi, ' shew pity or I die.' Call you this — gamut ? tut ! I like it not : Old fashions please me best ; I am not so nice To change true rules for odd inventions." At present we are concerned but with the intro- duction of the lute, and the delicate allusions to its tuning difficulties, but the introduction of the gamut is a vocal point which will be touched upon in con- nection with the songs in later chapters, and the " lessons in three parts" are also connected more closely with the vocal than with the instrumental side of the subject. It was not unnatural for Shakespeare to use vocal figures in the lute lesson, for the lute was almost always used as the accompaniment of song in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; but the sol- faing and the vocal gamut had nothing to do with the instrument itself ; in fact the lute had a notation of its own, different from that of other instruments, a notation which has become utterly obsolete to-day. 1 See Chapter VI. for explanation of the vocal terms here used. *THE LUTE -PLAYER. From the painting by A. Seifert. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 5 I In "Henry VI." (Part I. Act i. Sc. 4) Shake- speare uses the lute as a simile which deserves atten- tion ; he causes Talbot to soothe the dying Salisbury with — " Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort; Thou shalt not die, whiles — He beckons with his hand and smiles on me ; As who would say, ' When I am dead and gone, Remember to avenge me on the French.' — Plantagenet, I will ; and Nero-like, Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn : Wretched shall France be only in my name." This is truer to history than the well-known say- ing, " Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, ,, for the Romans possessed no instrument resembling the fiddle, but they had some instruments akin to the lute. In "Much Ado About Nothing" (Act iii. Sc. 2) Claudio jests at Benedick and speaks of his dwindling spirits : " Nay, but his jesting spirit ; which is now crept into a lute-string, and now governed by stops." These are not all of Shakespeare's allusions to the instrument, but they are the most important. Occasionally, as above, he speaks intelligently of the strings of the instrument, apart from the rest, as, for example, Cloten's rough allusion in " Cymbeline" (Act ii. Sc. 3), or in the tent scene in " Julius Caesar " (Act iv. Sc. 3). The lute-strings were apt to be present in Shakespeare's mind as separate from the instru< 52 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. ment, for it was a dainty custom of the Elizabethan court to make especial gifts of these. On New Year's Day, many an Elizabethan gallant would do up a packet of lute-strings with pretty ribbons, con- ceal a poem among them, and send it as a species of valentine to his lady-love. The queen herself greatly regarded these presents, as they became a double tribute to her personal attractions and her musical abilities. A very different use of the lute-string was made by the barbers in the Elizabethan days. As they were often dentists, they would hang a lute-string fes- tooned with the teeth they had drawn, in their shop- windows. This lute-string was usually one that had been broken, by some impatient customer, while playing the instrument that always stood in their shop for the use of the public. Ben Jonson alludes to this custom, when, in " The Silent Woman " (Act iii. Sc. 2), Truewit joins with Morose in cursing the barber, and wishes that he may " draw his own teeth and add them to the lute-string ! " But Shakespeare does not allude to this side of lute-string utility. One of the neatest allusions to the strings of instruments in Shakespeare is found in the First Part of "King Henry IV." (Act ii. Sc. 4), where Prince Henry says, regarding his companionship with the drawers (tapsters), " I have sounded the very base-string of humility." This is not so very unlike SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 53 the playful complaint that Chopin once made re- garding his own delicate nature among coarse sur- roundings. He said : " I am a violin E string on a contrabass ! " With allusions to one other instrument (since it is unnecessary to make a mere catalogue of instru- mental references, which can be found in any Con- cordance) we leave this subject. In " The Tempest " (Act-iv. Sc. i) Alonzo says : " The thunder, That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced The name of Prosper ; it did bass my trespass." This simple sentence contains more than might appear at first sight. It shows how all things transmuted themselves into poetry in that most receptive and assimilative mind. In 1605, Thomas Dallam set up, in King's College, Cambridge, the first complete two-manual organ of England. In it were some tremendous pedal pipes, still used (we believe) in the deepest register of the instrument. All England, or at least the musical part of it, was interested in this great instrument. According to Furnivall, " The Tempest " was written very soon thereafter, and consequently we find the " deep and dreadful organ pipe " preserved to posterity in a still more imperishable play. In "King John '^ there is a less important allusion 54 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. to the organ. Prince Henry, on being informed that the dying king had attempted to sing, says (Act v. Sc. 7) : " '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," — the voice of the king here being the "organ pipe of frailty." In the Induction to "Henry IV.," Part II., Shakespeare alludes to "a pipe" without specify- ing its kind ; here, however, an instrument is evi- dently meant. Rumour speaks : " Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures ; And of so easy and so plain a stop, That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it." Even the cases of musical instruments are some- times spoken of by Shakespeare, as, for example, when the boy in " Henry V." (Act iii. Sc. 2) speaks of the propensity of Falstaffs followers to steal, even at a loss, from the mere habit : " They will steal anything, and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it three leagues and sold it for three half-pence." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 55 Or FalstafF s description of Shallow (" Henry IV.," Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2), when he says : ■ The case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court." In "Much Ado About Nothing" (Act ii. Sc. 1) Hero says to the masked Don Pedro : " God defend that the lute should be like the case." In fact, no part of any musical instrument of the poet's time seems to have been too humble for him to draw some metaphor from. CHAPTER IV. The Musical Life of England in Shakespeare's Time — The Great Contrapuntal Epoch — Famous English Composers — Status of Musicians — Shakespeare's Satirical Allusions to Musicians — Brandt's " Ship of Fooles " — Musical Servants. So much has been said and written about the liter- ary activity of Shakespeare's time that the "Eliza- bethan poets" have become a standard subject with which every schoolboy is acquainted, and the epoch is accepted as one in which essays, poems, dramas, etc., flourished as never before. Without impugning the justice of this estimate, one may regret that it is too often allowed to overshadow the great musical advance which took place in the Elizabethan and Ja- cobean times. The names of Spenser, Massinger, Beaumont, Bacon, Sidney, Fletcher, Marlowe, Jonson (not to speak of the greatest of them all), are on every tongue, but those of Farrant, Weelkes, Morley, Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Dowland, Bull, Ravenscroft, Tye, Tallis, Wilbye, Forde, and others, form a mu- sical roll of honour that ought not to be thrown into the background by the list of literati ; in fact, if the great name of Shakespeare be eliminated, the musical 56 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. $? list may balance the poetic one. It was the era of England's greatest contrapuntal activity, the epoch of the madrigal in its best state, the age of noble religious composition ; for a short time England seemed to wrest the sceptre of musical supremacy from Italy itself. But the literary list was crowned with the greatest poet of all time, while England's chief musical genius, Henry Purcell, came a couple of generations later. 1 In tracing the musical life of this time, however, one must carefully discriminate between the creator and the mere performer of music ; the composers seem to have been held in considerable esteem, par- ticularly as Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth were all practical musicians and lovers of the art of music. 2 The average performer was not prized so highly. It is a significant fact that almost all of Shakespeare's musicians are pictured either as Bohemians or vagabonds. We have already alluded to Mercutio's indignation at being classed with "minstrels." More than once does our poet sneer at his musicians and set their songs in a frame of satirical comment. Note, for example, the exqui- site sarcasm of the following scene (" Much Ado About Nothing," Act ii. Sc. 3) : 1 The influence of Shakespeare upon Purcell was nevertheless a marked one. * James I. was, howei^r, not a musical monarch. 58 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Enter Balthazar with Music} Don Pedro. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that song again. Balthazar. O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. Don Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection : — I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more. Balthazar. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing: Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy ; yet he woos ; Yet will he swear, he loves. Don Pedro. Nay, pray thee, come : Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balthazar. Note this before my notes, — There's not a note of mine, that's worth the noting." Don Pedro. Why these are very crotchets 3 that he speaks : Note, notes, forsooth, and noting ! [Music. Benedick. Now, ' Divine air ! ' now is his soul ravished ! 1 The Folio has it " Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio, and Jacke Wilson" which has led to considerable inquiry as to who Jacke Wilson might have been. It has been suggested that he may have been the celebrated Dr. John Wilson, of Oxford. The very name " Balthazar," however, is thought to be derived from an actual person, Baltazarini (de Beaujoyeux), a prominent composer at the court of Henry III. of France. (See Furness, Variorium Edition, Vol. XII., page 109, for a collation of authorities about " Jack Wilson.") 2 The ways of the " Shakespearian commentator " are strange and wonderful. It has been suggested, because of this passage, that the title of the play may have originally been, "Much Ado About Noting I " The pronunciation of " nothing " in Shakespeare's time was given with the long O, — "no thing." 3 " Crotchets," a musical pun. The "crotchet" is the English term for the quarter-note. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 59 — Is it not strange, that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies ? — Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. 1 Balthazar Sings. Balthazar. Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever ; One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never : Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you bly the and bonny ; Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny. n. Sing no more ditties, sing no mo Of dumps so dull and heavy ; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, etc." After his song Balthazar again seeks to pump out as many compliments for his performance as possible, by exhibiting the "pride that apes humility ;" a better example of the musician " fishing for compli- ments " than the foregoing and the following can scarcely be imagined : 1 The horn was not admitted to " consort " in this epoch. It was held to be a vulgar instrument, fit only for hunting and field sports. Even in Handel's time this prejudice against the finest of brass instruments still existed. ^ 6o SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. "Don Pedro. By my troth, a good song. Balthazar. And an ill singer, my lord. Don Pedro. Ha? no; no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. Benedick. [Aside] An he had been a dog, that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him ; and I pray God, his bad voice bode no mischief! I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it." In the second act of "As You Like It " (Scene 5, in the forest of Arden) there is a framework of musical comment around a song that is less deroga- tory to the vocalist. " Enter Amiens, Jaques, and others. song. 1 Amiens. Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And tunes his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. Jaques. More, more, I pr'ythee, more. Amiens. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques. Jaques. I thank it. More, I pr'ythee, more. I can suck 1 This has received many settings by post-Shakespearian compo- sers. The oldest music attached to the verses, very popular in the seventeenth century, is here printed, and was very probably used by Shakespeare. (See Chappell's " Collection of National English Airs," page 62.) SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC 6l melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs: More, I prythee, more., Amiens. My voice is ragged; I know, I cannot please you. Jaques. I do not desire you to please me, I do desire you to sing : Come, more ; another stanza : Call you them stanzas ? Amiens. What you will, Monsieur Jaques. Jaques. Nay, I care not for their names ; they owe me nothing : Will you sing ? Amiens. More at your request, than to please myself. Jaques. Well, then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you : but that they call compliment, is like the encounter of two dog-apes ; and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues. Amiens. Well, I'll end the song. — Sirs, cover the while, the duke will drink under this tree: — he hath been all this day to look you. Jaques. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable for my company : I think of as many mat- ters as he : but I give Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come. SONG. Who doth ambition shun, [All together here. And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. Jaques. I'll give you a verse to this note, that I made yes- terday, in despite of my invention. 62 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Amiens. And I'll sing it. Jaques. Thus it goes : If it do come to pass That any man turn ass, Leaving his wealth and ease, A stubborn will to please, Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame; Here shall he see Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me. Amiens. What's that ducdame ? Jaques. 'Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first- born of Egypt. Amiens. And I'll go seek the duke; his banquet is prepared. [Exeunt severally." In the refrain, " Ducdame," we have Shakespeare jesting at the meaningless character of many burdens. Hanmer, who has given some dainty touches to Shakespearian readings (as we shall see in connection with Cloten's serenade, in " Cymbeline "), suggests that "ducdame" is merely a misprint for "due ad me" ("bring to me"), and he is very probably correct. That Jaques endeavours to pass off his Latin for Greek is only a furtherance of the jest. But Hanmer's suggestion is by no means unani- mously accepted. The amount of debate regarding "ducdame" is out of all proportion to the subject. If the reader cares to examine the Variorum Edition SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 63 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.* Smoothly and Rather Slow, $ 7T- 1 I — N 1 ^ ^ - : fig:f gg : h^rry »r. Rr.r -y -« — T * 7 g n ^ — Pd — r ** Under the Greenwood Tree Who o loves to lie with me . . . And (gig T^- *fc B55 Fine. ^s 5PPI w 1 — f-f tune his mer - ry note Un - to the sweet bird's throat. m i f M?^ IrF b '-r ^ rr^ rr ^B Come hither,comehither,come hith - er, Here he shall see No PS K £ ^g 4 4 ~ V *=^=S PP z?.c. i 91 ll *-«i g «=t 5=^ * en - e-my, No en - e- my, But win-ter and rough weather. U ^era/E=p ^ pp *The oldest setting of these words. The melody very popular in the 17th century. \ 64 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. (Furness), Vol. VI II., pages 97, 98, and 99, he will be astounded at the amount of learned commentary upon this single word ; and Mr. Furness has con- densed his material in a surprising and commendable degree. A few of the theories may be cited here : Capell says it is a free Latinisation of "come hither," and that it should have read "hucdame; * Farmer suggests that it is a word coined for the occasion, and suggests an extra rhyme with — " Ducdame', ducdame', ducdame*, Here he shall see Gross fools as he, An if he will come to Ami!" — the last mysterious word meaning Amiens. Steevens quotes an irrelevant old ballad with — " Duck, duck, duck, Dame, what makes your chicks to cry, — " sounding the final "e" in dame, as all agree that " ducdame " was used by Jaques as a trisyllable. Knight believes the word to be a duck-call rather than Latin. Collier thinks it the burden of some old, undiscovered song. Halliwell adds a very slight bit of evidence in the same direction by discovering a similar refrain, " Dusadam-me-me," in a version of " Piers Ploughman," in the Bodleian Library. Staun- ton believes it a coined word. " A. A." in " Notes and Queries," October 8, 1859 (quoted by Furness), SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 65 believes it to be " Due da me," meaning " Lead him from me," the "da" being Italian, and the sentence showing Jaques to be just the opposite of Amiens, with his " Come hither." Another commentator thinks that the word may be merely an imitation of the twang of a guitar. A patriotic Welshman puts in a plea for "Dewch da mi," which, it appears, means " Come with (or " to ") me " in Welsh ; a chal- lenge similar to " Come, if you dare." Another sug- gests that the end of the word, "ame," is French, and should be "Ami," and should make a pun on " Amiens " and "friend ! " We have strayed a moment from our musical topic, but the illustration of the fearfully wide scope of Shakespearian comment is too odd to be passed over. Nor are the possibilities exhausted, for no- body has yet suggested that it might mean " Duke d'Ami," and that Jaques is proposing to Amiens to usurp the dukedom ; or that it might be " Deuce damme," and that Jaques is swearing at the host of commentators who are to analyse his song in every new edition of Shakespeare ! In this same comedy of "As You Like It," we can find a satirical allusion to the vocalist, as severe, and unfortunately as true to nature, as the excerpt from " Much Ado About Nothing." It is in Act v. Sc. 3, and is a very effective bit of sarcasm directed against those singers (there are a few still extant) 66 ♦ SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. who make many apologies before beginning, and require urging to their task, for the First Page says : * Shall we clap into 't roundly without hawking or spitting, or saying • we are hoarse/ which are the only prologues to a bad voice ? * Perhaps the most forcible sarcasm against the musician is found in "Romeo and Juliet," and this time it is directed against both instrumentalist and singer. It is where the wedding festivities of Juliet with Paris are suddenly interrupted by the supposed death of the bride. The musicians show a most cal- lous disposition in the matter ; they have been sent for to play at a wedding, they will probably be called upon to perform at the funeral, and it seems to matter very little to them. It may be added that Peter seems as unconcerned as they, and Shakespeare has been criticised for allowing so light a touch to follow such heavy events; it has, however, been urged in palliation, that the audience know that Juliet is but in a trance, and the dramatic unities are not disturbed by the following passages of wit (Act iv. Sc. 5) : " First Musician. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone. Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up, For, well you know, this is a pitiful case. [Exit. Second Musician. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended. 1 1 Possibly a feeble pun on his instrument-case. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 67 Enter Peter. Peter. Musicians, O musicians, « Heart's ease, heart's ease : ' O, an you will have me live, play ■ Heart's ease.' First Musician. Why • Heart's ease ? ' Peter. O musicians, because my heart itself plays — ' My heart is full of wo : ' O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me. Second Musician. Not a dump we ; 'tis no time to play now. Peter. You will not then ? Musician. No. Peter. I will then give it you soundly. _ First Musician. What will you give us ? Peter. No money, on my faith : but the gleek ; I will give you the minstrel. . First Musician. Then will I give you the serving-creature. Peter. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: 111 're* you, I'll 'fa' you : Do you note me ? First Musician. An you { re ' us, and ■ fa ' us, you note us. Second Musician. Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit. Peter. Then have at you with my wit ; I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger : — Answer me like men : ■ When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound : • Why, ■ silver sound?' why, * music with her silver sound?' What say you, Simon Catling? First Musician. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound. Peter. Pretty ! What say you, Hugh Rebeck t Second Musician. I say, ■ silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver. Peter. Pretty too 4^ What say you, James Soundpost ? / 68 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, Third Musician. Faith, I know not what to say. Peter. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer; I will say for you. It is — 'music with her silver sound,' because such fellows as you have seldom gold for sounding : — * Then music, with her silver sound, With speedy help doth send redress.' \Exit singing. First Musician. What a pestilent knave is this same ? Second Musician. Hang him, Jack ! Come, we'll in here ; tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt." THE OLD MELODY OF "HEART'S-EASE." (Probably composed about 1570.) Slow. , ?=j£ m r-^f<^r rr Singe care away with sport and playe Pastime is all our m-- ft± W: $ *=± m -M*. i=* * « ■f^-r—^i -*-+ VTf pleasure. Yf well we fare, For naught we care, In mearth consists our m m^Et ^ ran J—N4- -*—*- •#-#- *c r treas - ure. Let lur - ges lurke and druges worke,We ^EB -— T — fr SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 6g i t=t -*— P- do de-fie their slave-rye : He is but a foole that m Be f=* This entire scene was possibly a sort of entr'acte such as is explained in Chapter XIII. Will Kempe (alluded to in the chapter on dances) was the orig- inal Peter, and this badinage was probably intended to display him at his best. It is by no means certain that the exact text was adhered to, for Will Kempe would add all possible " gags " and interpolations. There are many other points of explanation neces- sary to the above scene. " Heart's-ease " was a favourite tune of the time, the melody of which we append. "My heart is full of woe" was the bur- den, or refrain, of another song of the day, " The Two Lovers." x A dump was a melancholy movement 1 The first stanza ran : " Complaine, my Lute, complain on him, that stayes so long away : He promised to be herl^ere this, but still unkind doth stay ; 70 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. (see chapter on dances), and a merry dump would have been as paradoxical as a frolicsome hymn. The poem, "When Griping Grief" (which was probably sung as well as declaimed in this scene), and its musi- cal setting, is the work of Richard Edwards, Master of the Children of the Royal Chapel, in Queen Eliza- beth's reign. We give the poem in full, and also its music. The satire of the scene is not directed against the music, but rather against those "intention-finders " who seek for more in a poetic line than the writer ever dreamed of. Some Shakespearian commentators might learn a lesson from this scene, if they chose to study it in this light. The original poem runs : "Where gripinge grefes the hart would wounde, And dolefulle dumps the mynde oppresse, There musicke with her silver sound With spede is wont to send redresse : Of troubled mynds, in every sore, Swete musicke hath a salve in store. "In joye yt maks our mirthe abounde, In woe yt cheres our hevy sprites ; Be-strawghted heads relyef hath founde, By musickes pleasaunt swete delightes : Our senses all, what shall I say more ? Are subjecte unto musicks lore. But now the proverbe true I finde, once out of sight, then out of mind. Hey ho ! My heart is full of woe." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 71 * The Gods by musicke have theire prayse ; The lyfe, the soul therein doth joye ; For, as the Romayne poet sayes, In seas, whom pyrats would destroy, A dolphin saved from death most sharpe Arion playing on his harpe. " O heavenly gyft, that rules the mynd, Even as the sterne dothe rule the shippe ! O musicke, whom the Gods assinde To comforte manne, whom cares would nippe ! Since thow both man and beste doest move, What beste ys he, wyll the disprove ? " A SONG TO THE LUTE IN MUSICKE. Richard Edwardes. 1 J J—, — -jhJ-ri -(22- Where grip-inge grefes the hart would wounde, ^e EpEE £ I ^ x fe j W?3g <^ m. m -&- W& £-&- w TT z^mi f- 1 i And dolefulle dumps the mynde op-presse There musicke m 1 1 p£ — t 72 SHAKESPEARE /AT MUSIC. M -j j, j M ■w- p r'r*f f i— r with her sil - ver sound Withspedeis wont to m jO. i ¥r- i p i ^^= m- J-, ttg- st ■&- -z? ^ send re - dresse -i-J J f :ig: -^ tro-bled mynds, in ev e e-rjr -^ ■■ mi r"SS ! J^^» 2». zn mm &=*=* e v \ V=t tJ SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. IOI In both allusions Shakespeare speaks of a "bur- den " in the context. The burden x was a recurring phrase or figure which came in after each line or each couplet, sometimes at the end of each stanza. Nothing is more marked in connection with the old English music than the constant use of the" bu'rden* and it was an exception which Shakespeare noted, that " Light o' Love " went without a burden." : Sonie of the refrains or burdens go back to a very remote antiquity. We have already seen that " Hey Troly, loly," an old Scottish ejaculation of sadness, grad- ually metamorphosed itself into " Tol de Rol " and "Fol de Rol," as used in bacchanalian music. Old- est of all the burdens was the phrase, " Derry, Derry down," or, " Hey Derry down." Etymolo- gists have traced this phrase back to Norman Eng- land, to the Danish days, and even to the Saxon epoch, only to have it elude them at last. It is considered probable that the words are of Druidic origin. Often the burden consisted simply of a repetition of the syllables " Fa la la " at the end of each line or verse ; in this case the song was called a " Fa-la." Morley and Hilton, both prominent in Shakespeare's time, wrote many beautiful " Fa-las." We present a facsimile of one of Morley's arranged as a duet by 1 We shall find more about the " burden " in connection with the bacchanalian music of " Twelfth Night," and the songs of Ophelia in " Hamlet." %, 102 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Playford. The peculiar position of the two parts is explained by the fact that the singers sat, or stood, with the music between them, and faced each other, instead of being side by side. 1 Of the running accompaniment of puns in the scene between Julia and Lucetta it is unnecessary tc speak. We now come to the line, — " And mar the concord with too harsh a descant." The word " descant " leads us back to the matter of Tybalt's fencing in the manner of the counting of prick-song. In the preceding chapter we have explained the written descant which was called by this name. Naturally, the freer descant which was improvised was of distinctly inferior quality, yet it speaks much for England's musical abilities that every cultured person was able to add a descant to any melody at a first hearing. The very title of Morley's famous work on music, published in 1597, gives some insight into the two methods, for it runs, " A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. Set downe in forme of a Dialogue : Devided into three Partes : The first teacheth to sing with all things necessary for the knowledge of a prickt Song. The second teacheth of descante and to sing two parts in one upon a plain song or Ground, with other things for a Descanter," — 1 Burdens and refrains will be further spoken of in Chapter X. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. IO3 the Sffl of Muftck. T.M. m Ow is the Month of Maying, when merry Lads are,play jng, Fa la la la 9 &c. Each with his bonny Lafs upon the greeny graft, FaUUUU^&c. *sjbj§ Ati33jg aip uodn sjirj Auuoq siq ipiM ipeg ipi . ^iniiaqM^iG^joqjuo^aqq.siMO 104 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. while the third part goes into the details of composi- tion. In the second part, Morley has annotated his views on the matter of this extemporaneous addition of one or two parts to a ground. He speaks of it as follows : " As for singing upon a plain-song, it hath byn in times past in England (as every man knoweth) and is at this day in other places, the greatest part of the usual Musicke which in any churches is sung, which indeed causeth me to marvel how men acquainted with musicke can delight to hear suche confusion, as of force must bee amongste so many singing extempore. But some have stood in an opinion, which to me seemeth not very probable, that is that men accustomed to descanting will sing together upon a plain-song without singing either false chords, or forbidden descant one to another, which till I see I will ever think unpossible. For, though they should all be most excellent men, and every one of their lessons by itself never so well framed for the ground, yet it is unpossible for them to be true one to another, except one man should cause all the reste to sing the same which he sung before them : and so indeed (if he have studied the canon beforehand) they shall agree without errors, else they shall never do it." The art of free descant was taught even to the children of the Royal Chapel, a degree of musical education that must astonish the music teachers of the present age. The lack of a "mean " or middle part to Lucetta's supposed harmony requires no especial explanation (see the pun on " singing a mean most meanly," " Love's Labour's Lost," Act v. Sc. 2), nor does the SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 105 " unruly bass " take us far from modern part-singing, but the bidding of the base for Proteus suddenly takes the punning out of the domain of music into the realm of old English games. The sport was called " Base," or " Prisoner's Bars," and Shake- speare alludes to it again in " Cymbeline " (Act v. Sc. 3), with the lines, — " He with two striplings, lads more like to run The country base, than to commit such slaughter, Made good the passage." The game was certainly as old as the time of Edward III., for it is mentioned in one of his edicts. 1 The melody which formed the core around which the descant entwined itself was called the "plain- song." Shakespeare alludes to the plain-song in " Henry V." (Act iii, Sc. 2), where Falstaff's three worthies are pictured in the midst of battle. " Bardolph. On, on, on, on, on ! to the breach, to the breach ! Nym. 'Pray thee, corporal, stay ; the knocks are too hot ; and for mine own part, I have not a case of lives ; 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 ; Knocks go and come ; God's vassals drop and die ; And sword and shield, In bloody field, Doth win immortal fame." 8 See Strutt's " Sports^nd Pastimes " (Hone's Edition), page 78. 106 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. If the plain-song were given by the bass voice and were repeated over and over, to constantly varied descant, it was called a "ground-bass." Noth- ing delighted the old composers more than to show their ingenuity by writing, as prick-song, a set of such variations to the repeating "ground." We give a facsimile of a " ground-bass," with its changing descant, as composed by England's great composer, Henry Purcell. But probably the surest proof of Shakespeare's vocal proficiency is found in his evident knowledge of " Gamut," or " Sol-fa-ing." This is the vocalist's ability to recognise the intervals between notes, and the pitch of the notes themselves, by syllables that have been attached to them. These syllables were first used in Italy, were the invention of Guido D'Arezzo, and came from the practical application of the first syllables of each line (except the last) of a hymn to St. John, the patron of singers, in which each phrase of the music began one degree higher than its predecessor. The words ran, — " Utqueant laxis Resonare fibris, Mira gestorum, Famuli tuorum, Solve polluti, Labii reatum, Sancte Johannes," • SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. I07 Ab e?enj*(g arM*c Ok«GKKK& w-yris b, 6n William Met, Z* « Lmlfffo Then to thy Ri l^g^gi^llppgSiiSiijljsi io8 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. CO Soul! Then to thy reft, O my Sonl ! and Cn. -gWg£raiietiic ^^HSUfS^^H HsliPf HJltkjab, mitU — — ;afc,&ii— — U-k, ^ lifiiigl iiiBg^l^g^^ f4&H*l — U-lu-j*h % HJkkjab, Halld*—— j«b,Hd- ^&m$& ^@fflm gR ^&m Jt-lu -J*h, Hal- U—U-*-jJ>* Utile- gr gr^zrr^j^ m im-}J>, Hd-le—k-jeL, Hal - ftfjfffl Halle. Sr*: j;ip£Pli=gpi= ^gf^ SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. in mmmmm$m$m tujjd, Hel-i*-iu-jai:JHal-le~lu-\,JiJtial ^^^g{Eg|^iigJ^| 'F^fM li^^^Kp M—lu—fab . Hal * ■ - p£j%l^ f;s5E^$$g? Hm^M Mr tf wrr; i>««A which may be translated, "That thy servants may be able to sing the praise of thy wondrous deeds with all their strength, cleanse their lips from all stain of sin, Oh ! St. John." To the six syllables, " si " was added at a later epoch, "ut" was changed to "do," and our vocal scale evolved. But in Shakespeare's day the sing- ing of the syllables was not so plain a matter, for a new and more intricate system of nomenclature had been made, in which the syllable " mi " played a very important part and was the especial clue to modula- tion. Only the four syllables, " fa, sol, la, mi," were now used. We have already cited the music lesson in " The Taming of the Shrew " (quoted in Chapter III. because of its connection with the lute), in which Hortensio uses the vocal syllables in a very deft manner. If the reader will compare the follow- ing extract from ^layford's " Introduction to the I IO SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Skill of Musick" (1664), with Hortensio's phrases, he will see how closely Shakespeare had studied the singer's phraseology : x " Having observed the foregoing direction of proving your notes to know their places, you may easily know their names also, if you will follow this rule : first, observe that Mi is the principal or master note, which leads you to know all the rest; for having found out that, the other follow upon course : and this Mi hath its being in four several places, but it is but in one of them at a time ; its proper place is in B mi; but if B fa, which is a B flat (as is mentioned in Chap. 2) be put in that place, then it is removed into E la mi, which is its second place ; but if a B flat be placed there also, then it is in its third place, which is A la mi rej if a B flat come there also, then it is removed into its fourth place, which is D la sol re; so that in which of these it is, the next notes above it ascend- ing are Fa sol la, Fa sol la, twice, and then you meet with your Mi again, for it is sound but once in eight notes. In like manner, the next notes below it descending are La sol fa, La sol fa, and then you have your Mi again: for your better understanding of which, observe the before-mentioned old metre, whose rules are plain, true, and easie." We add a facsimile of the examples given, with the quaint verses alluded to by Playford. That Shakespeare understood the complicated system, is to our mind absolute proof of his technical musician- ship ; no man not a singer would take the trouble to master the cumbrous nomenclature and awkward rules. 1 1 Beaumont and Fletcher's, or Jonson's allusions to music, are always more vague and less technical than Shakespeare's. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, 1 1 1 A very subtle technical point, connected with these syllables,- is found in "King Lear" (Act i. Sc. 2), at the entrance of Edgar while Edmund is plotting against him. Edmund says : " And pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy : My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bed- lam. — O, these eclipses do portend these divisions ! ia, sol, la, Richard Grant White suggests that Edmund sings in order to appear at ease. Burney, in his " History of Music," suggests that Shakespeare has purposely chosen the forbidden interval of music to illustrate the portent of evil. Knight believes that the dis- cordant sounds uttered by Edmund fit the scene, but are not meant as a comparison with the dislocation of events. The present writer cannot but believe that the poet who showed such familiarity with the vocal progressions, in the "Taming of the Shrew," here presented the worst possible interval of music (according to the theory of that time) as prognostica- tion of the discords to come. We can conceive of no other reason for Shakespeare choosing exactly the progression which every composer of the epoch inter- dicted ; nor was this interdict a matter of passing fashion ; the old monks made a rhyme about this progression which was familiar to every musician of England, — 112 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. An IntroduBion to ner, the Notes next below it defending are La fol fa. La fol fa 9 and then you have your Mi again: For your better undeman- ding of which, obferve the before-mentio- ned old Metre , whofe Rules are plain, true, and eafie. No man can fing trite at frfl fight \ linlefs he names his Notes aright: which foon is learnt , if that your Mi Ton know its PJace where e're it be. I. If that no Flat he fet in B, Then in that Place Jlandeth your Mi. m ■Example. ~^~^z~§~t~&~$:zt r ig::$z:t-&z:%zz2:zzz:zzzLZzz:zl Sol la Mi fa fol la fa fol >*$faBnu. fa t if y mr *b done be Flat, \*e U mi. rhen *Eis Mi, be fur e of that. -Example. ^t:==:r— ::gr.§r:sr:S=:^{ r ^zz$z:3$z&zzxzrJtz:z:z:zzz:zzz& Sol la fa Jol la Mi fa fd 3-Y SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. I 1 3 the SkiU of Uuftct if both be Flat , your hand E, \*A U mi re. Then *A it Mi here you may fee. Example. |fej|=i:§=|=:^=|| La Mi fa fol la fa fol U* If all be Flat, E,A,andB, \*D U fol Then Mi alone dothjland in *D. E Xam ple.||||!jp^:E;|:|§|| £a/rf /*/ 1* Mi fa fol la Thefrji three Notes above your Mi c^Vtf fa fol la, here you may fee ; The next three under Mi that fall, Them la fol fa you ought to call. m Example. BLr fr + ftr ' Y y^^-^* o y a y t StflaMfafol la fa fol fa la fol fa Mi &/*//* if you'll ft ng true without all blame* Ton call all Eights by the fame name. Exam- 114 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Mi contra Fa, Diabolus est in Musica," — v fa, sol, la, mi. calling this set of notes " the Devil." * We therefore believe, with Burney, that this is one of the most technical musical points in all Shakespeare. Fur- ness (Variorum Edition), however, presents several opinions to the contrary. 2 Less remarkable is the allusion to " sol-fa " in the 11 Taming of the Shrew " (Act i. Sc. 2), where Petruchio intimidates his servant : " Grumio. My master has grown quarrelsome : I should knock you first, And then I know after who comes by the worst. Petruchio. Will it not be ? '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. Grumio. Help, masters, help ! my master is mad." In " Love's Labour's Lost," Act iv. Sc. 2, Holo- 1 According to the gamut described above ; to-day the syllables would be " fa, sol, la, si ; " they constitute a " tritone," i. e. a suc- cession of three whole tones. 2 Furness's own opinion, Vol. V., p. 55, is that Edmund sings "Fa, sol, la, mi," — "just as Mistress Quickly sings 'and down, down, adown-a' in " Merry Wives," i. 3. 44, when Doctor Caius is approaching." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. II 5 femes uses the vocal syllables in singing, but this passage is unimportant. In the disputed passage from " King Lear," the word " division " is used in a punning sense. The divisions of the royal family are patent enough, but in music "division" also had a particular meaning; it was the breaking of a melody, or its descant, into small notes, as, for example, 1 Division of foregoing. In 1659 Christopher Simpson published a work for viol, in which he says : " Diminution, or division to a ground, is the breaking either of the base or of any higher part that is applicable thereto." The modern musician would call it variation. In the chamber-scene of "Romeo and Juliet" (Act iii. Sc. 5), Shakespeare uses the word "divi- sion," and once more in a punning way, for even in the most earnest scenes our poet cannot resist the temptation to play upon words. The passage occurs after Juliet pleads with her lover to stay, urging that it was the nightingale, and not the lark, whose notes they had heard. She at last yields to their separation with — ■ See example of PurcelPs " Ground Bass," page 103, for a fuller illustration of this. ^ Il6 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Juliet. 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 : Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had changed voices too ! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence, with hunts-up to the day. O, now be gone ; more light and light it grows." The " Hunts-up" that Juliet refers to was a lively hunting-song in its origin, but in Elizabethan times any lively song fitted for the early morn, and even an Aubade y or morning love-song, was so called. In Chapter X. will be found a fuller analysis of these, with a musical example. Division is again spoken of in the following musical episode in " King Henry IV.," Part I. (Act iii. Sc. I ) : "Mortimer. I will never be a truant, love, Till I have learn'd thy language ; 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. Glendower. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad. \Lady Mortimer speaks again. Mortimer. O, I am ignorance itself in this. Glendower. She bids you, Upon the wanton rushes lay you down, And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you, And on your eye-lids crown the god of sleep, Juliet. — " O, now be gone : more light and light it grows." (Romeo and Juliet, Act Hi. Sc. 5.) From the painting by Frank Dicksee. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 11/ Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep, As is the difference betwixt day and night, The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team Begins his golden progress in the east. Mortimer. With all my heart I'll sit, and hear her sing; By that time will our book, I think, be drawn. Glendower. Do so : And those musicians, that shall play to you, Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence ; Yet straight they shall be here : sit, and attend. [Glendower speaks some Welsh words •, and then the music plays. Hotspur. Now I perceive, the devil understands Welsh ; And 'tis no marvel, he's so humourous. By'r lady, he's a good musician. Lady Percy. Then should you be nothing but musical : for you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh. Hotspur. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish. Lady Percy. Wouldst thou have thy head broken ? Hotspur. No. Lady Percy. Then be still." The notes of music are often spoken of by Shake- peare in a technical manner. The American reader must bear in mind that the English nomenclature is derived from the mediaeval system which was used before the division of music into measure ; thus the semibreve (meaning half of a short note) is the whole note, the minim (meaning the smallest note, — Il8 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. which it was, in the old monastic manuscripts) is the half-note, the crotchet is the quarter, the quaver the eighth. We have seen Don Pedro, in " Much Ado About Nothing," sneer at the "crotchets" of Bal- thazar, Mercutio allude to Tybalt's counting a minim while fencing (in " Romeo and Juliet) ", and in " The Merry Wives of Windsor" we find Falstaff saying of Bardolph, — " His thefts were too open ; his filching was like an unskilful singer, he kept not time, — " whereupon Nym responds : " The good humour is to steal at a minim's rest." The Folio gives this as a "minutes rest," but there is not much doubt that " minim " was intended. To give all the quotations concerning tune and time, in which our poet has made some pun, play of words, or musical jest, would be to write a small concordance. Suffice it to say that in each case, not above mentioned, the meaning is obvious, and the words used in their modern sense. CHAPTER VII. The Dances of Shakespeare — Many Dances Sung — The Dump — Other Dances. — England Fond of Lively Dances. — The Morris- dance. — Masques — These Preceded Operas in England. The English were a dancing people, in the Eliza- bethan times, far more so than at present, yet there was a great difference between them and the na- tions of continental Europe in Terpsichorean matters. Most of the old dances had their origin in Spain, where the Moors introduced the Arabic love of pantomime combined with music, and gave rise to a music that was graphic and well contrasted. The majority of the stately dances came from this source. While the aristocracy of Europe, with a partial exception of the English, gave their adhesion to the slow dances, the people took up only those that were jovial and rapid. The jig, for example, was to be found among the peasantry from Spain to Ireland, while pavanes and sarabandes were much more restricted in their use. It may be necessary to state at the threshold of this subject that many of the so-called "dances" of the European courts were rather processionals than 119 120 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. anything else, and some of the aristocratic dances (as, for example, the passacaglia) were merely a series of posturings to musical accompaniment. The dances of the peasantry, on the other hand, were almost always "round dances," and were of so violent a de- scription that they were sometimes prohibited except on certain specified days or seasons. Often these more common dances were given by couples, as in the waltz, polka, mazurka, etc., of to-day, but fre- quently they were danced by several participants taking each other's hands and swinging around in a large circle. These " Reigen " have descended to the children, in present days, and are of the most remote antiquity. The dance of the Hebrews around the golden calf, the dance of the ancient Egyptians around the bull-god Apis, the dances of the old sun-worshippers, sometimes around a human sacrifice, all belong to this family. Naturally enough, we find the most ancient dances in England to be those which the peasantry enjoyed. We have already seen one of these old dances in « Sellinger's Round." (See Chapter III.) Among the oldest dances in England we find one that is frequently alluded to by Shakespeare, — the morris-dance. Antiquaries unite in the belief that this was one of the Spanish dances that arose during the Moorish possession in the middle ages. Its name is derived from " Morisco," a Moor, and it is not SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 121 very far removed from the Spanish fandango of the present. It was known in France in the fifteenth century, and was there called " Morisque." In Eng- land its character underwent a change, and it seems to have united with an earlier dance, a sort of panto- mime, in which the deeds of Robin Hood and his Merry Men were celebrated. There is good reason, therefore, to suppose that, in spite of the importation of the dance from France or Spain, in the morris- dance was preserved one of the oldest pantomimes of England. Allusions to the morris-dance are found as early as the reign of Henry VII. The chief characters in the early representations were Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Friar Tuck. There was also sometimes a clown or fool, and of course a musi- cian or two to accompany the dance. The morris -dance became indissolubly associated with the May-day festivities, in old England. The dancers in the morris frequently indulged in the effort to " dance each other down," so that the ex- ercise often became a trial of physical endurance. Such trials are very common in the folk-dances of various nations, as the jig, the hailing, the kamar- inskaia, in Ireland, Norway, and Russia. The morris- dance was frequently a sort of progress by leaps and twirls, and we read of dancers keeping this up all the way from one town to another, as William Kemp did in 1599, making th£ journey from London to Nor- 122 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. wich in four weeks and dancing the morris for nine days. This same William Kemp, or Kempe, con- cerns the Shakespearian nearly, for he is asserted to have been the original Dogberry, in " Much Ado About Nothing," and Peter, in " Romeo and Juliet." He made a trip to France to perfect his dancing. He was the most popular clown and comedian of Shakespeare's time, so much so that the author of the " Return from Parnassus " says that " he is not counted a gentleman that knows not Will Kempe." A song was written about him, which was set to music by no less a composer than Thomas Weelkes. It ran : " Since Robin Hood, Maid Marian, And Little John are gone a ; The Hobby-horse was quite forgot, When Kempe did dance alone a. He did labour after the Tabor For to dance, then into France He took pains To skip it. In hope of gains He will trip it, On the toe Diddle do." He was a favourite at court and probably a personal friend of Shakespeare. As a good example of the morris-dance we here reproduce a famous one of the seventeenth century, and one that is alluded to by Shakespeare in " Love's fff'y : //, t ■- •/ -,-'■, • - - '\ ■---. - V L^^^X /a V>* SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 123 Labour's Lost " (Act iv. Sc. 2) where Holofernes says to Jaquenetta: "Trip and go, my sweet," " Trip and Go " being the title of one of the cheeriest of morris-dances. Lively. '♦TRIP AND GO." (A 17th century Morris Dance.) mm UJ1 -#— r -#— r •r- J r- -•— - I I I Trip and go, heave and hoe, Up and down, to and fro, - S5 \^3& 2^=4 ^ V chaf-ne, treasure, Laisse l'a - mour nous enchaf - neraus- And heart to heart in its ca-dence shall i ft m €S i^^£ 1 H^ fet e :fc: *t ft S3 ^ :=£=*: si! beat! p gggpi Et si la dan - se . . . And long the mu - sic . . T - ^ . • ~^ I ^ . 0- ss nous en - we shall fiK «t «p F ^E v— =1- 132 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. & h— 1 -=! — *— b>— P— •+ * «> i u v u ir :p=£ chaf - ne, Laisse I'amour nous enchai - neraus - treas-ure, And heart to heart in its ca-dence shall te=3£ m XF=1 & J = ^^TO E gw ^S3 I f gg 1 ^ -f— =1- -U-4 12=3 f 1 » ss ¥ ±z -1 si! . beat! te= S nr. ir 'f s 1 12 *5j *^i ^ *n M«- HO. decres. wm m ±tz i l & s TCX :|Eg|| §g ^ fei SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 33 which seem to have been the heritage of the peasantry in all ages and climes. In England, any dance in which the dancers stood in a circle was called a " round," or a " roundel," which may explain the words of Titania (" Midsummer Night's Dream," Act ii. Sc. 2), — 11 Come, now a roundel and a fairy song," — which does not mean that the fairies are to sing a round (more generally called a "catch" in Shake- speare's day), but that they were to dance a circular dance with a poem attached, which was to be sung by the dancers themselves. " Twelfth Night " and " Much Ado About Noth- ing," are the two plays that have the most interesting and the most copious allusions to dancing, and these allusions are so detailed and exact that one cannot help suspecting that Shakespeare was an adept in the art. In " Twelfth Night " (Act i. Sc. 3), Sir Toby Belch grows rapturous over his friend (Sir Andrew Aguecheek) and his dancing : " Sir Andrew. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether. Sir Toby. Art thou good at these kickshaws, knight ? Sir Andrew. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters, and yet I will not compare with an old man. Sir Toby. What ifcthy excellence in a galliard, knight? 134 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Sir Andrew. 'Faith, I can cut a caper. Sir Toby. And I can cut the mutton to 't. Sir Atidrew. And, I think, I have the back-trick, simply as strong as any man in Illyria. Sir Toby. Wherefore are these things hid ? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them ? are they like to take dust, like mistress Mall's picture? why dost thou not go to church in a galliard ? and come home in a coranto ? My very walk should be a jig ! . . . What dost thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard. Sir Andrew. Ay, 'tis strong, and does indifferent well in a flame-coloured stock. Shall we set about some revels ? Sir Toby. What shall we do else ? were we not born under Taurus ? Sir Andrew. Taurus ? that's sides and heart. Sir Toby. No, sir ; it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper : ha ! higher : ha, ha I — excellent ! [Exeunt." We have here an entire constellation of dances, many of which the reader can find in the English or French suites of Bach. The galliard, to begin with the first of the list, was a lively and rather difficult dance. In the first prefatory letter to Barnaby Rich's " Farewell to the Military Profession " (Shakespeare Soc. reprint, p. 4) we read : " Our galliardes are so curious, that thei are not for my daunsyng for thei are so full of trickes and tournes, that he which hath no more but the plaine Singuepace is no better accumpted of than a verie bongler." The galliard was generally in 3-4 rhythm ; Prae- torius describes it as — V SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 135 " An invention of the devil ; . . . full of shameful and obscene gestures and immodest movements." As the dance came from Rome it was sometimes called the " Romanesca," but in Italy and in France it was less boisterous than it became in England, as may be seen by the specimen of " Romanesca " which we have reproduced. In an unquotable passage belonging to the same scene, our arch-vagabond makes reference to the " sink-a-pace," which is the " cinq-pas " (five-step), and also Barnaby Rich's " Singuepace," quoted above. This is also alluded to in " Much Ado About Noth- ing" (Act ii. Sc. 1), where Beatrice says to Hero : ■ The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time : if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero : Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scottish jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace : the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scottish jig, full as fantastical ; the wedding mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry ; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave." We have now a large collection of dances upon our hands, for, between Sir Toby and Beatrice, five im- portant ones have been mentioned. The " cinque- pace," for thus it was often Anglicised, was quaintly syncopated, so that Beatrice's connection of it with the wobbly gait o^old age is a peculiarly apt one. \ \ 136 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. The cinque-pace is said to have been the original of the galliard. The " measure " was stately and elegant, not un like in its motions to the grace of the minuet. It is possible that the term arose from the dance called "passa-mezzo," which was very graceful but not as slow as the pavane. In "Twelfth Night" (Act v. Sc. i), Sir Toby alludes to both of these dances in a single sentence : " After a passy-measure or a pavin I hate a drunken rogue." The pavane was the stateliest of all the 4-4 dances, and one can readily understand the dissipated Sir Toby hating both the elegant dance and its statelier sister. KING HARRY THE VIIPS PAWN. Moderato assai. 4 V t=T :=l==t W'»* *J J r -=sj&. 1 legato. m J=±-A & ■&- $ 1 t=T- 1 * t=Z 2E IStl T ^tt #— r :s# I m^m SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 137 I T=X P=C I r-r-r 2=* *=*=* ■22 *-#■ O J 5 L J J fe=s: -z? — I :p± £3=3 1 CT r^: izsz^: Z3LJ ¥ • ^cLL ^L • * w + +r+ f r r cres. I I n^ F ff rr i Mil l I — 1 — >— ^ — h « -€r#- »r^ rr rrf rr ■* S^^^^ rr » *-^ SL i -AL_*_ c W± :g: I I III »»*-» a ff~T rr Sr_^— «4-f 3Z uu 3 e g * * ^ 3=:=^ P It was natural that Shakespeare should indulge in many a pun on the word "measure," and this dance is repeatedly spoken of. In " Love's Labour's Lost " (Act v. Sc. 2), a series of puns is made upon the dance and the other meanings of the word "meas- ure." %. I38 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Rosaline. What would they, say they ? Boyet. Nothing but peace, and gentle visitation. Rosaline. Why, that they have : and bid them so be gone, Boyet. She says, you have it, and you may be gone. King. Say to her, we have measured many miles, To tread a measure with her on this grass. Boyet. They say that they have measured many a mile To tread a measure with you on this grass. Rosaline. It is not so : ask them, how many inches Is in one mile : if they have measured many, The measure then of one is easily told. Boyet. If, to come hither, you have measured miles And many miles ; the princess bids you tell, How many inches do fill up one mile. Biron. Tell her, we measure them by weary steps." The same pun is made by the queen in " Richard II." Act iii. Sc. 4. The coranto, or courante, may be found as the second dance in all of the suites of Bach and in many of those of Handel. It was a rapidly running dance, generally in 3-4 or in 3-8 rhythm. The jig, or gigue, used by the old suite composers as the finale of this cycle form, was the most widely known dance of all, among the peasantry of every country. It existed from Spain (where there was also a slow gigue called the loure) to England and Ireland. The so-called Scotch jig had the wild im- petuosity which we associate to-day with the Irish jig. One characteristic of this dance was its groups of three notes each, which suited best to 6-8 rhythm, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 39 although 12-8 and 3-8 were not impossible. Almost every period ended with a hearty stamp, and the jig became a test of endurance, as the morris-dance had been before it. The jig may be classed as the most rollicking and hearty of all the dances. Beatrice defines it correctly when she calls it " hot and hasty." The jumping and capering which Sir Toby de- mands of Sir Andrew is characteristic of the Eng- lish dancing of the olden days, activity counting for much more than grace in almost all the early dances. In " Love's Labour's Lost " (Act hi. Sc. 1), we have another series of dances alluded to, and again are reminded of the singing to one's own dancing. " Armado. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. Moth. ■ Concolinel — ' l [Singing. Armado. Sweet air ! — Go, tenderness of years ; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither. I must employ him in a letter to my love. Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl ? Armado. How mean'st thou ? brawling in French ? Moth. No, my complete master : but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eye-lids ; sigh a note, and sing a note ; some- * This "Concolinel" is one of the mysteries of Shakespeare. It may be an old refrain or burden, but we can only guess at its mean- ing. " Bonnibel " (from the French " Bonne et Belle " ) was often used as a refrain; which may have some connection with the subject. % 140 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. time through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love ; sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love." The brawl was the English spelling of the French branle. It was a dance in which the figures exe- cuted by the leading couple were imitated by a line of their followers ; many of the mediaeval dances were of this imitative character, and it is possible that the branle had a remote origin. The canary was a species of gigue, quicker than the loure, yet slower than the true jig. Its rhythm was generally 3-8 or 6-8. One of the Shakespearian allusions to the com- bination of singing and dancing brings back a melody which we have already met with, — the " Light o' love." — ("Much Ado About Nothing," Act iii. Sc. 4). "Beatrice. Good morrow, sweet Hero. Hero. Why, how now ! do you speak in the sick tune ? Beatrice. I am out of all other tune, methinks. Margaret. Clap us into — « Light o' love ; ' that goes with- out a burden; do you sing it, and I'll dance it. Beatrice. Yea, ' Light o' love,' with your heels ! " Regarding the names of the dances quoted above we may state that the galliard came from the word "g a yj" tne pavane from "pavone," a peacock ; the branle from the French branle r, to sway from side to side; courante from conrir, to run; canary from SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 141 the name of the islands, and gigue from Geige, the German name for the fiddle. There is another, and an essentially English dance, that is spoken of by Shakespeare in a very graphic manner. The passage occurs in "Winter's Tale" (Act iv. Sc. 2), where the clown complains of the many commissions that he must carry out for his sister for the sheep-shearing festival. " Clown. I cannot do't without counters. — Let me see ; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice, — What will this sister of mine do with rice ? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast and she lays it on. 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." We have here the right dance in the wrong coun- try ; one would as soon find Shakespeare's celebrated " seacoast in Bohemia " as discover any hornpipes there. The hornpipe is an ancient English dance. In old England, centuries ago, the shepherds used to play upon a long wooden pipe, which instrument gave rise to the much more developed English horn of the modern orchestra. The name of this ancient instru- ment, the horn-pipe, was transferred to the favourite dance of the shepherds, which was played upon it. The hornpipe had spme of the characteristics of the 142 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. jig and of the brawl. It ended with a stamping effect not unlike the conclusion of each period in a properly constructed jig. Nowadays the hornpipe is considered especially a sailor's dance, but this was not the case in Shake- speare's time, nor in the century after, as one can readily perceive by examining the tune of " The Brit- ish Grenadiers " (which is a hornpipe melody) or the brilliant hornpipe which ends Handel's " Concerto Grosso, No. 7," a work which is still occasionally heard in our chamber concerts. Before leaving the above quotation about the hornpipe we may notice the fact that the chorus was troubled then, as now, by a lack of high voices ; most of the singers are "means and bases." Regarding the "three-men song-men " we shall have more to say hereafter. There was another composition, alluded to by Shakespeare, which was sometimes danced and some- times sung without dancing, and even occasionally played as an instrumental composition. This was the "dump," which was slow and melancholy, and gave rise to the modern saying, " In the dumps," i. e. in melancholy mood. It is probably the dump that Thomas Ford refers to, when he speaks (in 1607) of "pavens, galiards, almaines, toies, jiggs, thumpes, and such like." Steevens, the eminent Shakespearian commentator, considers the dump to have been an old Italian SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 143 dance. Naylor, " Shakespeare and Music," page 23, defines it thus : "The dumpe (from Swedish dialect, dumpa, to dance awkwardly) was a slow, mournful dance."' We may, however, suggest another etymology in this case, since the melody is supposed to come from southern Europe, and was sometimes a sorrowful tune without dancing ; the Bohemian " dumka " ful- fils all the demands of the dump, in that it is an elegy, is sometimes combined with dramatic action that may be called dancing, and is the saddest music imaginable. Some of the dumkas written by Dvorak, and used even in his symphonies, are sufficient proof that the dumka does not differ at all from the dump. FIRST PERIOD OF "LADY CAREY'S DUMP." (About 1600.) t=? t=t m :=]: :f=Jt #2: #t ■& — r- LJ-LA fcgEE ±d* m 1 t=z dEii :«: 9* m & ■&- us LilAjJ -HP- - — (^ ft ^ £ £z &g=Sg: «- ^ r dim. 'W '■W -Or P 2Z. I S£ -tffr :^i: s % J f _^_ 2E 2Z i ij/. P=i>S=#£ i V w « ri rb § r ^T-p- T S at-JL "ST IM tlEgg^ l The description by Bacon, in Chapter I. of this volume, may give the best idea of what these pag- eants were like. The masque preceded the opera, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, I47 and probably came to England from Italy, although the latter country changed to opera immediately upon the invention of that kind of entertainment (1 594-1600), while the chief masques of England were performed at a later epoch, the opera not being known in England during Shakespeare's lifetime. According to Hall's " Chronicle " the first masque performed in England was at Greenwich, in 15 12, "after the maner of Italie," and Holinshed says that there was not only a masque but a good comedy of Plautus performed in 1520. In 1530 a masque was performed in Whitehall. Burney, in his " History of Music " (Vol. III. p. 346), says : " It is recorded in the folio edition of Ben Jonson's works, printed in 1640, that in 161 7 his whole masque which was performed at the house of Lord Hay, for the entertainment of the French ambassador, was set to music after the Italian manner by Nic Laniere, who also painted the scenes." Ferrabosco, Coperario, and other Italian masters set music to the early masques, and the English composers at once followed so good an example, such composers as Byrd, Robert Johnson, William and Henry Lawes, and a host of others setting Ben Jonson, Milton, Shakespeare, etc., to music in this form, a primitive opera without the recitative decla- mation which afterward obtained. No less a person than Inigo Jones designed the costumes and invented the machinery forborne of the pageants. A masque 148 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. given by the four Inns of Court, in London, in 1633, cost more than a thousand pounds. After the Restoration the masque seems to have degenerated into a mere fancy dress ball or masquerade. Shakespeare's employment of the masque was quite in line with the taste of his time, which desired every species of pageant upon the stage. If the scenery was sadly deficient in the Shakespeare theatre, this was made up by the splendour of some of the costumes and the ingenuity of the machinery. Of this, however, we shall speak more at length in a later chapter. Not only was dancing introduced in the Shake- spearian plays, but even between the acts, and after the last act, some species of Terpsichorean revelry was added to the dramatic entertainment, 1 very much as the ballet is interpolated in operatic performances in Paris at present. Only once does Shakespeare mention that round dance which the rustics loved, — the hay. It is in " Love's Labour's Lost " (Act v. Sc. 1) that Dull says : " I'll make one in a dance or so ; or I will play upon a tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay." The hay, as well as the morris-dance, was associ- ated with May-day festivities ; in fact, all kinds of 1 See Chapter XIII. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. I49 musical and Terpsichorean sport were indulged in on that day, as may be judged from the following quo- tation from Spenser's " Shepherds' Calendar" (Ec- logue v.) : " Siker this morrow, no longer ago, I saw a shole of shepherds outgo With singing, and shouting, and jolly cheer ; Before them yode a lusty Tabrere, That to the many a horn-pipe play'd, Whereto they dancen each one with his maid. To see these folks make such jouissance, Made my heart after the pipe to dance. Then to the greenwood they speeden them all, To fetchen home May with their musical : And home they bring him in a royal throne Crowned as king ; and his queen attone Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend A fair flock of fairies, and a fresh bend Of lovely nymphs — O that I were there, To helpen the ladies their May bush to bear ! " We can sum up the style of the English dancing and its musical adjuncts with a quotation from an old pamphlet (1609), which says : " The Courts of Kings for stately measures, the City for light heels and nimble footing ; Western men for gambols ; Middlesex men for tricks above ground ; Essex men for the Hey ; Lancashire for Hornpipes ; Worcestershire for Bagpipes ; but Herefordshire for a Morris dance, puts down not only all Kent, but very near three quarters of Christendom if one had line enough to measure it." (" Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Maid Marian.") \ 150 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. But it must be added that these " stately measures M of the aristocracy, whether in England, Poland, Italy, France, or any important European court, were chiefly processional, and consisted in the dancers imitating the steps and gestures of the first couple, which explains Beatrice saying to Benedick (" Much Ado About Nothing," Act ii. Sc. 2) : " We must follow the leaders ! " CHAPTER VIII. Shakespeare's /Esthetic Appreciation of Music — Index to Char* acters by Their Appreciation of Music — Famous Persons Who Have Disliked Music — Shakespeare's Jests at Music Balanced by His Tributes to the Art — Evening Music — The Music of the Sea — The Music of the Spheres. In this chapter we propose to leave for awhile the technical references to music with which Shakespeare teems, and study the tributes which the poet has given to the art in general, the praises which he brings to it, and the enthusiasm which it evidently excites in him. Here the poet appeals not only to the musician, but to every person whose culture or refined instinct enables him to vibrate responsive to artistic beauty. Perhaps no greater tribute to the power of music can be found than in Shakespeare's presentation of the psychical side of a character by its apprecia- tion, half -appreciation, or non-appreciation of the art. The superficial critic will at once seize upon the well- known lines at the end of the following scene ("Merchant of Venice," Act v. Sc. i), as the sum of it all; * 152 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Lorenzo. Why should we go in ? My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you, Within the house, your mistress is at hand ; And bring you music forth into the air. — [Exit Stiphano. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night, Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica : Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ; There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st, But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims : Such harmony is in immortal souls ; But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. -»- Enter Musicians. Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn ; With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, And draw her home with music. Jessica. I am never merry, when I hear sweet music. [Music. Lorenzo. The reason is, your spirits are attentive : For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood ; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze, By the sweet power of music : Therefore, the poet Did feign, that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 153 But music for the time doth change his nature : The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus : Let no such man be trusted. — Mark the music." We are not disposed to regard the last six lines of this sentence as absolute statement of fact ; it must be borne in mind that this sentiment is given to one of Shakespeare's lovers, and by no means the greatest of his kind. It is Lorenzo's ecstatic praise of music that we hear, and the poet has, perhaps pur- posely, made it somewhat extreme. The extravagant use made by commentators of this passage aroused the ire of one of the Shakespearian editors. Steevens, in commenting on the scene, bursts forth with this violent diatribe : "The present passage, which is neither pregnant with physical and moral truth, nor poetically beautiful in an emi- nent degree, has constantly enjoyed the good fortune to be repeated by those whose inhospitable memories would have refused to admit or retain any other sentiment or description of the same author, however exalted or just. The truth is that it furnishes the vacant fiddler with something to say in defence of his profession, and supplies the coxcomb in music with an invective against such as do not pretend to discover all the various powers of language in inarticulate sounds." It is in this connection that Steevens calls the sentence a "capricious sentiment," and intimates < 154 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. that Shakespeare only employed it to curry fa- vour with his audience, with whom music was a fashion. The attack is so extreme, especially as coming from the editor of the greatest music-lover among poets, that Furness (Variorum Edition, Vol. VII. p. 252) ventures to doubt its authenticity. Furness says : " It is difficult to decide, as we have had more than once to note, whether Steevens is in jest or earnest. I am by no means sure but that this attack on music was riot a trap, whereby to lure some honest Goodman Dull into a defence of it." One feels loath to differ from the most eminent of all Shakespearians, but such jesting would utterly unfit Steevens for any task like that of commenta- tion, where not to be clear and reliable would be the deadliest of sins. 1 If, however, he intended a trap, he has caught plenty of victims, for a tor- rent of indignation was the result, — a torrent which has not spent its force even in the present day. But it may be borne in mind that Shakespeare pictures Othello (Act iii. Sc. 1) as being averse to music, as may be seen from the following : 1 The reader will find another anti-musical quotation from Stee- vens in Chapter X., which tends still further to discredit Furness's lenient suggestion. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 155 " Enter Cassio and some Musicians. Cassio. Masters, play here, I will content your pains. Something that's brief ; and bid — good morrow, general. [Music. Enter Clown. Clown. Why, masters, have your instruments been at Naples, that they speak i' the nose thus ? Musicians. How, sir, how? Clown. But, masters, here's money for you : and the gen- eral so likes your music, that he desires you, of all your loves, to make no more noise with it. First Musician. Well, sir, we will not. Clown. If you have any music that may not be heard, to't again : but, as they say, to hear music, the general does not greatly care. First Musician. We have none such, sir. Clown. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away : Go ; vanish into air ; away. [Exeunt Musicians." And, like the impetuous and tropical Othello, the cou- rageous and impatient Harry Hotspur cares nothing for the art ; indeed, the second example is more pro- nounced than the first, for Othello " did not greatly care " for music, while Percy evidently detests it, judg- ing by the following citation from the first scene of the third act of " Henry IV." (First Part). " Glendower. I can speak English, lord, as well as you ; For I was train'd up in the English court : Where, being but young, I fram'd to the harp Many an English ditty, lovely well, And gave the tongue & helpful ornament: -""A 156 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. A virtue that was never seen in you. Hotspur. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart; I had rather be a kitten, and cry — mew, Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers : I had rather hear a brazen can'stick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree ; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge. Nothing so much as mincing poetry : 'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag." Yet the same citation shows, by the musical gifts of Glendower, that Shakespeare deemed musical ap- preciation or ability not incompatible with bravery and military prowess. 1 Not all of those who care nothing for music are "fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils," 2 for there is a very respectable list of notabilities who were tone-deaf. Among these we may mention Tenny* son, Charles Lamb, Addison, Doctor Johnson (who thought it necessary to apologise for Shakespeare's love of music), Dean Swift, and a host of others. But Shakespeare seems to intimate, at least, that a lack of musical appreciation is to be viewed with suspicion, for in " Julius Caesar " (Act i. Sc. 2) 1 Note also Lucentio's definition of the use of music (" Taming of the Shrew," Act iii. Sc. i), quoted in Chapter III., beginning ■ Preposterous ass," for a lesser estimate of music. 2 Closely akin to the Shakespearian line, is that quoted by Mor- ley (1598); he says: "I ever held this sentence of the poet as a canon of my creed, — That whom God loveth not, they love not Musick." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, I$f Caesar speaks of a dislike of plays and of music as being one of his causes of distrust of Cassius. " Ccssar. Let me have men about me that are fat ; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : 'Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. Antonius. Fear him not, Caesar, he's not dangerous; He is a noble Roman, and well given. CcBsar. Would he were fatter : — But I fear him not : Yet if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius u He reads much ; He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony : he hears no music." — — . It is a point worth noting that, whenever Shake- speare points his jests at music, he is sure to bring forth some of his most earnest tributes to the art in the same play. "Twelfth Night," as may be seen in other chapters, is full of the ribald side of music, yet no play is richer in earnest musical allusions. The very first lines of this comedy are devoted to a eulogy of music. "ACT. I. Scene I. An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Enter Duke, Curio, Lords ; Musicians attending, Duke. If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it ; that, surfeiting, The appetite may ^icken, and so die. — 158 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. That strain again — it had a dying fall : O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing, and giving odour. — Enough; no more : 'Tis not so sweet now, as it was before." The last word of the fifth line of the above has set the commentators by the ears, for many prefer to read it as "south" (z. e. the south wind), which is the more poetical metaphor, but seems to find no good warrant in the original edition. We owe the altered reading — " the sweet south " — to Pope. Rowe would have us read " the sweet wind ; " Steevens gives his adhesion to "south," and thinks that the passage might have been inspired by a similar tribute to the southwest wind in Sydney's "Arcadia;" Knight and White agree in choosing "sound," and it is worth noticing that Shakespeare nowhere gives any laudation of the south wind, but connects it with fog, rain, and bad weather. The subject is not within our province, yet we may cite the above opinions as an instance of one of the many battles that have been fought over Shakespearian texts. Fortunately, the rest of the citation is easy of def- inition, for " dying fall " means only a cadence played diminuendo. Bacon, in his " Sylva Sylvarum," speaks of a "fall from a discord to a concord." To return to our musical tributes ; we need not as SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, 1 59 yet leave " Twelfth Night." In Act ii. Sc. 4, our ducal music-lover again bursts forth in praise of the art. " 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 and recollected terms, Of these most brisk and giddy-pace'd times : — Come, but one verse. Curio. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it. Duke. Who was it ? Curio. Feste, the jester, my lord ; a fool, that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in ; he is about the house. Duke. Seek him out, and play the tune the while. [Exit Curio. — Music. Come hither, boy : If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it, remember me : For, such as I am, all true lovers are ; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved. — How dost thou like this tune? Viola. It gives a very echo to the seat Where love is throned." When Feste, the most important and musical of Shakespeare's clowns, enters, there is further musi- cal comment : " Re-enter Curio and Clown. Duke. O fellow, come, the song we had last night ! — Mark it, Cesario ; it isVld and plain. l6o SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it ; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age. Clown. Are you ready, sir? Duke. Ay; pr'ythee, sing. [Music. SONG. 1 Clown. ' Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid ; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair, cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O prepare it ; My part of death no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn : Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown : A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O, where Sad true lover ne'er find my grave, To weep there.' Duke. There's for thy pains. Clown. No pains, sir ; I take pleasure in singing, sir. Duke. I'll pay thy pleasure then. Clown. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another." 1 The original setting of this important song is unfortunately lost. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. l6l Again, however, we find a stumbling-block. " Rec- ollected terms " makes a very dubious meaning. If, as Knight suggests, the word " tunes " be substi- tuted, the passage is easy of comprehension. White believes that the phrase means carefully studied ex- pressions, which is rather far-fetched. It is possible (although we broach the new reading with diffidence) that the word is "re-collected," which would imply second-hand, used over terms. The cry for " the old age," i. e. " the good old times," is quaint enough, coming so long ago. Yet one can find the same thought expressed much be- fore Shakespeare's time, for Aristophanes, a half- dozen centuries before our era, also cried out for " the good old times ; " in fact, Adam and Eve seem to be the only parties who did not compare the past with the present, to the disadvantage of the latter. Cleopatra (Act ii. Sc. 5) speaks of music as the — " moody food Of us that trade in love," — and, by the way, directly after, invites Charmian to a game of billiards, a little more than a thousand years before anything like billiards was invented ! But Cleopatra defies chronology, and desires her stays cut at a time when they did not exist ! It may be regaMed as one of the aesthetic points 1 62 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. of Shakespeare, that he describes the musician's mel- ancholy. The passage is found in "As You Like It " (Act iv. Sc. i), and is spoken by the cynical Jaques : " I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emula- tion ; nor the musician's, which is fantastical ; nor the court- ier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice ; nor the lover's, which is all these." Naturally so poetic a nature as that of Shakespeare would speak of evening as music's most fitting frame. In "The Merchant of Venice " (Act v. Sc. i), Portia speaks to Nerissa of this fitness : " Music ! hark ! Nerissa. It is your music, madam, of the house. Portia. Nothing is good, I see, without respect ; Methinks, it sounds much sweeter than by day. Nerissa. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. Portia. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended ; and, I think, The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season'd are To their right praise, and true perfection ! — Peace, hoa ! the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak'd ! [Music ceases" And in "Much Ado About Nothing" (Act ii. Sc. 3), Claudio voices very nearly the same sentiment. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 63 "Don Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music? Claudio. Yea, my good lord : — How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony ! " The music of the sea does not escape the genius of our great poet. He does not, to be sure, go as far as Walt Whitman, with his stirring lines : " To-day a rude and brief recitative Of ships sailing the seas, Each with its special flag or ship signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships, Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing ; And out of these a song for the sailors of all nations ; Fitful, like a surge." Nevertheless, " The Tempest " has many allusions to marine music, of better character and more refined style than the broad bacchanalian touches which are found in that great work ; Oberon, too, in " Midsum- mer Night's Dream" (Act ii. Sc. 1), speaks of the music of the sea : " My gentle Puck, come hither : Thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such a dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song ; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music." And in the " Comedy of Errors " (Act iii. Sc. 2), we find the lines : \ 1 64 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears ; Sing, syren, for thyself, and I will dote : Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs." Naturally, too, the music of the spheres is men- tioned more than once by Shakespeare, who lived in an epoch which held to the derivation of the sym- metry of music from natural causes. In "Twelfth Night " (Act iii. Sc. i), Olivia says to the supposed Cesario (Viola) that she would rather hear his suit " than music from the spheres ; " in " Antony and Cleopatra," the heroine speaks of the Antony she had dreamed of : " His voice was propertied As all the tune'd spheres, and that to friends ; But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder." In "Pericles" (Act v. Sc. i), the following allu- sion to the music of the spheres is found : " Pericles. But what music ? Pelicanus. My lord, I hear none. Pericles. None ? The music of the spheres : list, my Marina. Lysimachus. It is not good to cross him ; give him way. Pericles. Rarest sounds ! Do ye not hear ? Lysimachus. Music? my lord, I hear— Pericles. Most heavenly music ; It nips me unto list'ning, and thick slumber Hangs on mine eyelids ; let me rest. [He sleeps? SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 65 / 1 In " As You Like It " (Act ii. Sc. 5), Duke, senior, says of Jaques : If he, compact of jars, grows musical, We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.' The theory of the music made by the motions of the planets had its origin in ancient Egypt, where music was closely connected with astronomy. Py- thagoras, pupil of the Egyptian priests, stole their theories and promulgated them in Greece as his own, whence the music of the spheres was generally known as a Pythagorean theory. The earliest notes used in ancient Greece, about six centuries before Christ, were the planetary signs, the sun being the central and controlling note. In the sixteenth cen- tury more than one system was built upon this poetic idea. The author possesses an old edition of the works of Zarlino (1562), wherein not only diagrams of the proportions of the spheres are applied to music, but even the tempo is sought for in nature, the Ital- ian writer suggesting that the speed of music be counted by the pulse of a healthy man ! Among the various tributes to the power of music which we have culled, we find one, however, which intimates that this power can be employed either for good or evil. It will be noted that this description of the art occursMn connection with a song. The 1 66 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. scene occurs in " Measure for Measure," at the be- ginning of the fourth act. " Mariana discovered sitting; a boy singing. SONG. « Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn : But my kisses bring again, bring again, Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.' Mariana. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away ; Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice Hath often still'd my brawling discontent. [Exit boy. Enter Duke. I cry you mercy, sir ; and well could wish, You had not found me here so musical : Let me excuse me, and believe me so, — My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe. Duke. 'Tis good : though music oft hath such a charm, To make bad good, and good provoke to harm." The apology for being musical, the statement that music can pervert good into evil, is very different from the Shakespeare of the foregoing musical eulo- gies. Music can become evil only by association with improper words or vicious surroundings. The cancan from Offenbach's " Belle Helene," might SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. I67 bring up evil associations in the mind of any one familiar with that opera, but it would suggest only innocent hilarity, gradually growing into frenzy, to a person who knew it simply as instrumental music. There is no instrumental music that can be consid- ered harmful per se. That the reader may judge of the song which moved the duke to so peculiar an arraignment of music, we reprint the early setting of the poem by Dr. John Wilson. 1 There is strong reason to suppose that this music was used upon the stage in " Measure for Measure " during the lifetime of Shakespeare. TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY. ^__^^ Dr. John Wilson. fefe ¥S. 'mi* ""Ire r Take, oh take those lips . . a way, That so i=£ TOE *£ y >: --as*- S| m J. 5E a: u- ^-- J2. (52. xzz. V it if r r " sweet-lye were forsworne ; And those eyes, the breake of day, m& t=t fc^zbrszi* 1 Possibly this is t^e * Jack Wilson " spoken of in " Twelfth Night." (See Variorum Edition, Furness.) 1 68 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. ^m. - £*fe fz^ £5^ :^b£ bat's back I do fly Af - ter sum-mer mer-ri - ly « i ^ 2 ¥ — 1 ' •§■ -t -g- / ♦ r »— r -«— ' V=5- S&. ■_ # _p: is^l «* i hangs on the bough Mer-ri-ly, mer-ri - ly shall I live now .J 1 — !_ q=t 2=#£ :*—% Z2t -^-^ "^f" £T£f. ggs FFp¥fe j *= / I&E ■i %i — i — i # n i Un - der the bios - som that hangs on the bough . 4 / PE ^=W :•=+ rail. "#i I H ■\*T & SHAKE. ^' SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. FULL FATHOM FIVE. 187 The Tempest. Moderato e maestoso. s R. Johnson. 1612. _ *f Full fathom f ' » I I mf 1=T BE3 ^* i -25- J ^^ CJ V ^3^=?C -f— ^ jfctz* five thy fa - therlies ; Ofhisbonesare coral made ; Those are •3S3EE* f -eS- 1 - *- *t* *F si :£=<=£ r-l— h ^z- 3*=£ ■Zzizt 1 1 ' — pearls that were his eyes : Nothing of him that doth fade, m T=t 1 I J 4 — l- m M- h « s* *=•«: ttS »-* Sit -& i88 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. P -N-fV 4 — i\-* zwzjL ~-4-&. -m-m *=fc£±: & — m Butdothsuffera sea-change Into something rich andstrange. 35 =*= t=r **a| (B i^^li^^L^z^rr^ FT ^f §S=E -I— I- SE fzfc^ : ^rt Un poco Animato e marcato. cresc. f I -o- ^_p_ -^-- ■ Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Hark! now I % f I \ f -N-N- ?C=# hear them, Hark! now I hear them, — Ding-dong, bell. H WE& *3ES f^^rfST / rr Hi ^ *Sr SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 189 JEE= irzj: tzjst- t Ding-dong, ding-dong, bell, Ding-dong, ding-dong, bell, :ir- -+ P ?=p: S q =^ : *^m?TT ^ r 1? j/a 3 P # ^T-^ •— * 1 — r p p# £=^ Ding-dong, ding-dong, bell, Ding-dong, ding-dong, bell, 1 Pi m 3= *P iff pp r ^ i» : W3 x*t 1 — f I cresc. rail. 1 -z£ -#— #- Ding-dong, ding-dong, bell Ding-dong, ding-dong, bell. ] Vwr&m -&• a int* I90 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Exactly as "The Tempest" presents three vaga- bonds singing the three-part music, the catches, and bacchanalian songs of the time, so does "Twelfth Night " introduce us to a trio of scamps (Feste, the clown, being the most decent of the three), who troll out their lays in a similar manner. And, as in " The Tempest " we find the earnest side of music balanced against its coarser phases, so in the wilder comedy do we have lyrics, such as " Oh, Mistress Mine " and " Come away, come away, Death," as well as the lofty tributes to the power of music already noted. As the music of the dissipated trio (Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and the clown) introduces a number of burdens, we shall examine them more at length in the next chapter in connection with the subject of the old refrains, j Suffice it to say here that many a character seems introduced forcibly and without reason into Shakespeare's plays, whose presence will be readily understood if the reader remembers that three were necessary to sing the regulation catch or other merry music which the dramatist desired. Thus, for example, the otherwise uncalled-for appearance of the two pages in * As You Like It " (Act v. Sc. 3). Touchstone and Audrey are together, when two pages enter, the first saluting with, " Well met, honest gentlemen." It is not long before we discover why these two wanderers have walked upon the stage. The scene goes on : SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. I9I " Touchstone. By my troth, well met : Come, sit, sit, and a song. Second Page. We are for you : sit i' the middle. 1 First 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? Second Page. V faith, i' faith ; and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse. SONG. I. It was a lover, and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding ; Sweet lovers love the spring. II. Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, aud a ho, and a hey nonino, These pretty country folks would lie. In spring time, etc. in. This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower. In spring time, etc. IV. And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 1 Alluding to the old English rhyme : " Hey-diddle-diddle, Thfcfool in the middle." 192 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. For love is crowned with the prime. In spring time, etc. Touchstone. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable. First Page. You are deceived, sir ; we kept time, we lost not our time. Touchstone. By my troth, yes ; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God be with you ; and God mend your voices ! Come, Audrey. [Exeunt." The song which is framed in so much of comment fortunately is preserved to us in its original setting. We present it with its contemporaneous music. "IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS." Quoted by Chappell from an old MS. bearing date A. D. 1639, in Advocate's Library, Edinburgh. Lively. rut l \ It was a lov-er andhislasse Withahey,withaho,witha now ne no, And a hey . . . nonee,no,no,no. im5^ SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 193 e ^— F * *- j? 1/i;."ij i That o'er the greene corne field did passe In Spring tyme, in s . # — c — # - z* a^ IP «-U y T 1 1 *— r-L# — w T*- 3 ^ Spring tyme, in Spring tyme,theon-lieprettie ring tyme, When fc£ — « — " y p :«=? * J F 1 Birds doosing, Hey ding a ding ading,Hey ding a ding a %=?=£ ^4 ding, Hey dingadingading, SuietLovers love the Spring. t: Si 194 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. The antiquity of three-part rounds and catches is very great. One of the rounds that is sung in England and America to-day, the well-known — "Turn again, Whittington, Thou worthy citizen, Lord Mayor of London,"— was composed as long ago as 1453, when Sir John Norman was Lord Mayor of London, and, instead of marching in procession through the city streets, on the morning of St. Simon and Jude's Day, took his pageant along the Thames, by water. The water- men, grateful for such an innovation, made the round — "Row the boat, Norman, row, Heave ho, and rum below, ' Row to thy leman," — of which we append the music. The oldest piece of skilful music now extant is the round, "Sumer is icumen in," preserved in manuscript in the Brit- ish P»Iuseum and dating probably from a. d. 121 5. " Three Blind Mice " is a catch (originally sung with vulgar words) of the Shakespearian epoch, and other familiar rounds are equally old. 1 " Heave ho and rum below " was one of the oldest and most employed refrains ; it appears in many of ihe old ballads and romances. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 195 I ROW THE BOAT, NORMAN, ROW. ft 3SEE3 — 1 1 1 — ■#■-#■■#- Nor - man, row, Row the boat, ::£ — 1 r Heave ho and Rum be - low, £ :lzz Row to thy Le - man. Shakespeare alludes to the habit of singing many of the lighter songs in three parts. We have already cited the clown, in " Winter's Tale " (Act iv. Sc. 2), giving an allusion to "three-men song-men," and in the same play (Act iv. Sc. 3) we find Autoly- cus vending ballads which were to be sung in three parts. The title of "Three Merry Men be We," spoken of in "Twelfth Night," also suggests the three-part singing which was in such vogue. Nay- lor, in his " Shakespeare and Music " (p. 83), gives several examples of the use of the term " three-men " as applied to vocal music. Nevertheless, Oliphant, whose researches are en- titled to some respect, believes that the term "Freemen's Songs/' is not a corruption of "Three- men's Songs," although in this he stands in opposi- I96 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. tion to many authorities, from Ritson to Naylor. In his " Musa Madrigalesca " (p. 242), he cites the follow- ing preface to the second book of catches, published in 1609. As it is another example of the wretched punning which was held to be such a delightful accomplishment in Shakespeare's day, and of the forcible introduction of unnecessary Latin (also found in many plays of the time), we reproduce the entire preface, together with Oliphant's comments upon it. « DEUTEROMELIA, M Or the second part of Music's Melodie, or melodious music of pleasant roundelays ; K. H. mirth, or Freemen's songs, and such delightful catches. Qui canere potest canat. Catch that catch can. Ut mel os, sic cor melos afficit et reficit. London: printed for Thomas Adams, dwelling in Paul's Church-yard, at the sign of the White Lion, 1609. " 4 Mirth and music to the cunning catcher, Derth and physic to the coney-catcher.' " Secundce cogitationes are ever, they say, meliores, and why may not then secundce cantiones as well be dulciores f I pre- sume they are so ; and that makes me resume this vein, with hope that I shall not consume in vain my labour therein. For, first, the kind acceptation of the former impression, is as a new invitation to this latter edition; though not of the same things, yet of things of the same condition : full of the same delectation, made to please as the other were; made truly musical with art by my correction, and yet plain and capable with ease by my direction. " Neither can he that is the most able musician say, but SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 1 97 that of these most men, almost all men are capable, that are not altogether unmusical ; neither can he that is most spiteful say, but they are very delightful, aye, and someway gainful too (yet more painful to me, I am sure, than gainful) ; but tho' there be but little to be gotten by them, yet pity were it such mirth should be forgotten of us ; and therefore, to make an end, I say no more, but ««'... Si quid novisti dulcius istis, Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum ; ■ either commend me or come mend me, and so I end me, as reso- lute as thou art dissolute." Oliphant's comments on the above are : " From the foregoing preface it is, I think, quite clear that Deuteromelia is a second publication by the editor of Pam- melia. The terms K. H. mirth and Freemen's songs have given rise to considerable discussion. It is supposed that the former stands for King Henry's mirth; that is, songs or catches of a merry nature, which were favourites with that jovial prince. I think it likely to be so, but am not aware of anything either for or against the matter, except conjecture. " How the meaning of Freemen's songs could ever appear doubtful, I know not, nor can I imagine how Warren could be guilty of such a stupid mistake as to suppose that Freeman was the name of a composer ; for in his collection is inserted Of all the birds that I ever see, (which is one of the three part Freemen's songs in Deuteromelia), with the name prefixed of Nicholas Freeman, 1667 ! nearly sixty years after the original publication. Ritson has some absurd notion of Freemen being a mistake for Three-men, because Shakspeare speaks of Three-men-song men, that is, men who could sing songs of three parts : but if he yrer saw the book of which I am now writing, he must there have found also Freemen's songs to 198 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. four voices^ which sets that matter at rest. Drayton, in his 1 Legend of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Es*sex,' puts the follow- ing verses in that nobleman's mouth : " * Of Freemen's Catches to the Pope I sing, Which wan much license to my countrymen ; Thither the which I was the first to bring, That were unknown in Italy till then.' " He went to Italy in the year 1510." Nevertheless, the weight of evidence seems to be in favour of the derivation from "Three men," and the overwhelming majority of catches and " Free- men's Songs " are in three parts, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter. CHAPTER X. Bacchanalian Music, continued — A Scottish Melody Used by Shakespeare — Table-music in Elizabethan Days — Refrains of Catches and Ballads — Hunt's-ups — Serenades — Morning Songs. We have already seen that the chief bacchanalian music of Shakespeare is to be found in " Twelfth Night," while the leading tavern-scenes are to be discovered in the two parts of "King Henry IV." Nevertheless, to our collection of musical vagabonds must be added a rascal of much deeper dye, a man who seems a living proof that the music-maker, as well as the music-hater, " is fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils," — Iago. The scene (" Othello," Act ii. Sc. 3) where the crafty Iago, by simulated good-fel- lowship, leads Cassio to his intoxication and ruin runs: " Iago. Some wine, ho ! 1 And let me the canakin clink, clink ; [Sings. And let me the canakin clink : A Soldier's a man ; A life's but a span ; Why then, let a soldier drink.' Some wine, boys ! % [ Wine brought in, Cassio. 'Fore Heaven, an excellent song. 199 200 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Iago. I learned it in England, where (indeed) they are most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander, — Drink, ho ! — are nothing to your English. Cassio. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking ? Iago. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead drunk. Iago. O sweet England ! 4 King Stephen was a worthy peer, His breeches cost him but a crown; He held them sixpence all too dear, With that he call'd the tailor — lown He was a wight of high renown, And thou art but of low degree : *Tis pride that pulls the country down, Then take thine auld cloak about thee.' Some wine, ho ! Cassio. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other. Iago. Will you hear it again ? Cassio. No ; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place, that does those things." Of the first song the original music is not traceable, 1 but the second snatch of rollicking music can be traced home ; it was sung to an old Scottish melody. 1 A somewhat similar catch, however, by Doctor Byrd, is given in the collection called " Pammelia " (1609), running: " Come drink to me, And I to thee, And then shall we Full well agree. " I've loved the jolly tankard Full seven winters and more ; I loved it so long, That I went upon the score. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 201 We give the melody both with its original and its Shakespearian words. In the preceding chapter we have seen the music of the tavern called a " noise," and the name was by no means misapplied, for much of this minstrelsy was of the loudest description. Not only was this the case, but table-music (z. e. music played during meals) in general was liked in proportion to its loud- ness by many of the less cultivated patrons, even those of high rank. Writing of Queen Elizabeth's table-music, an authority says : ■ ".Elizabeth used to be regaled during dinner with twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums ; which, together with fifes, cornets, and side-drums, made the hall ring for half an hour together." It may be incidentally mentioned that the word "table-music" was also used in another sense in the seventeenth century. Two, three, four, or more singers would often sit at a table, instead of stand- ing, while executing their music ; such compositions as were printed with the intention of being thus sung " Who loveth not the tankard, He is no honest man ; And he is no right soldier, That loveth not the can. "Tap the cannikin, trole the cannikin, Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin. Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can, That we may quaff it round from man to man.'' 1 P. Hentzner's " Itinerarium," p. 53. 202 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. % TAKE THY OLD CLOAK ABOUT THEE, m ^3z:^ «E This winter's weather wax-eth cold, And King Stephen was a worthy peer, His i^=£ mi -■&- m r^ ^— * #— =- w* frost doth freese on ev - 'ry hill, And Boreas blowes his breeches cost him but a crown, He held them six-pence J 1_ m£ SE3 b--g=8- •TS- -*— *. pn *=B :t *— * i i r r T" *• ? blasts soe bold, That all our kye are like to spill : all too dear, With that he called the tailor"lown" Sfcfc i- ^m I :bp=k f 3tzi: -j—g- &£ u -l r 7 r J J Then Bell my wife, who loves no strife, She was a wight of high re-nown, And He -•—*- SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 203 P 55&=*^y=S^ * vr=f t Wf r u 1 sayd un-to me qui-et-lye, Rise up, and save cow thou art but of low de-gree. 'Tis pride that pulls the m p *=?~±: ^ * •—* * S^a=r #^-# i A— =}- *=* L ■ : r f Crumbocke's life, Man, put thine old cloake about thee, coun- try down, Then take thine old cloake about thee. m m were called "table-music." We have given an exam- ple of Morley's " Now is the Month of Maying," ar- ranged for two voices in this manner. (See Chapter VI.) The book was laid on the table between the two singers, each of whom could read his part from his own side of the table, as they sat opposite each 9th er. We now quote a scene from "Twelfth Night," which may be regarded as the most typical one con- nected with the music of the tavern in all the works of Shakespeare, although it occurs, not in an inn, but in the house of Olivia. The reader will bear in mind what has already been stated regarding the loudness 204 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. of most of this music, and will readily comprehend the indignation of Olivia, Malvolio, and Maria. It is the third scene of the second act of the great comedy. "Enter Clown. Sir Andrew. Here comes the fool, i' faith. Clown. How, now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of we three? Sir Toby. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch. Sir Andrew. 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 hath. In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equi- noctial of Queubus; 'twas very good, i' faith. I sent thee six- pence for thy leman. Hadst it? Clown. I did impeticos thy gratillity ; for Malvolio's nose is no whipstock: My lady has a white hand, and the myrmi- dons are no bottle-ale houses. Sir Andrew. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song. Sir Toby. Come on ; there is sixpence for you : let's have a song. Sir Andrew. 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 Toby. A love-song, a love-song. Sir Andrew. Ay, ay; I care not for good life. SONG. Clown. O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear ; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low : SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 205 Trip no farther, pretty sweeting ; Journey's end in lovers' meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. Sir Andrew. Excellent good, i' faith ! Sir Toby. Good, good. Clown. What is love? 'tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come, is still unsure : In delay there lies no plenty ; Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty. Youth's a stuff will not endure. Sir Andrew. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight Sir Toby. A contagious breath. Sir Andrew. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith. Sir Toby. 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 ? 1 shall we do that ? Sir Andrew. An you love me, let's do't : I am a dog at a catch. Clown. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. Sir Andrew. Most certain: let our catch be, 'Thou knave. 5 Clown. ' Hold thy peace, thou knave,' knight ? I shall be constrain'd in't to call thee knave, knight. Sir Andrew. 'Tis not the first time I have constrain'd one to call me knave. Begin, fool ; it begins, ■ Hold thy peace.' Clown. I shall never begin, if I hold my peace. 1 Schmidt says that the weavers in Elizabethan times were mostly refugees from th* Netherlands, and therefore Calvinists, who were much addicted to psalm-singing. 206 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Sir Andrew. Good, i' faith ! Come, begin. [ They sing a catch. Enter Maria. Maria. What a catter wauling do you keep here ! If my lady have not called up her steward, Malvolio ; and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me. Sir Toby. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians ; Mal- volio's a Peg-a-Ramsey, and ' Three merry men be we.' Am not I consanguineous ? Am I not of her blood ? Tilly-vally, lady ! i There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady ! ' {Singing. Clown. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling. Sir Andrew. Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed, and so do I too ; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. Sir Toby. <■ O, the twelfth day of December,' — [Singing. Maria. For the love o' God, peace. Enter Malvolio. Malvolio. 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 you make an alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your coziers' catches with- out any mitigation or remorse of voice ? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you ? Sir Toby. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up ! Malvolio. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kins- man, she's nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house ; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell. Sir Toby. • Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone/ Sir Toby. — " Shall I bid him go % and spare not ? " (Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 3.) From th* painting by Griitzner. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC 207 Maria. Nay, good Sir Toby. Clown. • His eyes do show his days are almost done.' Malvolio. Is't even so? Sir Toby. ' But I will never die.' Clown. Sir Toby, there you lie. Malvolio. This is much credit to you. Sir Toby. ■ Shall I bid him go ? ' {Singing. Clown. ' What an if you do ? ' Sir Toby. ■ Shall I bid him go, and spare not ? ' Clown. ' O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.' Sir Toby. Out o' time ? sir, ye lie. — Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ? Clown. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too." This scene is as full of musical allusions as an egg of meat ; not even the music-teaching scene in " The Taming of the Shrew," or the musical dialogue between Lucetta and Julia in "Two Gentlemen of Verona," can compare with it in point of constant musical metaphor ; it is the most continuously musi- cal scene to be found in Shakespeare. A certain prolixity of comment may therefore be permitted. "The fool has an excellent breast," speaks of Feste's good vocal qualities. Shakespeare demanded a good vocalist in this part, for it must be remem- bered that the clown appears not only in the catch- music of this scene (and in the love-song), but in tender and earnest music that draws forth the most enthusiastic encomium from the duke. Knight, prob- 208 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. ably the most musical of the Shakespearian com* mentators, cites Warton and Tusser as using the word " breast " in this sense, the latter saying, — " Thence for my voice, I must (no choice) Away, of force, like posting-horse. For sundry men, had placards then Such child to take ; The better breast, the lesser rest, To serve the quire, now there, now here," — which refers to the impressment of children in the royal choirs. If Knight is to be called the most musical of the commentators, Doctor Johnson and Steevens may be pilloried as the least so. We have already seen Johnson apologising for Shakespeare's musical ten- dencies ; Steevens writes himself down an — antago- nist of music, in the following comment upon the above line : ■ " I suppose this cant term [" breast "] to have been current among the musicians of the age. All professions have in some degree their jargon ; and the remoter they are from liberal science, and the less consequential to the general inter- ests of life, the more they strive to hide themselves behind affected terms and barbarous phraseology." As regards the love-song, " Oh, Mistress Mine," it exists in the form in which Shakespeare was 'Another proof that Furness's lenient judgment of Steevens was a too kindly view of the case. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, 209 wont to hear it sung. "Twelfth Night" was prob- ably written in 1599, or 1600, and is mentioned in John Manningham's " Diary " (in the British Museum) Feb. 2, 1 60 1 (2) ; the tune of this song is to be found in Morley's " Consort Lessons," printed in 1599, and was composed before this time, since it is also found in Queen Elizabeth's "Virginal Book," arranged by Byrd. We give the song with the harmonies of the latter musician. The words have been set some twenty times since this original version ! "O MISTRESS MINE." Expressive. fcnzdzdzi 4-4-J— 4- *t -I 1- --&- *-fe r*T r '-t \ ' ■ 1 1 1 1 OMisstress mine, Where are you roaming ? O Misstress mine, WW ■gfc. A i F J ! ! -# — — — •- — e - #-#- js^tzjg=r 4 — I — U4- .U: 1 I ) 3 :#t ^- r-f «=j Where are you roaming FO stay and hear Your true love coming gp ±jt r— tn 210 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. hi A. S=fe=i hJ ■&- i ■=£&z t£ i m — T7 r 7F T ~^ — r no further, pret - ty sweet - ing, Jour-ney's end A. nU A I -d- m not? Oh no, no, no, no, no, You dare not. a f #— Jt The real poem, which Shakespeare has here par- odied, ran as follows : " Farewell, dear Love, since thou wilt needs be gone, Mine eyes do shew, my life is almost done. Nay, I will never die, so long as I can spie There be many mo, though that she doe goe, There be many mo, I fear not : Why then let her goe, I care not. " Farewell, farewell ; since this I find is true, I will not spend more time in wooing you ; But I will seek elsewhere, if I may find love there. Shall I bid her goe ? what and if I doe ? Shall I bid her goe and spare not? O no, no, no, I dare not. " Ten thousand times farewell ; — yet stay a while : — Sweet, kiss me once; sweet kisses time beguile. I have no power to move. How now am I in love? Wilt thou needs be gone ? Go then, all is one. Wilt thou needs be gone ? Oh, hie thee ! Nay, stay, and do no more deny me. " Once more adieu, I see loath to depart Bids oft adieu to her, that holds my heart SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 219 But seeing I must lose thy love, which I did choose, Goe thy way for me, since that may not be. Goe thy ways for me. But whither? Goe, oh, but where I may come thither. " What shall I doe ? my love is now departed. She is as fair, as she is cruel-hearted. She would not be intreated, with prayers oft repeated ; If she come no more, shall I die therefore ? If she come no more, what care I ? Faith, let her goe, or come, or tarry." There is another instance of the interweaving of part of a song through the action, in this same play of "Twelfth Night." It occurs in the second scene of the fourth act, where the following dialogue, partly sung, is found : " Clown. Hey Robin, jolly Robin, [Singing. Tell me how thy lady does. Malvolio. Fool Clown. My lady is unkind, perdy. Malvolio. Fool — Clown. Alas ! why is she so ? Malvolio. Fool, I say — Clown. She loves another. Who calls, ha ? " Doctor Farmer has conjectured that the song should begin thus : " Hey, jolly Robin, tell to me How does thy lady do ? My lady^s unkind, perdy, Alas ! why is she so ? ■ 220 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. But Percy ("Reliques," Book II., No. 4) gives the old song from which the quotations are taken. It was probably written in the time of Henry VIII. The words run : " A Robyn, Jolly Robyn, Tell me how thy leman doeth, And thou shalt knowe of myn. u My lady is unkynde, perde. Alack ! why is she so ? She loveth an other better than me; And yet she will say no. " I fynde no such doublenes ; I fynde women true ; My lady loveth me dowtles, And will change for no newe. "Thou art happy while that doeth last: But I say, as I fynde, That women's love is but a blast, And torneth with the wynde. " Suche folkes can take no harme by love, That can abide their torn. But I alas can no way prove In love, but lake and morne. " But if thou wilt avoyde thy harme, Lerne this lessen of me : At others fieres thy selfe to warme, And let them warme with the." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 221 A favourite catch, with a refrain, may be added to all these fragments of musical allusion. It is spoken of in " The Taming of the Shrew " (Act iv. Sc. i) as follows : " Curtis. Therefore, good Grumio, the news ? Grumio. Why * Jack, boy ! ho boy ! ' and as much news as thou wilt." This is a direct quotation from an old catch which we here append : CATCH. "JACK, BOY, HO! BOY!" m Beat •& — z± Jack, boy, ho! boy, news ; The cat is in the well, t=t a e=» W '' ' ! "Z?" Let us ring now for her knell, Ding,dong, ding, dong, bell. The "dildos and fadings," which the servant speaks of in " Winter's Tale n ' (Act iv. Sc. 3), were also refrains to songs, as may be seen from the fol- lowing refrain to Ophelia's "How Should I Your True Love Know : " i ^ i^ *■ Twang - lang dil do dee. Ite I 1 See also Chapter XI. 222 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, Another burden which is alluded to in "The Taming of the Shrew " is found in Petruchio's re- mark to Katherine (Act ii. Sc. i), — " We will be married o' Sunday." This phrase may be a mere coincidence, or it may have been taken from an old song which ran — " To church away ! We will have rings And fine array, With other things, Against the day, For I'm to be married o' Sunday." Richard Grant White quotes the above song, but as he gives no source of derivation, and as he often follows fanciful theories, we give the citation for what it is worth. Hunting-music is found in some of Shakespeare's plays, and a hunt's-up was often used as a bright song with which to awaken favoured individuals in the early morning. One of the best of these songs is found in " As You Like It " (Act iv. Sc. 2). " Enter Jaques and Lords, in the habit of Foresters, Jaques. Which is he that killed the deer ? First Lord. Sir, it was I. Jaques. Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror ; and it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. — Have you no song, forester, for this purpose? Second Lord. Yes, sir. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 223 Jaques. Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. SONG. 1. What shall he have that kilPd the deer? 2. His leather skins and horns to wear. I. Then sing him home: \The rest shall bear this burden. Take thou no scorn, to wear the horn ; It was a crest, ere thou wast born. 1 . Thy father's father wore it ; 2. And thy father bore it : [AIL] The horn, the horn, the lusty horn, Is not a thing to laugh to scorn." In this scene the words, " The rest shall bear this burden," have caused some trouble to the commen- tators, for, by an odd mistake, they have been inter- polated into the body of the song, whereas they are almost of a certainty a mere direction to the singers to join in the " burden " of the song. Some com- mentators, Knight and White, for example, would have the line, "Then sing him home," also read as a mere stage-direction, but this is at least deba- table ground. 1 We give the music of this song, or " catch," as it was probably heard on Shakespeare's stage. It is reprinted from Playford's " Musical Com- panion " (1672), but Playford had copied it from Hilton's earlier works, as he states in his preface. Another debatable case occurs in " The Merchant of Venice " (Act iii. Sc. 2) : 1 See Furness for a full debate as to the matter of the burden. 224 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 11111 Mi i lUi! * 4 S f-{ , | ; ^ I nr . (4* 4 ■ 41 JET it t*tt o g P (I 111 J J! ♦I III III ■5 j 3 P? i ( jrm - m ill II : I II II! +] 2 .5 2 o i j «?• Qi J I v a ^ > * g ? I .jo c SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 225 ** Music whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself. SONG. x 1. Tell me, where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head ? How begot, how nourished ? Reply, reply. 2. It is engender'd in the eyes, With gazing fed ; and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies : Let us all ring fancy's knell ; I'll begin it — Ding, dong, belL All. Ding, dong, bell." Johnson, most unmusical of commentators (a man who ought never to have edited Shakespeare), held that the words, " Replie, Replie," were merely a stage-direction that a second voice should reply to the first. The repetition of the word makes this position very untenable ; yet many editions have since appeared in which the word is merely attached as a heading to the second stanza, or omitted alto- gether. Serenades formed a very popular branch of music in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Shakespeare speaks of them with some frequency. There is a sentence in the Second Part of "Henry IV." (Act iii. Sc. 2), in which Falstaff derides Shallow, saying : % * The original melody used here has not been discovered. 226 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " He 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 Good-nights." The " fancies " spoken of here were probably fantasies or improvisations, while the " Good-nights " were serenades. In a preceding chapter we have seen Thurio serenading Sylvia ("Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iv. Sc. 2) with "a deploring dump," which was quite in the character of evening music. But there was also another species of ambulatory love-song, which has been miscalled a serenade ; we mean the bright and joyous song with which the olden-time lover awoke his mistress. This morning- A "HUNTS-UP," OR MORNING SONG (17th Century.) Vivace. 1 >-. | r? mi sees; r=$ — 0- m The Hunt is Ifr^iS: up, the Hunt P — is up, And — ft I it * SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 227 If— t — I r ■ g t — rr — ^-"r^^ 11 bed with his Wife, 'Tis time to get him a - way. song, called "aubade" by the French composers and "alba" by the ancient troubadours, was ex- actly the opposite of the pensive and soothing ser- enade. Fynes Moryson, in his " Itinerary " published in 161 7, says that it was a custom peculiar to Eng- land, that if a gentleman had company at a highway inn, he would be offered music (which he might freely take or refuse), and, if solitary, the musicians would give him the good-day with music in the morning. 1 It is such a morning-song that Clot en brings to Imogen in the third scene of the second act of "Cymbeline." The song is, as usual, set in a framework of comment. " Cloten. It's almost morning, is't not? First Lord. Day, my lord. 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 : . . . First a very excellent good-conceited thing ; after a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it, and then let her consider. \ 1 Quoted by Chappell, " Old English Ditties." 228 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. SONG. * Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings. And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies ; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes ; With every thing that pretty bin : * My lady sweet, arise ; Arise, arise.' 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 cat-guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, can never amend. [Exeunt Musicians.'* 1 The original musical setting of this poem is lost, but it has received a setting worthy of Shakespeare by one of the greatest of German masters, — Schu- bert. Of this musical setting and of the circum- stances of its production, we shall speak in a later chapter. 1 Much controversy has arisen about the word " lies," in this connection. The use of this instead of its nominative was com- mon enough in Shakespeare's time. The word " bin," substituted for " is " by Hanmer, has also caused comment both favourable and otherwise. Shakespeare unquestionably wrote " is," and the forced rhyme, old-fashioned term, and grammatic license seem unneces- sary, yet " bin " will probably be used in many editions in sacula scBculorum. CHAPTER XL The Ballads of Shakespeare — Antiquity of English Ballads — Antique Examples — Ophelia's Ballads — The Pathology of the Mad-scene — Edgar's Music in " King Lear " — Mad-songs in This Epoch — Autolycus and His Ballads in " Winter's Tale" — Plots of Shakespearian Plays as Found in Ballads — " Green- sleeves," as Cited by Shakespeare. The ballad is the peculiar artistic heritage of the Northern nations. Wherever the theatre was well developed the ballad languished, for it had no mis- sion to perform in national literature which could not be as adequately, or even more thoroughly, ac- complished by means of the drama. Even ancient Greece, with all its literary and musical activity, possessed no ballads, the epos being the nearest approach to this form. In later days, Italy and France cared little for this vein of musical narra- tive, while Germany, Scandinavia, and England pre- sented the deeds of national heroes to the public which craved the recital, in the shape of ballad or saga. If the terms are used strictly, there should be a strong discrimination between "ballad" and "song," for the ballad was a tale of events, set to music, 229 230 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, while the song dealt with emotions only. Of course, there are many instances where the one form goes into the domain of the other, temporarily. The old English chroniclers were often glad to incorporate the legendary information received through a ballad, into their histories. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" contains at least two complete historical ballads, and fragments of nearly a dozen more are incorporated into the body of the work, and William of Malmes- bury frankly acknowledges his indebtedness to the traditional ballads of the countryside, in his history of King Edward (the son of Alfred the Great), a confession which many of his brother chroniclers would have been obliged to make, had they been as honest as he. A royal ballad was composed as early as 1017, when King Canute burst into song, upon the river Ely, upon a summer evening. The pious chronicler of Ely gives the words of the first stanza of this ballad, but the music has disappeared. The English bears the mark of the twelfth, rather than of the eleventh century. " Merie sungen the muneches binnen Ely, Tha Cnut ching reu ther by : Roweth, cnites, noer the land, And here we thes muneches saeng. " Merry sang the monks by Ely, As Canute, King, rowed thereby. Row knights, near the land, And hear we these monks sing." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 23 1 We present a facsimile of one of the black-letter ballads of the fifteenth century, from a manuscript in the Sloane collection in the British Museum. Mr. Thos. Wright has added to it a short glossary, which is also appended. The reader will note an allusion to the "division" of melody as explained in Chapter VI. XX VH&tve. so Kgrf*. femes'* ssnggt merte, bull) alesson. 30 3f toent on 50! nap in otore ptofeugon , Knotti % jolp 3lankgn be&i0merpton/ 3lanfcpn be^gan t&e offk0 on t&e 50I Hap ann fpt me tbgnfcpt it 500 me goou (b merie gan be Cap / feprielegfon. 3lanfepn ten t&e ppflpl ful fapre anu nil toel / ano 5pt me tjnnfept it 000 me goon / a0 euere imue 31 Cel. 232 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Slanfcpn at t&e tanctus etafcitamertenote/ 8no 5pt me t&initgtit 000 me goon/ 3f papio for Bis cote, 3ian&i?n crafcit nots / animnoeriuonafenot/ ann 3?t fje frafefept &em fmaflete tfmn toottiss to tfje pot. ft. 3ianl#n at t&e angnus oerpt tfte par fcreoe / &e ttopn&elio / out fapa notot arm on tmm fot fie treoe. lBeneoicamus uommo / Crpa fro fc&ame me fcogloe / Deo 0tacta0 tf>er*to / ala0 31 go feriti) felloe. 6. Gloss. £yr*V aleyson (icvpie ekeiaov) ' Lord, have mercy on us,' a part of the liturgy — zol, yule, Christmas — ton, tone — offys, office, service — zyt, yet — red, read — pystyl, epistle — sel, bliss, happiness — crakit, cracked — hakkyt, hacked — worts, herbs — beryt, bore — nowt, nought, nothing — trede, trode — schylde, shield — schylde, child. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 233 Many of the ballads which are well-known in Eng- land to-day have an antiquity scarcely inferior to the one cited above. " For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," for example (known in America as " We Won't Go Home Till Morning"), can be traced through the the French " Malbrooke " to the old crusader " Mam- bron," and its melody was heard in Palestine in the twelfth century. Oddly enough, the tune took root in the East, and can be heard to-day in many an Oriental city. The fellaheen of Egypt claim the tune as their own, and so it is, if eight centuries of possession can make it so. "There Were Three Crows Sat on a Tree," " Lord Lovell," and several other popular ballads of the day can also be traced, in varying shapes, to a remote past. It is natural, therefore, to find the ballad playing a prominent part, in many ways, in the Shakespearian drama. If the ballad appears in the action less fre- quently than the lyrical song, it is none the less used, at times, with peculiar fitness and occasionally with a power that is phenomenal. To this last category belong the ballads that Ophelia sings during her fits of madness. Nothing can be more pathetic than the introduction of light and inconsequential ballad music in these moments of darkness and agony. Just as a single candle might throw into more terrible contrast the blackness of some vast cavern, just as the mirth and revelry expressed in the " £a Ira " and the " Car- 234 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. magnole" made more frightful the scenes in the French Reign of Terror, which they accompanied, so the woes of Ophelia are emphasised and doubly impressed upon the auditor by the ribald music that she sings. Fortunately, in this case we have the very music which Shakespeare employed. When Drury Lane Theatre was burned, in 1812, the old transcription of the melodies, which had been handed down from the original sources, was lost ; an enthusiastic musi- cian, however, to whom all Shakespearians owe thanks, Doctor Arnold, sought out Mrs. Jordan, who had often played the part of Ophelia, and from her lips transcribed the tunes that she had so frequently sung. Mr. Linley also wrote down the melodies from memory, having heard Miss Field (afterward Mrs. Forster) sing the tunes in the above mentioned theatre. The two versions agree well enough for one to prove the other, but the Arnold transcription (which we reproduce for our readers) is probably the more authentic. The scenes in which the ballads occur are as follows : " Re-enter Horatio with Ophelia. Ophelia. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark ? Queen. How now, Ophelia ? Ophelia. ' How should I your true love know From another one ? SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 235 By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon ? ' [Singing. Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song ? Ophelia. Say you ? nay, pray you, mark. « He is dead and gone, lady, [Sings. He is dead and gone ; At his head a green-grass turf, At his heels a stone.' O, ho. Queen. Nay, but Ophelia — Ophelia. Pray you, mark. 1 White his shroud as the mountain snow.' [Sings. Enter King. Queen. Alas, look here, my lord. Ophelia. ■ Larded all with sweet flowers, Which bewept to the grave did go, 1 With true-love showers.' King. How do you, pretty lady ? Ophelia. Well, God 'ield you ! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table. King. Conceit upon her father. Ophelia. Pray, let us have no words of this ; but when they ask what it means say you this : _. l 1 „■ 1 s^ H J.. " pw»^" 38 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. come a - gain? No no, he is dead. Gone W~F ¥ * lu rry f A. * "QJ to his Deathbed, And he nev-er will come a - gain. llll large lump of dough by the baker, but the daughter, thinking the portion too large, took away half. When the portion of Christ was put in the oven it began to swell larger and larger, while the baker's daughter began to hoot and cry and was turned into an owl. The song about St. Valentine's Day is commented upon by Halliwell thus : "This song alludes to the custom of the first girl seen by a man on the morning of this day being considered his Valen- tine, or True-love." The custom is of great antiquity in England, but probably did not have its origin there ; indeed it can be traced back to the Roman Lupercalia, and prob- ably arose from the ancient idea that birds chose SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 239 their mates on February 14th, St. Valentine's Day. There is nothing in the life of the saint that would seem to make him sponsor for the amatory character of the festivities. The later part of the scene (the fifth of the fourth act) soon follows : "Enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers. Laertes. O heat, dry up my brains ! tears, seven times salt, Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye ! — By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight, Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May ! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! — O Heavens ! is't possible, a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life ? Nature is fine in love : and, where 'tis fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it loves. Ophelia. * They bore him barefaced on the bier ; Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny : And in his grave rain'd many a tear ; ' — Fare you well, my dove ! Laertes. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus. Ophelia. You must sing, ' Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a.' O, how the wheel becomes it ! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter. Laertes. This nothing's more than matter. Ophelia. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance ; pray you, love, remember; and there is pansies, that's for thoughts. Laertes. A document in madness ; thoughts and remem- brance fitted. 240 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Ophelia. There's fennel for you, and columbines : — there's rue for you ; and here's some for me : — we may call it, herb of grace o' Sundays: — you may wear your rue with a differ- ence. — There's a daisy : — I would give you some violets ; but they withered all, when my father died : — They say, he made a good end, — 1 For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.' [Sings. Laertes. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour, and to prettiness. Ophelia. [Sings'] 'And will he not come again? And will he not come again ? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death-bed, He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll : He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan ; God 'a mercy on his soul ! ' And of all Christian souls ! I pray God. God be wi' you. [Exit Ophelia. Laertes. Do you see this, O God ! " The reader will note how the burdens follow each other in this scene. " Hey no nonny, nonny, hey nonny," is followed by " Down a down, an you call him a-down-a," which is very similiar to what Mis- tress Quickly sings in the third scene of the first act of "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and Ophelia praises the refrain with " O, how the wheel becomes it," meaning that the burden fits well to its song, and not, as Knight suggests, that it was adapted to Ophelia. — {Sings.) "For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy" (Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5.) From the painting by N. Sichel. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 24 1 be sung by spinners at the wheel. 1 The ballad of which this appears to be the burden, i. e. the false steward who stole his master's daughter, has eluded attempts at identification thus far. The fragment, " For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy," is found in the old volume known as "Queen Elizabeth's Vir- ginal Book." It seems to have been very popular in Shakespeare's day, for Fletcher alludes to the tune as " Bonny Robin," in " Two Noble Kinsmen," and several ballads were sung to its melody. We give the melody as it was commonly sung, with a single line of the words, — all that remains of the original poetry. As it appears in William Ballet's Lute-book, a valuable manuscript in the library of Trinity Col- lege, Dublin (and older than the Elizabethan volume cited above), under the title "Robin Hood Is to the Greenwood Gone," it is possible that this was one of the many ballads made upon the old English popular hero. 1 Bishop Hall's censure of ballads in 1 597 runs : " Some drunken rhymer thinks his time well spent If he can live to see his name in print ; Who, when he once is fleshed to the presse, And sees his handsell have such faire successe, Sung to the wheele and sung unto the payle, He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale." In "Much Ado Abo ur Nothing " (Act i. Sc. 1) Benedick refers contemptuously to " a ballad-maker's pen." 242 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSTC. Moderate Time. H-r H r ^i For bon-ny sweet Robin is all my joy. (^Efr u 1 J , h 2 ftg !sa ^^S^SIttl 2, jvi st=? . # __ ^- J "t i &=* Igg •— *- fcfcS 1 2 J J 9 +**• r.\j\ Ay lit r=n In the last ballad, or rather song, which Ophelia sings, the line, "God 'a mercy on his soul," has been changed in some editions to " Gramercy on his soul ; " the Folio gives the latter, the Quartos the former reading. But there is something far deeper to study, in this scene, than mere quibbles about readings, or the tracing of burdens to their original context, or even SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC, 243 the tunes of the ballads themselves, beautiful as their effect must have been (and still is) upon the stage ; it is the wonderful subtlety with which these snatches of song illustrate the insanity of the unhappy heroine. We have already alluded to the added power which their contrast gives to the pathos of the action, but there is a touch more subtile than this in the song of Valentine's Day. The second stanza of this be- comes rather coarse and indelicate, and is the most decided proof of the entire alienation of the chaste Ophelia's mind. Physicians know that often the estranged mind becomes the opposite of its sane self, the silent become garrulous, the religious become blasphemous, and here we have the gentle Ophelia becoming ribald and vulgar. It has been asked, how- ever, how could such a maiden have learned such songs ? To this we reply that it was not necessary that she should have learned them ; it would suffice that she should have heard them, or even once have been shocked by them. The author was recently told of the case of an insane servant girl (by Dr. Charles R. Walker, of Concord, Mass.) who, in her delirium, spoke entire Latin sentences. She had been in the family of a scholar who sometimes read Virgil aloud to his wife and daughter, and had caught the sound of the verses unconsciously. It is interesting ^o compare the songs of Edgar, simulating madness, in "King Lear," with these 244 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. jangling fragments of prettiness ; here, too, we find broken bits of tunes and inconsequential sentences. " Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill, Halloo, halloo, loo, loo." " Saint Withold footed thrice the wold ; He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold ; Bid her alight And her troth plight, And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee." " But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year." These are parts of the ravings of the pseudo-lunatic, and Staunton rightly conjectures that they should be sung rather than recited, the latter being the case with most representations of the character. All of the citations given above, and the other similar fragments, which it is not necessary to quote, are fragments of musical ballads and songs, sometimes of nursery rhymes which had a dozen varying tunes at the caprice of the singer. The mad-scenes in " King Lear " are not compar- able with the subtle ones in " Hamlet," save in the one point that in both plays agony is emphasised by a frivolous background. The melodies attached to Edgar s songs are unfortunately not preserved to us, but it may be interesting, in this connection, to state that England was particularly fond of " mad-songs " (see Hawkins's "History of Music," Vol. II. p. 825), SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. and Tom o' Bedlam was a regular character in the seventeenth century. The madman upon the stage was regarded as a sort of clown, of a particularly- spicy character ; the audience generally laughed heartily at the mad-scenes, and one is not astonished to find the fool, in "King Lear," capping Edgar's verse (Act iii. Sc. 6). " Edgar. Come o'er the bourn, Bessie, to me : Fool. Her boat hath a leak, And she must not speak Why she dares not come over to thee." The song, * Come O'er the Bourn, Bessie," was entered at Stationer's Hall, in 1562. It is quite possible that Shakespeare in the mad- scenes made a concession to the popular taste of his time. This would place the Ophelia songs on a lower level than that which is generally assigned them, and would also deteriorate the effect of the scenes in " King Lear," just alluded to. Inferential evidence that this may have been the case may be found in Fletcher's " Two Noble Kinsmen " (Act iv. Sc. 3), where the gaoler's daughter appears in a dis- traught condition, and gives fragments of songs quite in the Ophelian manner, and also becomes highly indelicate in her language. The rustic revellers and the schoolmaster, in this scene, think it great sport to find a madwoman to join in their morris-dance, 246 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. and the whole scene was evidently intended to pro, voke the mirth of the audience. We may suppose, however, that Shakespeare made use of the fondness of his public for a mad-scene, and turned the hilarity into a more worthy channel. Fletcher's gaoler's daughter certainly seems but a vulgar caricature of Ophelia. We can turn from the fragmentary musical mutter- ings of Edgar, with much delight, to the rollicking picture of ballad-singing given in connection with Autolycus, in " Winter's Tale." Here we have a minstrel such as England possessed regiments of in the ancient times ; such as were persecuted by law, hounded by the Church (see Chapter IX.), yet remained to the end a set of jolly, Bohemian repro- bates. The scenes in which Autolycus is prominent are here given (Act iv. Sc. 2) : " A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage, Enter Autolycus, singing. * When daffodils begin to peer, — With, heigh ! the doxy over the dale, — Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. * The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, — With, heigh ! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! — Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2tf 1 The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, — With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay, — Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay.' I have served prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three- pile ; but now I am out of service ; * But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? The pale moon shines by night ; And, when I wander here and there, I then do most go right. * If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin budget ; Then my account I well may give, And in the stocks avouch it.' My traffic is sheets ; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab, I purchased this caparison ; and my revenue is the silly cheat : Gallows and knocks are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me ; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. — A prize ! a prize ! " After this delightful lyric (the music of which has unfortunately disappeared) the clown enters and is cheerfully robbed by Autolycus, who departs at the end of the scene, singing : " J°g on » j°g on » the footpath way, Anckmerrily hent the stile-a; A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a." 248 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. and of this an old melody still exists ; we herewith append it. The tune is traced as far back as 1650, and probably is the one known to Shakespeare nearly a half-century before. The next scene of the play introduces Autolycus again. Moderate Time. Jog on, jog on the foot - path way, ra 1 j- m £= I #VN= mer b — ' f— J -» — £ — 1 — # — L i p 1 — j K 1 U J V. ! 1 1 ¥ - ri - ly hent the stile a, A mer-ry heart goes M jU-^J f J- (J- , — ^— • — ■ ; H - -m-- h = t *^ 1 r F J i— *-* — ^ ■ iiifefe r all gg ^ ft f T I the day, Your sad tires in a mile a. is SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 249 " Enter a Servant. Servant. O master, if you did but hear the pedler 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. Servant. He hath songs, for man or woman, of all sizes ; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves : he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of ■ dildos and fadings,' 4 jump her and thump her ; ' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul jape into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, * Whoop, do me no harm, good man; ' puts him off, slights him, with « Whoop, do me no harm, good man.' Polixenes. This is a brave fellow. Clown. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares? Servant. He hath ribands of all the colours i' the rainbow ; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross ; inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns : why, he sings them over, as they were gods or goddesses : you would think, a smock were a she angel : he so chants to the sleeve hand, and the work about the square on't. Clown. Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach singing. Perdita. Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes. Clown. You have of these pedlers, that have more in 'em than you'd think, sister^ Perdita. Ay, good brother, or go about to think. 25O SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Enter Autolycus, singing. 1 Lawn, as white as driven snow ; Cyprus, black as e'er was crow ; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses; Masks for faces, and for noses ; Bugle bracelet, necklace-amber ; Perfume for a lady's chamber; Golden quoifs, and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears ; Pins, and poking sticks of steel, What maids lack from head to heel : Come, buy of me, come : come buy, come buy, Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry : Come, buy.' Clown. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me ; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribands and gloves. Mopsa. I was promised them against the feast ; but they come not too late now. Clown. What hast here ? ballads ? Mopsa. Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print a-life ; for then we are sure they are true. Autolycus. Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty moneybags at a burden ; and how she longed to eat adders' heads, and toads carbona- doed. Mopsa. Is it true, think you? Autolycus. Very true, and but a month old. Dorcas. Bless me from marrying a usurer ! Autolycus. Here's the midwife's name to 't, one mistress Taleporter; and five or six honest wives, that were present: Why should I carry lies abroad ? Mopsa. 'Pray yOu now, buy it. Clown. Come on, lay it by : And let's first see more ballads ; we'll buy the other things anon. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2$ I Autolycus. Here's another ballad. Of a fish that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the four-score of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. . . . The ballad is very pitiful, and as true. Dorcas. Is it true too, think you ? Autolycus. Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses, more than my pack will hold. Clown. Lay it by too : Another. Autolycus. This is a merry ballad; but a very pretty one. Mofisa. Let's have some merry ones. Autolycus. 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. Mopsa. We can both sing it ; if thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear ; 'tis in three parts. Dorcas. We had the tune on 't a month ago. Autolycus. I can bear my part; you must know, 'tis my occupation : have at it with you. SONG. A. Get you hence, for I must go; Where, it fits not you to know. D. Whither? M. O, whither? D. Whither? M. It becomes thy oath full well, Thou to me thy secrets tell : D. Me too, let me go thither. M. Or thou go'st to the grange or mill : D. If to either, thou dost ill. A. Neither. D. What neither? A. Neither. D. Thou hast sworn my love to be : M. Thou hast 9worn it more to me; Then whither go'st? say, whither? 252 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Clown. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves : My father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedler ; let's have the first choice. — Follow me, girls. Autolycus. And you shall pay well for 'em. [Aside. * Will you buy any tape, Or lace for your cape, My dainty duck, my dear-a ? Any silk, any thread, Any toys for your head, Of the new'st, and finest, finest, wear-a? Come to the pedler; Money's a medlar, That doth utter all men's ware-a.' [Exeunt Clown, Autolycus, Dorcas, and Mopsa" We have already spoken of the refrains of the old ballads ; " dildos and fadings " allude to these refrains. Malone, Theobald, and Tyrwhitt agree that "fadings" meant an old Irish dance. Malone was told by Irish antiquaries that it was derived from "Rinca Fada," "The Long Dance," and he quotes a song from "Sportive Wit" (1666), which implies that it was rustic in character. " The courtiers scorn us country clowns, We country clowns do scorn the court ; We can be as merry upon the downs, As you at midnight, with all your sport, With a fading, with a fading." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 253 Knight (Vol. II. p. 383), gives a full account of the style of this dance. The "jape" was a violent explosion of mirth, and in this connection we have another Shakespearian jest, for the clown suggests that Autolycus reproves evil-meaning mirth with " Whoop, do me no harm, good man," which would be like trying to extinguish a fire with oil, for the ballad with this refrain was decidedly not fit for publication. Furness says (Variorum Edition, Vol. XL p. 208) : " Indeed, the humour, in the whole of this speech by the clown, would be relished by an Elizabethan audience, to whom the praise bestowed by the clown on the decency of the bal- lad would be at once recognised as one of the jokes." Naylor, in his '• Shakespeare and Music,'" gives the following melody, of which the last words only are presented, as being a popular tune of the 16th century. Autolycus. 5ff i fc=r.j= -4^ _J- c4 * ^=3=|=£a=il I N-U-i— npfc==l m» j>d * & 32=£3£ 3=3TJL Be 1 fcd: • i d 1 5=3=-^ *=1 7$ I [Whoop, do me no harm, good man.] The "ballad of a fish" affords an instance of microscopic commentary. Halliwell, not content 254 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. with the fact that Shakespeare is satirising the entire class of sensational ballads, tries to show that there was a ballad about a " monstruous fish," published about seven years before this play was written. He devotes five long pages to a number of fish ballads ("Oh, Flesh, Flesh, how art thou fi shifted ! ") and other "monstruosities." The fact of such humble folk as are here represented joining in a three-part song might be an exaggeration for Bohemia in the epoch, but was possible in England, and we may repeat that, whether the scene be in Bohemia or elsewhere, it is only England, and Eliza- bethan and Jacobean England, that is represented. The original music of the songs of Autolycus in this scene has unfortunately been lost. Among the old ballads of England we frequently find some which present the plots of some of Shake- speare's plays in so direct a fashion that one might readily imagine the poet borrowing points from them, in spite of the generally adverse verdict of the com- mentators. The ballad of " Gernutus, the Jew of Venice," runs so close to the " Merchant of Venice," that it has been supposed that Shakespeare, here at least, drew part of his drama from the old song- recital. Furness believes this not to have been the case, and certain added incidents which are not found in the ballad, and are to be discovered in an old Italian novel by Ser Giovanni, would indicate SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 255 that the play and the ballad both came from the same source. We give the ballad entire, from Percy's "Reliques," and also its melody as dis- covered by Doctor Rimbault. GERNUTUS, THE JEW OF VENICE. A ^-4- s *a r y ' *_ M 1=S f r ■ ~ r ■ 9 In Ve - nice towne not long a - go A With - in that ci - ty dwelt that time, A & ^=q ■jp.t* i — i — I — h H h ,— 1 , 1 N-, fp J J l ' * ' — *~ _J 1 J-: J Xs) ■ w M . f 1 \ cru - el Jew did dwell, Which merchant of great fame, Which r hv - ed all on be - ing dis - tressed I 1 _ Pfl E g h» — iff 1 r*^ t-n _ , ... .^ m «*. 1 f - Lj 1 P^-H^ m m ^^^TfTf a - su - rie, As I - ta - lian writ - ers tell. In his need Un - to Ger - nu - tus came ! ite & ^H 3 I 5? 256 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " A new Song, shewing the crueltie of Gernutus, a Jewe, who lending to a merchant an hundred crowns, would have a pound of fleshe, because he could not pay him at the time appointed. To the tune of « Black and Yellow.' THE FIRST PART. In Venice towne not long agoe A cruel Jew did dwell, Which lived all on usurie, As Italian writers tell. Gernutus called was the Jew, Which never thought to dye, Nor ever yet did any good To them in streets that lie. His life was like a barrow hogge, That liveth many, a day, Yet never once doth any good Until men will him slay. Or like a filthy heap of dung, That lieth in a whoard ; Which never can do any good, Till it be spread abroad. So fares it with the usurer, He cannot sleep in rest, For feare the thiefe will him pursue To plucke him from his nest. His hearte doth thinke on many a wile, How to deceive the poore ; His mouth is almost ful of mucke, Yet still he gapes for more. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2 $J His wife must lend a shilling, For every weeke a penny, Yet bring a pledge that is double worth, If that you will have any. And see, likewise, you keepe your day, Or else you loose it all : This was the living of the wife, Her cow she did it call. Within that citie dwelt that time A marchant of great fame, Which being distressed in his need, Unto Gernutus came : Desiring him to stand his friend For twelve month and a day ; To lend to him an hundred crownes ; And he for it would pay Whatsoever he would demand of him, And pledges he should have : " No " (quoth the Jew with fl earing lookes), " Sir, aske what you will have, " No penny for the loane of it For one you shall pay ; You may doe me as good a turne, Before my dying day. " But we will have a merry jeast, For to be talked long : You shall make me a bond," quoth he, " That shall be large and strong : " And this shaM be the forfeyture, Of your owne fleshe a pound :- 25 8 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. If you agree, make you the bond, And here is a hundred crownes." " With right good will ! " the marchant says And so the bond was made. When twelve month and a day drew on, That backe it should be payd, The marchant's ships were all at sea, And money came not in ; Which way to take, or what to doe To thinke he doth begin. And to Gernutus strait he comes, With cap and bended knee ; And sayde to him, " Of curtesie, I pray you beare with mee. " My day is come, and I have not The money for to pay : And little good the forfeyture Will doe you, I dare say." " With all my heart," Gernutus sayd, " Commaund it to your minde : In thinges of bigger waight then this You shall me ready finde." He goes his way ; the day once past, Gernutus doth not slacke To get a sergiant presently, And clapt him on the backe. And layd him into prison strong, And sued his bond withall ; And when the judgement day was come, For judgement he did call. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2$g The marchant's friends came thither fast, With many a weeping eye, For other means they could not find, But he that day must dye. THE SECOND PART. * Of the Jew's crueltie : setting foorth the mercifulnesse of the Judge towards the Marchant. To the tune of ' Blacke and Yellow.' " Some offered for his hundred crownes Five hundred for to pay ; And some a thousand, two or three, Yet still he did denay. And at the last ten thousand crownes They offered, him to save : Gernutus sayd, " I will no gold, My forfeite I will have. " A pound of fleshe is my demand, And that shall be my hire." Then sayd the judge, " Yet, good my friend, Let me of you desire " To take the flesh from such a place, As yet you let him live : Do so, and lo ! an hundred crownes To thee here will I give." " No, no," quoth he, " no, judgment here ; For this it shall be tride ; For I will have my pound of fleshe From under his right side." It grieved all the companie His crueltie to see, 260 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. For neither friend nor foe could helpe But he must spoyled bee. The bloudie Jew now ready is With whetted blade in hand, To spoyle the bloud of innocent, By forfeit of his bond. And as he was about to strike In him the deadly blow, " Stay " (quoth the judge) " thy crueltie ; I charge thee to do so. ** Sith needs thou wilt thy forfeit have, Which is of flesh a pound, See that thou shed no drop of bloud, Nor yet the man confound. « For if thou doe, like murderer Thou here shalt hanged be : Likewise of flesh see that thou cut No more than longes to thee. " For if thou take either more or lesse, To the value of a mite, Thou shall be hanged presently, As is both law and right." Gernutus now waxt franticke mad, And wotes not what to say ; Quoth he at last, " Ten thousand crownes I will that he shall pay; " And so I graunt to set him free." The judge doth answere make; "You shall not have a penny given; Your forfeyture now take." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 26 1 At the last he doth demaund But for to have his owne : " No," quoth the judge, " doe as you list, Thy judgement shall be showne. " Either take your pound of flesh," quoth he, " Or cancell me your bond : " " O cruell judge," then quoth the Jew, " That doth against me stand ! " And so with griping grieved mind He biddeth them farewell : Then all the people prays'd the Lord, That ever this heard tell. Good people, that doe heare this song, For trueth I dare well say, That many a wretch as ill as hee Doth live now at this day ; That seeketh nothing but the spoyle Of many a wealthey man, And for to trap the innocent Deviseth what they can. From whome the Lord deliver me, And every Christian too, And send to them like sentence eke That meaneth so to doe. Nor is the " Merchant of Venice " the only play which comes near to an anterior ballad ; " King Lear " also has its prototype in this shape. In this case there is no sure evidence that the ballad preceded the play. The mel^ly, which we also present, is the old melody known as " Flying Fame," which was very 262 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. popular in the seventeenth century, but cannot be traced to a definite date of origin. KING LEAR AND HIS THREE DAUGHTERS. % i a T— Jt jrf giff.' '-fc: King Lear once ml - ed in this land, With ^EB^r— tTZt :2±i t — r $ t=m r=S r-p ^ i ■ r prince -ly pow'rand peace; And had all things with i- '-ttW *-4 F 1 — r Tff- P I r r r r r r ?• hearts con - tent, That might his joys in - crease. i ' j. * — A lamentable song of the death of King Leir and his three Daughters. To the tune of " When Flying Fame." King Leir once ruled in this land With princely power and peace, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 263 And had all things with hearts content, That might his joys increase. Amongst those things that nature gave, Three daughters fair had he, So princely seeming beautiful, As fairer could not be. So on a time it pleas'd the king A question thus to move, Which of his daughters to his grace Could shew the dearest love : " For to my age you bring content," Quoth he, " then let me hear, Which of you three in plighted troth The kindest will appear." To whom the eldest thus began : " Dear father, mind," quoth she, " Before your face, to do you good, My blood shall render'd be. And for your sake my bleeding heart Shall here be cut in twain, Ere that I see your reverend age The smallest grief sustain." " And so will I," the second said ; " Dear father, for your sake, The worst of all extremities I'll gently undertake : And serve your highness night and day With diligence and love ; That sweet content and quietness Discomforts may remove." " In doing so, you glad my soul," The aged king repli'd ; 264 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " But what sayst thou, my youngest girl, How is thy love ally'd ? " 44 My love " (quoth young Cordelia then), " Which to your grace I owe, Shall be the duty of a child, And that is all I'll show." «* And wilt thou shew no more," quoth he, « Than doth thy duty bind ? I well perceive thy love is small, When as no more I find. Henceforth I banish thee my court ; Thou art no child of mine ; Nor any part of this my realm By favour shall be thine. " Thy elder sisters loves are more Than well I can demand ; To whom I equally bestow My kingdome and my land, My pompal state and all my goods, That lovingly I may With those thy sisters be maintain'd Until my dying day." Thus flattering speeches won renown, By these two sisters here ; The third had causeless banishment, Yet was her love more dear. For poor Cordelia patiently Went wandring up and down, Unhelp'd, unpity'd, gentle maid, Through many an English town : Untill at last in famous France She gentler fortunes found ; SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 265 Though poor and bare, yet she was deem'd The fairest on the ground : Where when the king her virtues heard, And this fair lady seen, With full consent of all his court He made his wife and queen. Her father, old King Leir, this while With his two daughters staid ; Forgetful of their promis'd loves, Full soon the same decay'd ; And living in Queen Ragan's court, The eldest of the twain, She took from him his chiefest means, And most of all his train. For whereas twenty men were wont To wait with bended knee, She gave allowance but to ten, And after scarce to three, Nay, one she thought too much for him ; So took she all away, In hope that in her court, good king, He would no longer stay. * Am I rewarded thus," quoth he, " In giving all I have Unto my children, and to beg For what I lately gave ? I'll go unto my Gonorell : My second child, I know, Will be more kind and pitiful, And will relieve my woe." Full fast he Hies then to her court; Where when she heard his moan, 266 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Return'd him answer, that she griev'd That all his means were gone, But no way could relieve his wants ; Yet if that he would stay Within her kitchen, he should have What scullions gave away. When he had heard, with bitter tears, He made his answer then ; M In what I did, let me be made Example to all men. I will return again," quoth he, " Unto my Ragan's court ; She will not use me thus, I hope, But in a kinder sort." Where when he came, she gave command To drive him thence away : When he was well within her court, (She said) he would not stay. Then back again to Gonorell The woeful king did hie, That in her kitchen he might have What scullion boys set by. But there of that he was deny'd Which she had promis'd late: For once refusing, he should not, Come after to her gate. Thus twixt his daughters for relief He wandred up and down, Being glad to feed on beggars food That lately wore a crown. And calling to remembrance then His youngest daughters words, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 267 That said, the duty of a child Was all that love affords — But doubting to repair to her, Whom he had banish'd so, Grew frantic mad ; for in his mind He bore the wounds of woe. Which made him rend his milk-white locks And tresses from his head, And all with blood bestain his cheeks, With age and honour spread. To hills and woods and watry founts, He made his hourly moan, Till hills and woods and senseless things Did seem to sigh and groan. Even thus possest with discontents, He. passed o're to France, In hopes from fair Cordelia there To find some gentler chance. Most virtuous dame ! which, when she heard Of this her father's grief, As duty bound, she quickly sent Him comfort and relief. And by a train of noble peers, In brave and gallant sort, She gave in charge he should be brought To Aganippus' court; Whose royal king, with noble mind, So freely gave consent To muster up his knights at arms, To fame and courage bent. And so to England came with speed, To repossesse King Leir, Z6S SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. And drive his daughters from their thrones By his Cordelia dear. Where she, true-hearted, noble queen, Was in the battel slain ; Yet he, good king, in his old days, Possest his crown again. But when he heard Cordelia's death, Who died indeed for love Of her dear father, in whose cause She did this battle move, He swooning fell upon her breast, From whence he never parted ; But on her bosom left his life That was so truly hearted. The lords and nobles, when they saw The end of these events, The other sisters unto death They doomed by consents ; And being dead, their crowns they left Unto the next of kin : Thus have you seen the fall of pride, And disobedient sin. We cite one more example of an old English ballad related to the Shakespearian drama. As in the case of the one quoted above, it is difficult to determine whether the play or the ballad came first, yet, we may suppose, had the tragedy preceded the ballad, the song writer would have availed himself of some of the leading incidents which are conspicuous by their absence in his effort. The same point may be SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 269 argued in favour of the precedence of the other two ballads given, to the plays with which they seem re- lated. But it would be hazardous to fix a definite date for such fugitive compositions as these ; the reader must seek his own verdict by comparison, in this case. The author does not consider them valu- able Shakespearian data, but presents them (from Bishop Percy's " Reliques " and Rimbault's " Musical Illustrations) " as good examples of the old English ballad style in its fullest prolixity and musical monotony. THE LAMENTABLE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS. To the tune of " Fortune." TITUS ANDRONICUS'S COMPLAINT. EE rr ww- T 7 B u3-~ r " and fa - mous mar - tiall F# M- You no - ble minds, jUJlLA. A FM T Tt ■:, J... I #£ -t— n- That in de-fence of native country i-2] i j. ^ii-^iij : ^E? 270 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Eft* =1 ! 11- — <5>- # #— ...I — $i — J-l w~& tf» -t» t) * fights, fcVk T 1 — T Give eare to f me, that (gjLJ -_J L_ " m P t P— LJ! |_ 1 E=2=t_ ■ 1 I •*— •# IS cp: — r Yet reapt dis- S ten yeares fought for Rome, _j* LJ_4. -# — p. — p r—1 — F • — n ffi r r-M-? ^ grace at my re-turn-ing home. F^-i — I — -I- SEEEi h-d- i £fcfc ^ You noble minds, and famous martiall wights, That in defence of native country fights, Give eare to me, that ten yeares fought for Rome, Yet reapt disgrace at my returning home. In Rome I lived in fame fulle three-score yeares, My name beloved was of all my peeres ; Full five-and-twenty valiant sonnes I had, Whose forwarde vertues made their father glad. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2*J\ For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent, Against them stille my sonnes and I were sent; Against the Goths full ten yeares weary warre We spent, receiving many a bloudy scarre. Just two-and-twenty of my sonnes were slaine Before we did returne to Rome againe : Of five-and-twenty sonnes, I brought but three Alive, the stately towers of Rome to see. When wars were done, I conquest home did bring, And did present my prisoners to the king, The Queene of Goths, her sons, and eke a Moore, Which did such murders, like was nere before. The emperour did make this queene his wife, Which bred in Rome debate and deadlie strife ; The Moore, with her two sonnes, did growe soe proud. That none like them in Rome might bee allowd. The Moore soe pleas'd this new-made empress' eie, That she consented to him secretlye For to abuse her husbands marriage-bed, And soe in time a blackamore she bred. Then she, whose thoughts to murder were inclinde, Consented with the Moore of bloody minde Against myselfe, my kin, and all my friendes, In cruell sort to bring them to their endes. Soe when in age I thought to live in peace, Both care and griefe began then to increase : Amongst my sonnet I had one daughter bright, Which joy'd and pleased best my aged sight. 272 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. My deare Lavinia was betrothed than To Cesars sonne, a young and noble man: Who, in a hunting by the emperours wife And her two sonnes, bereaved was of life. He, being slaine, was cast in cruel wise Into a darksome den from light of skies: The cruell Moore did come that way as then With my three sonnes, who fell into the den. The Moore then fetcht the emperour with speed, For to accuse them of that murderous deed ; And when my sonnes within the den were found, In wrongfull prison they were cast and bound. But nowe behold what wounded most my mind: The empresses two sonnes, of savage kind, My daughter ravished without remorse, And took away her honour, quite perforce. When they had tasted of soe sweete a flowre, Fearing this sweete should shortly turn to sowre, They cutt her tongue, whereby she could not tell How that dishonoure unto her befell. Then both her hands they basely cutt off quite, Whereby their wickednesse she could not write, Nor with her needle on her sampler sowe The bloudye workers of her direfull woe. My brother Marcus found her in the wood, Staining the grassie ground with purple bloud, That trickled from her stumpes and bloudlesse armes Noe tongue at all she had to tell her harmes. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2JI But when I sawe her in that woefull case, With teares of bloud I wet mine aged face : For my Lavinia I lamented more Then for my two-and-twenty sonnes before. When as I sawe she could not write nor speake With grief mine aged heart began to breake; We spred an heape of sand upon the ground, Whereby those bloudy tyrants out we found. For with a staffe, without the helpe of hand, She writt these wordes upon the plat of sand : " The lustfull sonnes of the proud emperesse Are doers of this hateful wickednesse." I tore the milk-white hairs from off mine head, I curst the houre wherein I first was bred ; I wisht this hand, that fought for countrie's fame, In cradle rockt, had first been stroken lame. The Moore, delighting still in villainy, Did say, to sett my sonnes from prison free, I should unto the king my right hand give, And then my three imprisoned sonnes should live. The Moore I caus'd to strike it off with speede, Whereat I grieved not to see it bleed, But for my sonnes would willingly impart, And for their ransome send my bleeding heart. But as my life did linger thus in paine, They sent to me my bootlesse hand againe, And therewithal the heades of my three sonnes, Which filld my dying heart with fresher moanes. 274 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Then, past reliefe, I upp and downe did goe, And with my teares writ in the dust my woe : I shot my arrowes towards heaven hie, And for revenge to hell often did crye. The empresse then, thinking that I was mad, Like Furies she and both her sonnes were clad, (She nam'd Revenge, and Rape and Murder they) To undermine and heare what I would say. I fed their foolish veines a certaine space, Untill my friendes did find a secret place, Where both her sonnes unto a post were bound, And just revenge in cruell sort was found. I cut their throates, my daughter held the pan Betwixt her stumpes, wherein the bloud it ran : And then I ground their bones to powder small, And made a paste for pyes streight therewithall. Then with their fleshe I made two mighty pyes, And at a banquet served in stately wise, Before the empresse set this loathsome meat ; So of her sonnes own flesh she well did eat. Myselfe bereav'd my daughter then of life, The empresse then I slewe with bloudy knife, And stabb'd the emperour immediatelie, And then myself : even soe did Titus die. Then this revenge against the Moore was found; Alive they sett him halfe into the ground, Whereas he stood until such time he starv'd : And soe God send all murderers may be serv'd. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 2?$ More interesting than these dreary verses of a bygone time are the ballads which, as we have seen, Shakespeare introduced upon his own stage. Often a mere passing allusion was made to this or that popular tune, without introducing the ballad itself. We have seen Sir Toby naming catch after catch, yet only singing one complete specimen. Peter, in "Romeo and Juliet," mentions three songs, yet sings only the fragment of a single one. In like manner we find allusion made, in " Love's Labour's Lost " (Act i. Sc. 2), to one of the old bal- lads of a pre-Shakespearian time : tl Armado. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar ? Moth. 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. Armado. I will have the subject newly writ o'er, that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl, that I took in the park with that rational hind Costard ; she deserves well. Moth. To be whipped, and yet a better love than my master. [Aside. Armado. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love. Moth. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench. Armado. I say, sing. Moth. Forbear, till this company be past." Nor is this the only Shakespearian allusion to the ballad of "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," 2J6 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. for in " Romeo and Juliet " (Act ii. Sc. 2), Mercutio says: " Her purblind son and heir, Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so true, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid." It is very probable that the second line of this sen- tence was taken from the first line of the second stanza of the following poem. Also in the Second Part of "Henry IV." (Act v. Sc. 3) Falstaff says to Pistol : " Oh base Assyrian knight, what is thy news ? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof." Other of the old dramatists occasionally drew their metaphors from the same source, — the following ballad, which Percy quotes from Richard Johnson's "Crown Garland of Goulden Roses," 1612. A SONG OF A BEGGAR AND A KING. I read that once in Affrica A princely wight did raine, Who had to name Cophetua, As poets they did faine. From natures lawes he did decline, For sure he was not of my minde, He cared not for women-kind, But did them all disdaine. But marke what hapned on a day; As he out of his window lay, He saw a beggar all in gray, The which did cause his paine. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC* . 277 The blinded boy that shootes so trim From heaven downe did hie, He drew a dart and shot at him, In place where he did lye : Which soone did pierse him to the quicke, And when he felt the arrow pricke, Which in his tender heart did sticke, He looketh as he would dye. "What sudden chance is this," quoth he, " That I to love must subject be, Which never thereto would agree, But still did it defie ? " Then from the window he did come, And laid him on his bed ; A thousand heapes of care did runne Within his troubled head. For now he meanes to crave her love, And now he seekes which way to proove How he his fancie might remoove, And not this beggar wed. But Cupid had him so in snare, That this poor beggar must prepare A salve to cure him of his care, Or els he would be dead. And as he musing thus did lye, He thought for to devise How he might have her companye, That so did 'maze his eyes. " In thee," quoth he, " doth rest my life; For surely thou shalt be my wife ; Or else this hand with bloody knife, The Gods shall sure suffice." Then from ms bed he soon arose, And to his pallace gate he goes ; 278 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Full little then this begger knowes When she the king espies. u The gods preserve your majesty," The beggers all gan cry ; " Vouchsafe to give your charity, Our childrens food to buy." The -king to them his purse did cast, And they to part it made great haste; This silly woman was the last That after them did hye. The king he cal'd her back againe, And unto her he gave his chaine ; And said, " With us you shal remaine Till such time as we dye. « For thou," quoth he, " shalt be my wife, And honoured for my queene ; With thee I meane to lead my life, As shortly shall be seene : Our wedding shall appointed be, And every thing in its degree ; Come on," quoth he, " and follow me, Thou shalt go shift thee cleane. What is thy name, faire maide ? " quoth he. " Penelophon, O King," quoth she ; With that she made a lowe courtsey ; A trim one as I weene. Thus hand in hand along they walke Unto the king's pallace : The king with courteous, comly talke This begger doth embrace. The begger blush eth scarlet red, And straight againe as pale as lead, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 279 But not a word at all she said, She was in such amaze. At last she spake with trembling voyce, And said, " O King, I doe rejoyce That you wil take me for your choyce, And my degree so base." And when the wedding day was come, The king commanded strait The noblemen, both all and some, Upon the queene to wait. And she behaved herself that day As if she had never walkt the way ; She had forgot her gowne of gray, Which she did weare of late. The proverbe old is come to passe, The priest, when he begins his masse, Forgets that ever clerke he was; He knowth not his estate. Here you may read Cophetua, Through long time fancie-fed, Compelled by the blinded boy The begger for to wed : He that did lovers lookes disdaine, To do the same was glad and faine, Or else he would himselfe have slaine, In storie, as we read. Disdaine no whit, O lady deere, But pitty now thy servant heere, Least that it hap to thee this yeare, As to that king it did. And thus they led a quiet life During their princely raine, 280 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. And in a tombe were buried both, As writers sheweth plaine. The lords they tooke it grievously, The ladies tooke it heavily, The commons cryed pitiously, Their death to them was paine, Their fame did sound so passingly, That it did pierce the starry sky, And throughout all the world did flye To every princes realme. We need no apology for the quotation of this bal- lad in full, for Shakespeare makes abundant use of it in the latter part of " Love's Labour's Lost." Armado certainly keeps his promise of having the subject "newly writ o'er," for his entire declaration of love (Act iv. Sc. i) is derived from the fore- going ballad. " Boyet. This letter is mistook, it importeth none here ; It is writ to Jaquenetta. Princess. We will read it, I swear : Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. {Reads) " By Heaven, that thou art fair, is most infal- lible ; true, that thou art beauteous ; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal ! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon ; ■ and he it was that might rightly say, dim pp ^* ±~3t A-- * — 4 : S»— # Fi # 5 : s*- 1 willow, willow, willow, willow, My gar- land shall be, Sing, SS^eS^e|ee§ */ p= dim. ~& „.s& P cresc. *=t all a green wil-low, wil - low, wil-low, wil-low, Ah ! to 1 J ilj i # -^- -*- i£- 3=2 t=l jfcZ P m—fi JTl PP *z±zM=zi & me, the green wil - low my gar - land must be. , , . colla parte, a tempo. i $=^ 1 WE^ EEt ^: ** Z pp- -rt- ^ -# 3! SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 293 " My love she is turned ; untrue she doth prove ; O willow, etc. She renders me nothing but hate for my love. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " O pitty me " (cried he), " ye lovers, each one ; O willow, etc. Her heart's hard as marble ; she rues not my mone. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc." The cold streams ran by him, his eyes wept apace ; O willow, etc. The salt tears fell from him, which drowned his face. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. The mute birds sate by him, made tame by his mones : O willow, etc. The salt tears fell from him, which softened the stones. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland ! " Let nobody blame me, her scornes I do prove ; O willow, etc. She was borne to be faire ; I, to die for her love. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " O that beauty should harbour a heart that's so hard ! Sing willow, etc. My true love rejecting without all regard. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. 294 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Let love no more boast him in palace, or bower; O willow, etc. For women are trothles, and flote in an houre. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " But what helps complaining ? In vaine I complaine : O willow, etc. I must patiently suffer her scorne and disdaine. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " Come, all you forsaken, and sit down by me, O willow, etc. He that 'plaines of his false love, mine's falser than she. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. "The willow wreath weare I, since my love did fleet; O willow, etc. A garland for lovers forsaken most meete. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland ! " PART THE SECOND. " Lowe lay'd by my sorrow, begot by disdaine, O willow, willow, willow ! Against her too cruell, still, still I complaine. O willow, willow, willow ! O willow, willow, willow ! Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland ! " O love too injurious, to wound my poore heart, O willow, etc. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 295 To suffer the triumph, and joy in my smart ! O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " O willow, willow, willow ! the willow garland, O willow, etc. A sign of her falsenesse before me doth stand. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. " As here it doth bid to despair and to dye, O willow, etc. So hang it, friends, ore me in grave where I lye. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " In grave where I rest mee, hang this to the view, O willow, etc. Of all that doe knowe her, to blaze her untrue. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. u With these words engraven, as epitaph meet, O willow, etc. 1 Here lyes one, drank poyson for potion most sweet.' O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. « Though she thus unkindly hath scorned my love, O willow, etc. And carelesly smiles at the sorrowes I prove 5 O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. % " I cannot against her unkindly exclaim, O willow, etc. 296 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Cause once well I loved her, and honoured her name. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. " The name of her sounded so sweete in mine eare, O willow, etc. It rays'd my heart lightly, the name of my deare ; O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " As then 'twas my comfort, it now is my griefe ; O willow, etc. It now brings me anguish ; then brought me reliefe. O willow, etc. Sing, O the greene willow, etc. " Farewell, faire false-hearted, plaints end with my breath ! O willow, willow, willow ! Thou dost loath me, I love thee, though cause of my death. O willow, willow, willow ! O willow, willow, willow ! Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland." Here then we have a pathetic scene heightened by a tender and melancholy ballad. There is a passing allusion to a very pathetic ballad in " Henry IV. " (Part II. Act ii. Sc. 4), where Pistol says : " Pistol. What ! shall we have incision ? shall we imbrue ? — ■ [Snatching up his sword. Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days / Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the sisters three ! Come, Atropos, I say I " SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 297 The line in italics is taken from a sorrowful song which is said to have been written by Anne Boleyn, after her downfall, beginning, — " Oh, Death, rocke me asleep." The reader will find it in the second volume of Chap- pell's " Old English Ditties." It is difficult to decide in which direction Shake- speare has been strongest ; the light songs of Ophelia, the foreboding melancholy of Desdemona, the por- trayal of the befuddled Sir Toby by his snatches of refrains of bacchanalian songs, are all different phases of one art. There is still another phase of this art to study, however, and in the next chapter we shall see our poet in the domain of absolute parody. CHAPTER XII. Shakespeare's Lyrics — The Lyric Poets of the Elizabethan Epoch — Ben Jonson — Marlowe — Parodies of other Poets — Doubt- ful Poems — The Numerous Settings of Shakespeare's Poems — " Take, Oh, Take Those Lips Away " — " Come, Live with Me and Be My Love A — German Translations and German Musical Settings of Shakespeare — Schubert's " Hark, Hark, the Lark " — Purcell. That Shakespeare should write many lyrics in his plays was a foregone conclusion. He lived in an age when there was the strongest tendency toward the lyric forms. Ritson, in his " Select Collection of English Songs," gives an important historical essay upon this subject, in which he states that not a single composition of the modern lyrical style, containing a spark of literary merit, can be discovered before the Elizabethan era. We are disposed to place " rare Ben Jonson" at the head of the lyrical writers of the era, if it were only on account of that finest of love-songs (as good as any of its length in any lan- guage), " Drink to me only with thine eyes." We may state, en passant, that this poem evoked the finest of contemporary music, a melody and harmony 298 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 299 so rich and beautiful that many have credited it to Mozart, but as Doctor Burney, contemporary with Mozart, sought in vain to discover its composer, we may dismiss this theory and content ourselves with the fact that one of the best lyrics of the Elizabethan time, both words and music, has come down to us intact. Shakespeare occasionally made use of the poems of his contemporaries, in his plays, often alluding to them (as we have seen) by some borrowed phrase, frequently giving a title of some poem or song, some- times interweaving them in the action of his drama, and sometimes even parodying the lyric. A parody of this kind, and a very subtle one, we find in the grave-digging scene in " Hamlet." Fortunately, in this case, both the original poem and the music are left to us, so that we can trace every detail of the poet's humour. The musical part of the scene runs as follows : " [First Clown digs and sings. « In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet, To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove, O, methought, there was nothing meet.' Hamlet. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making. Horatio. Custom hath made it in him a property of easi- ness. ^ Hamlet. 'Tis e'en so : the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. 300 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. First Clown. [Sings. ■ But age with his stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch, And hath shipped me into the land, As if I had never been such.' [ Throws up a skull. Hamlet. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder ! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches ; one that would circumvent God, might it not ? Horatio. It might, my lord. Hamlet. Or of a courtier ; which could say, ' Good-mor- row, sweet lord ! How dost thou, good lord ? ' This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it : might it not ? Horatio. Ay, my lord. Hamlet. Why, e'en so : and now my lady Worm's ; chap- less and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see 't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them ? mine ache to think on 't. First Clown. 1 A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade, [Sings. For — and a shrouding sheet : O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.' [Throws up a skull." The words of the song, as they appear above, have little meaning at any time, and occasionally descend to sheer gibberish ; yet they had their foundation in a poem which possessed definite meaning. This poem was entitled "The Aged Lover Renounceth Clown. — (Si?igs.) " AMck-axe and a spade, a spade." (Hamlet, Act v. Sc. i.) From the painting by F. Stielen SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 301 Love," and was written before 1575. It was attrib- uted by Ritson to Nicholas, Lord Vaux ; by Percy to Thomas, his son ; and by Sir Egerton Brydges to William, the grandson of the first-named. The poem, as collated by Percy, runs thus : I lothe that I did love, In youth that I thought swete, As time requires : for my behove Me thinkes they are not mete. My lustes they do me leave, My fansies all are fled ; And tract of time begins to weave Gray heares upon my hed. For Age with steling steps Hath clawde me with his crowch,* And lusty Youth e away he leapes, As there had bene none such. My muse doth not delight Me, as she did before ; My hand and pen are not in plight, As they have bene of yore. For Reason me denies All youthly idle rime ; And day by day to me she cries, " Leave off these toyes in tyme." The wrinkles in my brow, The furrowes in my face 1 Probably meaning " clutch." 302 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Say, " Limping Age will lodge him now Where Youth must geve him place." The harbenger of death, To me I se him ride : The cough, the cold, the gasping breath Doth bid me to provide A pikeax and a spade, And eke a shrouding shete, A house of clay for to be made For such a guest most mete. Me thinkes I hear the clarke That knoles the careful knell, And bids me leave my wearye warke, Ere Nature me compell. My kepers knit the knot, That Youth doth laugh to scorne, Of me that shall bee clean forgot, As I had ne'er been borne. Thus must I Youth geve up, Whose badge I long did weare; To them I yelde the wanton cup, That better may it beare. Lo here the bared skull, By whose bald signe I know, That stouping Age away shall pull What youthful yeres did sow. For Beautie with her band These croked cares had wrought, And shipped me into the lande, From whence I first was brought. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 303 And ye that bide behinde, Have ye none other trust; As ye of claye were cast by kinde, So shall ye turne to dust. This song was erroneously supposed to have been written by the author upon his death-bed. The Shake- spearian scene founded upon it affords a fine example of an illiterate character catching the sound, but not the sense, of a poem. We present the old air as given by Doctor Rimbault in his collection of melo- dies to Percy's " Reliques." f THE AGED LOVER RENOUNCETH LOVE. 4 — I— i -~— i M=*==i=S -a 5 ^n I lothe that I did love, Forage with ste- ling steps In youth that Had clawed me ife ^ *-+ 2^ *= ^W = r c t=Wrf I thought swete, with his crouch, As time re - quires : for And lust-y youth a ^ X — ^r 304 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. $ * l m 3* 1 i my be - hove Me way he leapes As r r thinks they are not there had been none -(£*- mete. such. i ■p- Many of Shakespeare's own lyrics have been set to music over and over again ; Roffe, in his " Handbook of Shakespeare Music," and Green hill, Harrison, and Furnivall, in their list of Shakespeare songs, give a computation of the number of musical settings that becomes almost marvellous. "Take, oh, take those lips away," has been set more than thirty times ; " Orpheus with His Lute " (which, by the way, was written by John Fletcher and not by Shakespeare) has been set twenty-one times ; " Who is Sylvia ? " and "It was a lover and his lass," each eighteen times; Marlowe's "Come live with me and be my Love," sixteen times. 1 In connection with the last-named selection it may be stated that Jaggard printed it in 1 599 as Shake- speare's (in " The Passionate Pilgrim "), but it is now pretty well settled that the verses are Marlowe's, and 1 Roffe's list is a remarkably full one, and the reader who desires statistical information in this matter will find it in his well-compiled index, but recent composers (among them many Americans) have greatly increased the number of musical settings. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 305 they are credited to that poet in "England's Heli- con" (1600) ; Shakespeare, however, introduces part of the poem in " The Merry Wives of Windsor," in the scene where Sir Hugh Evans is waiting for Doctor Caius (Act iii. Sc. 1). « Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple. Evans. I pray you now, good master Slender's serving- man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for master Caius, that calls himself Doctor of Physic ? Simple. Marry, sir, the city-ward, the park-ward, every way ; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way. Evans. I most fehemently desire you, you will also look that way. Simple. I will, sir. Evans. Pless my soul ! how full of cholers I am and trem- pling of mind ! — I shall be glad, if he have deceived me ; — how melancholies I am ! — . . . 'pless my soul ! [Sings. To shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals ; There will we make our peds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies. To shallow Mercy on me : I have a great dispositions to cry. Melodious birds sing madrigals : When as I sat in Pabylon, And a thousand vagram posies. To shallow Simple. Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh. Evans. He's welcome 306 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. To shallow rivers to whose falls Heaven prosper the right ! " The original passage upon which the above singing is founded runs : " There will we sit upon the Rocks, And see the Shepheards feed their flocks, By shallow Rivers by whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals. " There will I make thee a bed of Roses With a thousand fragrant Posies," etc. Furnivall analyses the scene thus : " In his nervous condition, Evans misquotes the words of the song, and at last breaks down altogether. The mention of Rivers, however, recalls professional associations ; so that in his 'trempling of minde,' and with his 'dispositions to cry,' he unconsciously mingles the sacred and the secular, by tacking on to Marlowe's verses the first line of the old metrical version of the 137th psalm (super flumine)'. "When we did sit in Babylon, The Rivers round about, Then in remembrance of Sion, The tears for grief burst out.' " As there is still some contention regarding the authorship of " Come live with me," although the best authorities agree in awarding the authorship to Kit Marlowe, we reproduce the poem that has caused so much music, together with what is probably its earliest setting. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 307 'COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVE." Tune discovered by Sir John Hawkins, in a MS. of Queen Elizabeth's time. Rather Slow. v 5ft ■U4 *2- 5s=: r j* ¥ f • r • 1 Come live with me and be my love, And we will Si m ¥=£ t=t &^h^=i¥=^ ^j\ 2Z 22 IZIChS IE — *- " 'I 111 the pi eas-ures prove That val - lies, groves or all m m ^-J=^A «E 1—1 — [— 1 r— 1 — r | [• # hills and fields, And all the stee-py mountain yields. ^ 1 3fc=3 *t Come live with me, and be my love, And we wil all the pleasures prove That hils and vallies, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. 308 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. There will I make thee beds of roses, With a thousand fragrant posies ; A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Imbrodered all with leaves of mirtle ; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; Fair-lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold ; A belt of straw and ivie buds, With coral clasps and amber studs : And if these pleasures may thee move, Then live with me, and be my love. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. THE NYMPH'S REPLY. If that the World and Love were young, And truth in every shepherd's toung, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee, and be thy love. But time drives flocks from field to fold, When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb, And all complain of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yield ; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancie's spring, but sorrow's fall. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 309 Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw, and ivie buds, Thy coral clasps, and amber studs ; All these in me no means can move To come to thee, and be thy love. But could youth last, and love still breed ; Had joyes no date, nor age no need ; Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love. The " Reply " is probably not by Marlowe, since it appears in " England's Helicon " (1600) signed " Ignoto," which has been accepted by many critics as the pseudonym of Sir Walter Raleigh. It is worthy of note that the early composers were more attached to that very doubtful work, "The Passionate Pilgrim," than to the plays of Shakespeare. The above poem is No. xix. of the set ; No. xvii. of the same heterogeneous work — " My flocks feed not" — was set as a madrigal as early as 1597, by Thomas Weelkes, and remains a worthy example of the contrapuntal style of the epoch. But this latter poem was printed in "England's Helicon," in 1600, and also bore the signature, " Ignoto ; " there is, therefore, considera&e doubt as to whether Shake- speare wrote it. We have seen that to " Take, oh, 3IO SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. take those lips away" belongs the honour of the most copious setting of any of the lyrics found in the Shakespearian plays, 1 but even here a ques- tion arises and some doubt surrounds the poem. It reappears in Beaumont and Fletcher's " Bloody Brother" in 1639 an ^ 1640, and has here two stanzas, the second running : " Hide, oh hide those hills of snow Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are of those that April wears ; But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee." The two stanzas are credited to Shakespeare in the doubtful edition of his poems dated "London, 1640," and many commentators since that time have attributed both to him. R. G. White believes the first stanza to be Shakespeare's, and credits the second to Fletcher, pointing out, also (Vol. III. p. 126), that the two stanzas do not assimilate well and could not be sung to the same music if the first verse be given as presented in " Measure for Meas- ure." Sewel and Gildon added many spurious poems to the lyrics of Shakespeare, which have since been 1 Yet Shakespeare's lyrics have by no means been set to music as often as those of certain other poets. Heine's " Du bist wie eine Blume " has been oftener set to music than any other poem ; more than two hundred settings exist. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 3 1 1 rejected from careful editions of his works ; the first stanza of this poem, however, is so charming that one is loath to take the credit of it away from the greatest poet. Naturally the composers have found their chief material in the Shakespearian comedies, while the histories have yielded the least musical material for musical setting. The Germans have been eminent in their Shake- spearian lyrics, even from the classical period, and have been aided in this by very good and sing- able translations. For a full presentation of these we refer the reader to the exhaustive "Variorum Edition," by Furness, contenting ourselves here with saying that the great poet Lessing first revealed the glories of Shakespeare to German readers, and since his time Schlegel, Goethe, Wieland, Gervinus, Tieck, Bodenstedt, Mommsen, and a host of others, have given to Germany a Shakespearian literature that is almost as voluminous as the English. 1 The Ger- mans, too, have caught up the spirit of our poet better than any other nation, so much so that there are a few Teutonic writers who boast that the Ger- man mind best appreciates Shakespeare, and would almost have us believe that Germany led the way 1 See, also, article on " Shakespeare in Germany " in supplemental volume of Knight's Shakespeare. 3 1 2 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. toward the full comprehension of the glories of the Englishman ! One German setting of a Shakespearian lyric may be here mentioned with some degree of detail, and for several reasons ; it is a perfect example (both in its words, already quoted, and in its music) of the morning song, the opposite of the serenade ; it is one of the poet's most cheery lyrics ; and it may illustrate how the poet inspires the musician, — how the spirit of poetry transmutes itself into music. It was on a pleasant Sunday morning, in the sum- mer of 1826, that Schubert, in accordance with his custom, was taking a stroll (a Spaziergang) through the suburbs of Vienna with a party of his boon com- panions. They had been at Potzleindorf and were returning to the city through Wahring. As they were passing through the latter suburb, Schubert spied his friend Tieze sitting at a table in one of the garden-restaurants which are so numerous in Austria's capital. It was a little establishment bearing the name " Zum Biersack." In his usual light-hearted way Schubert suggested that they all turn in and take breakfast together with Tieze. All assenting, the gay party was soon gathered around the table. Tieze had with him a volume of poetry, and Schubert, ever on the hunt for lyrical subjects, seized the book and began to turn its leaves. Suddenly he became interested in one of the poems, and read and re-read SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 313 it. The volume was Shakespeare's lyrics translated into German, the poem was " Hark, Hark, the Lark." After a little while (for Schubert's composition was ever spontaneous) he spoke, saying, "What a pity that I have no music-paper! I have just the melody for this poem ! " Doppler, one of the party, was equal to the emergency ; drawing the lines of the musical staff on the back of the bill of fare, he handed the improvised music-paper to the composer. On the back of that bill of fare, while waiting for his break- fast, amid the hurly-burly of an open-air restaurant, Schubert composed " Hark, Hark, the Lark," a song which has remained a classic ever since. Nor was it changed in any degree from this first improvised sketch, for Schubert was notorious for his careless- ness in the matter of revision ; he almost invariably gave his first draught of any composition to his pub- lisher, and it is not stretching the imagination to suppose that he did no more than copy the music in this case. As the words have already been quoted, it is unnecessary to reproduce them here. It would be unjust to end this chapter without speaking of the great achievements of English com- posers in the Shakespearian field. Even at a time when England did not fully appreciate its greatest poet (the time of Charles II., for example), the com- posers seem to have understood what a mine of poetry was here waiting to be wedded with tones. Dr. John 314 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Wilson ■ was the first to enter the field with worthy music, but an infinitely greater composer soon fol- lowed, England's greatest musical genius, — Henry Purcell. This great master's setting of the lyrics and other short poems of Shadwell's version of " The Tempest " was the greatest tribute to Shakespeare up to the time (1690), and the settings of "Come unto these yellow sands " and " Full fathom five " have never been excelled. It is a pity that Shadwell's version departed in a wretched manner from the true Shakespearian lines, and several of Purcell 's songs have therefore a spurious text. Of the " Macbeth " music, attributed to Purcell, we shall speak in the final chapter of this work. We venture to turn aside from our Shakespearian investigation for an instant, to defend the memory of the first musician who adequately transmuted Shake- speare's words into tones. Purcell is accused of dying of a disease brought on by a drunken orgie ; this would mean a very acute and feverish malady. A simple statement will set this accusation at rest : Purcell composed music during his last illness ! The present writer is in possession of a composition (evi- dently contemporaneous) which is entitled " Rosy Bowers," and claims to be " the last song that was 1 Richard Johnson, contemporaneous with Shakespeare, who set parts of " The Tempest," also deserves mention here, for chrono- logical reasons, chiefly. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 315 set by the late celebrated Mr. Henry Purcell, it being in his sickness." Next to Purcell one must place the famous Doctor Arne, in giving a list of eminent Shakespearian com- posers. His setting of the musical parts of "As You Like It," in 1740, will probably never be excelled. Stevens, Linley, Bishop, Haydn, Horn, and numer- ous others might be mentioned in connection with the lyrical field of Shakespeare, but besides these there was a still wider sphere of composition insti- gated by the poet, as will be seen in the final chapter of this volume. CHAPTER XIII. Children as Singers — Shakespeare's Musical Stage-directions — The "Chorus" — Musical Interludes — Music after Plays —Fi- nal Jigs — Trumpet Signals — Drums — Bells — Sennet — Pageants upon Stage — Historical Music. In the Shakespearian theatre the performances generally began at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the prices of admission varied from twopence to about sixpence to the pit, and from about a shilling to half a crown to the boxes. The musicians sat in a balcony and not in front of the stage as is the pres- ent custom. Many of the ultra-fashionables sat or reclined upon the stage itself, for which privilege they paid extra. In judging of the vocal music which Shakespeare introduced in his plays, it may be im- portant to remember that every part was sung by men or boys, no female appearing upon the English stage before the civil war. The treble parts were sustained by boys who were well trained for acting as well as singing. Regarding these children and their singing, we can quote Shakespeare himself, for he gives a criticism of their work in the second scene of the second act of " Hamlet : " 316 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 3 I J " Rosencrantz. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you : we coted them on the way ; and hither are they coming, to offer you service. Hamlet. He that plays the king, shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me : the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target: the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace ; the clown shall make those laugh, whose lungs are tickled o' the sere ; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for 't. — What players are they? Rosencj-antz. Even those you were wont to take such de- light in, the tragedians of the city. Ha,77ilet. How chances it, they travel ? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Rosencrantz. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. Hamlet. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city ? Are they so followed ? Rosencrantz. No, indeed they are not. Hamlet. How comes it ? Do they grow rusty ? Rosencrantz. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace : but there is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for 't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages, (so they call them,) that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither. Hamlet. What, are they children ? who maintains them ? how are they escoted ? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, (as it is most like, if their means are no better) their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession. Rosencrantz. Faith, 1here has been much to do on both sides ; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to con- 31 8 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. troversy ; there was for awhile, no money bid for argument^ unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. Hamlet. Is it possible ? Guildenstern. O, there has been much throwing about of brains ? Hamlet. Do the boys carry it away ? Rosencrantz. Ay, that they do, my lord ; Hercules and his load too." It would seem evident from this that Shakespeare scarcely approved of children as actors, and he inti- mates that the boys are only tolerated because they can sing ; the line, " Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing ? " would seem to indi- cate that when their voice changed they might be regarded as useless. That the children sometimes gave plays by themselves is also indicated in the above scene, but is not to our purpose ; we may suppose, since these juvenile performances were given by the choir-boys of St. Paul's, Westminster, the Chapel Royal, etc., that the singing was the important part. All performances of this epoch were preceded by three flourishes of trumpets, exactly as the Wagnerian performances at Bayreuth have been ushered in during more recent times. After the third flourish the cur- tain was drawn to the two sides, from the center, and the prologue was spoken. The so-called " Chorus," was, of course, not a musical gathering, but a single character who explained the play, after the manner of the ancient Greek choruses, although the Hellenic SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 319 chorus chanted, while the Elizabethan one merely spoke his lines. Between the acts dancing and singing, or both combined, were introduced. After the play the clown came to the front and gave a jig, generally to his own accompaniment upon pipe or tabor. Sometimes he had an accompaniment played for him, in which case he generally sang as he danced. A clear instance of this sort can be found in " Twelfth Night," after the play is ended, when the clown enters and sings the following : " SONG. Clown. When that I was and a tiny little boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came to man's estate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 'Gainst knave and thief men shut their gate, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came, alas ! to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came unto my bed, With hey, hr>, the wind and the rain, With toss-pots still had drunken head, For the rain it raineth every day. 320 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But that's all one, our play is done, And we'll strive to please you every day. [Exit* Here we have a song entirely apart from the action. Shakespeare had made this clown especially musical and had probably chosen some capable singer for the part, for he not only gives the character a prominent share in the catch-singing, but adds earnest songs to its repertoire during the play. He possibly, there- fore, desired something a little better than the usual jig at the end, in this case, and gave the clown an additional chance to capture public favour with his final song. It is, however, as extraneous to the action as the jig itself would have been. Some commentators believe the song to be by some other hand than Shakespeare's, and there is inherent probability in the belief ; for it may have been allowed to the favoured actor to choose some favourite song of his own repertoire wherewith to capture his audi- ence. Besides this assumption, we find an additional bit of inferential proof in the fact that Shakespeare parodied the song in "King Lear" (written a half- dozen years later) with — " He that has a little tiny wit, — With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain, — . Must make content with his fortune's fit ; For the rain it raineth every day." SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 321 And Shakespeare was not in the habit of parodying himself, however much he delighted in twisting the thoughts of others. As the traditional tune of this song exists, we present it, together with Chappell's note that it is said to have been the composition of a person named Fielding. "WHEN THAT I WAS A LITTLE TINY BOY." In moderate time. %=i '0 #- SB =t-4 r- m When that I was a lit- tie ti - ny Boy With a heigh ho ! the *=* ?*r^ ! 1 ! I 1 t L_ Wind and the Rain, A foolish thing was but a Toy For the * r n n rain it raineth ev' - ry Day With a heigh ho ! The 322 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Wind and the Rain and the rain it raineth ev 1 - ry Day, In connection with the above statement of the privileges of the clown, it may be added that this favoured personage was permitted, and even expected, to add "gags " and interpolations to the play, and he sometimes even engaged in improvised repartee with the audience. Steevens gives a quotation from Stowe which speaks of two of the " queen's servants " (z. e. actors) as of "extemporall witte." Malone says : " The clown often addressed the audience in the middle of the play and entered into a contest of raillery and sarcasm with such of the audience as chose to engage with him." One can find an allusion to this habit in " Hamlet " (Act iii. Sc. 2). 1 The stage-directions of Shakespeare, so far as they are connected with music, are quite numerous. " Alarums," rolls of drums, are called for most freely, especially in the historical plays, and very often in connection with "excursions," which were 1 See also the scene at the end of Act iv. of " Romeo and Juliet," which was probably written by Shakespeare to display Will Kempe. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 323 simply sallies or skirmishes. " Flourishes " were simply fanfares, or a series of open tones upon the natural trumpets. In this connection we may state that the only trumpet known in the Shakespearian days was the natural instrument, without keys, the keyed instrument being an invention of the nine- teenth century ; there were, however, excellent trumpeters in the Elizabethan epoch, for the in- strument was found in all the royal bands, and was the appurtenance of every herald, the ambassador to sovereigns. The art of playing trumpet, there- fore, was held to be a " heroic " one, and in Con- tinental Europe, and in some degree in England, it was prized as a " gentlemanly " accomplishment. In Germany, at this time, a guild of trumpeters existed, which claimed many noblemen among its members, and even the Duke of Weimar entered its ranks as late as the middle of the eighteenth century. Twice does Shakespeare change from the flourish of trumpets to a "flourish of cornets." The "cor- net " demanded here is by no means the instrument now known by that name, which was invented less than a century ago, but meant a wooden instrument with a trumpet-like mouthpiece, an instrument which afterward gave way to the oboe. Sometimes the larger cornets were made of metal, but this was rather the exception than the rule. The cornet had 324 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. holes along its tube, as the common flute has to-day, and Mersennus, writing in 1636, speaks of the wooden serpent as the true bass of the cornet. Artusi, in his work on "The Imperfections of Modern Music" (Venice, 1600), says that the tone of the instrument depends greatly upon the manner of tongueing it, and gives many rules regarding it. He adds : " To give the best tone, the performer on the cornet should endeavour to imitate the human voice ; for no other instrument is so difficult to obtain excellence on as this." Girolamo da Udine is spoken of as the greatest performer upon this uncouth instrument, which seems to have occupied a position midway between the brass and the wood-wind instruments. The fact that Shake- speare sometimes calls for "hautboys" (oboes) in such flourishes, only emphasises the relationship of the two instruments. Sometimes oboes and trum- pets were sounded together in the flourishes. The " sennet " must have been much the same as a flourish, and probably was originally called "son- net," taking its rise, as was the case with " sonata," from " sonare" to sound. Most interesting among the trumpet-signals are those called "tuckets." Shakespeare uses the word but rarely, yet generally with some significance. For example, in the final scene of "The Merchant of Venice," we find the following : SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 325 " [A tucket sounds. Lorenzo. \To Portia'] Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet." Twice at the entrance of Mont joy, the French her- ald, in " Henry V.," does the tucket sound. Occa- sionally, too, we have a trumpet-call which must have been a tucket, as will be seen presently. In "King Lear" (Act ii. Sc. 1), Gloster says, after the stage-direction " Trumpets within" " Hark ! the duke's trumpets." In the same play (Act ii. Sc. 4) we find the same stage-direction, and after the trum- pet-call Cornwall asks, " What trumpet's that ? " whereupon Regan replies, " I know 't ; my sister's." And other instances of such recognition of tuckets, whether marked so, or simply called " trumpets," might be cited. ■ The " tucket " was, therefore, a personal trumpet-call, which was as recognisable as the private flourish which a gentleman might use with his signature in the sixteenth century. It was a private trumpet-signal, such as Wagner causes Siegfried to use in the last two operas of the Trilogy (" Siegfried " and " Gbtterdammerung ") ; and the word probably was derived from " toccare," to touch, i. e. something requiring skill of touch, or technique. Once we meet with the word in the Shakespearian text, ^nstead of as stage-direction ; in " Henry V." (Act iv. Sc. 2) the Constable of France gives the order: 326 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. " Sound the tucket-sonance, and the note to mount," — and here again we have the tucket in the nature of a definite signal ; our cavalry bugle-signals are practically "tuckets" in the sense of having some special and definite meaning. Possibly the " tucket " was a true historical touch, for it is certain that the old heralds used many a pri- vate signal of this kind. There is another historical touch in the play last quoted, connected with music ; it is where the king, after the victory of Agincourt, says, — " Let there be sung Non Nobis, and Te Deum," — which is practically what the king did say, after his victory, for when all England was pouring adulation upon him he commanded that thanks be given to God instead ; and many sacred musical works followed this behest. Occasionally bells were used upon the stage, if we may trust the many Shakespearian allusions to them, but these are scarcely to be classed as musical in- struments, although Shakespeare sometimes draws delightful musical metaphors from them, as for ex- ample in " Hamlet " (Act iii. Sc. i), where Ophelia speaks of Hamlet thus : " Ophelia. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword ? The expectancy and rose of the fair state, SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. $2? The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observed of all observers ! quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh ; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy : O, wo is me ! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see ! " There is one phrase here in connection with music, which leads to an interesting bit of etymology, the line regarding " the honey of his music vows ; " Shake- speare used the word " honey " about twice as often as the word "sugar," yet he was probably one of the first to make copious use of the latter, both as noun and adjective. The introduction of refined sugar into England from Venice, about a century before Shake- speare's time, gave the poets a new adjective, and the people toothache. Hentzner (in his " Itinerary," 1598) speaks of the black teeth of Queen Elizabeth. M Next came the Queen, in the 65th year of her age, as we were told, very majestic, her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled ; her eyes small yet black and pleasant : her nose hooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black, a defect the English seem subject to from their too great use of sugar. She wore false hair, and that red." It is to be noted tha^Shakespeare occasionally uses funeral music, and that the first part of " King Henry VI." begins with a dead march. 328 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. The pageants, which Shakespeare occasionally intro- duced into his plays, were always very popular with Elizabethan audiences, who were beginning to culti- vate a taste for masques, a form of entertainment still more popular in the Jacobean reign. We have already fully described the masques and need only state here that the masques in "Henry VIII.," in "Timon of Athens," and the procession in the former play, attracted many of the public who could not rise to the other and greater glories of the poet. The allusions to masques, and their actual introduction, are fairly frequent in the plays, and the character of such entertainments is suggested clearly enough by the following excerpt from " Mid- summer-Night's Dream " (Act v. Sc. i) : " Theseus. Say, what abridgement have you for this evening ? What mask ? what music ? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight? Philostrate. There is a brief, how many sports are ripe ; Make choice of which your highness will see first. [Giving a paper. Theseus. [Reads'] ' The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung, By an Athenian eunuch, to the harp.' We'll none of that: that have I told my love, In glory of my kinsman Hercules. ' The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals, Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.' That is an old device ; and it was play'd When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 329 • The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of learning, late deceased in beggary.' That is some satire, keen and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. 1 A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus, And his love Thisbe ; very tragical mirth.' Merry and tragical ? tedious and brief ? That, is hot ice, and wonderous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord ? " In the above scene there is a mystical line which is confessedly inaccurate, the allusion to " wonderous strange snow." It is barely possible that (to carry on the contradictions) "wonderous rain-snow" may have been meant, although the true reading can probably never be recovered. CHAPTER XIV. The Musical Influence of Shakespeare — Various Kinds of Music Inspired by Shakespeare's Plays — Influence on Wagner — ■ Berlioz and his Shakespearian Subjects — Conclusion. It may be regarded as an axiom that great poets, whether musical themselves or not, 1 always lead to great music. If a poet arises, in any age or nation, who is dear to the people, there is certain to follow a tone-poet who will set music to the words that have exerted such power, and thus bring them still closer to the popular heart. Thus Goethe led to Schubert, and Heine found his fullest glory in the works of Schumann and Robert Franz. In the case of Shakespeare the influence was more far-reaching and was exerted upon composers of three centuries and of all the civilised countries of the earth. It is not too much to say that no man, out- side of the art, ever inspired as much, or one-quarter as much, music as Shakespeare has done. Goethe's " Faust " has brought forth very much music, but Shakespeare's musical influence is not confined to a 1 Tennyson, for example, was not musical, yet his " Break, Break, Break ! " has led to many songs, and many other of his poems have inspired much music. 33° SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 33 I single play, for each of his plays has inspired its own especial music. Barrett Wendell, in his charming essay on Shake- speare, dwells constantly (in a dozen different places) on the musical quality of Shakespeare's plays, and believes them to be the half-way house on the road to opera. He compares (p. 78 et seq.) "Henry VI." to serious opera, "Love's Labour's Lost" to opera comique, and calls (p. 122) the quartette of lamen- tation over the unconscious Juliet, — " fugue-like ; " Mercutio's " Queen Mab " he likens to an interpolated song in a modern comedy, and he gives many other instances of poetry and music coming into closest kinship in the works of Shakespeare. It may be pardoned us if, in the presentation of this branch of our topic, we become in some degree catalogic. " The Tempest " has been set fourteen times as an opera, the Germans having been especially attracted toward this subject. Since Doctor Arne's first setting (and we do not count Purcell's setting of Shadwell's arrangement of the play in the above list), French, Russians, and Italians, as well as Germans, have turned the subject into opera. John K. Paine, most eminent pf American composers, has built a symphonic poem upon the theme, and Am- broise Thomas has turned it into a ballet, in which Ferdinand and Miranda caper, and Caliban crawls, to Terpsichorean rhythms ! 332 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. The " Merry Wives of Windsor " has been less copiously set, but has led to music of higher char- acter than the preceding. Among the eight operatic settings of the subject one may give precedence to Verdi's "Falstaff," which has admirably caught the. Shakespearian spirit and possesses a libretto written in the truest poetic spirit by Arrigo Bofto. The delightful setting by Nicolai presents most dainty music, and its overture is one of the gems of light opera, but it does not reach the height of the fore- going work. " Measure for Measure " has received but a single operatic setting of any note, and this setting, although important to the musical historian, is never performed upon the stage. It was composed by Richard Wagner in his younger days. The work seems not to have been in the Shakespearian spirit and to have had no very great merit, but it is interesting to know that the greatest operatic composer' was in some degree inspired by Shakespeare. Nor is " Das Liebesver- bot " (for so Wagner entitled his second opera) the only case where the great composer was moved by Shakespeare, for we find him studying the works of the English dramatist (thanks to the excellent Ger- man translations) assiduously, at the beginning of his career ; a good part of Wagner's dramatic instinct may be traced to his early study of Shakespeare. Sir Henry R. Bishop, who drew many of his texts SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 333 from Shakespeare, gave the only tolerable setting of the " Comedy of Errors " to the world ; it does not, at present, hold the stage. " The Taming of the Shrew " has achieved one important operatic setting (not to speak of an almost unknown Spanish setting of the eighteenth century), for it introduced a musical genius to the world, — Hermann Goetz. This German setting (" Die Wider- spenstigen Zahmung ") is not as dramatic as it might be, but is so delightfully melodic and so richly har- monised that it is likely to become a standard work of the modern operatic repertoire. Max Bruch, also German, gave the only setting of "Winter's Tale," under the title of * Hermione." It contains some excellent music, but has not received sufficiently dramatic treatment to maintain its place in the operatic repertoire of to-day. " Midsummer-Night's Dream " had its chief musi- cal result in Mendelssohn's incidental music. As a boy of seventeen, Mendelssohn brought forth an over- ture to this play, that may be called the most dainty bit of musical humour in the entire repertoire. In this bit of programme music one hears Titania and her train and the tricksy Puck, upon the violins, the braying of the "translated" Bottom, in his asinine character, upon the bassoon, and his subsequent snoring most graphically depicted upon the ophi- cleide. Years afterward, Mendelssohn was com- 334 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. missioned by the King of Prussia to write more music to the Shakespearian text, but the high level of the overture could not be attained to order. Yet one number of the music is imperishable ; it has been maliciously stated that the " Marseillaise " and Mendelssohn's " Wedding March M have led more people into combat than any other music in the world, and the latter was inspired by Shake- speare's play. There have been a half-dozen set- tings of " Midsummer-Night's Dream " as an opera. " Twelfth Night " has been set by Arne and Bishop, but is not heard as an opera nowadays. " Richard III." has been set three times as an opera, but has also vanished from the operatic boards. Probably the best musical outcome of this play exists in the shape of an overture by Volkmann. This overture shows a keener appreciation of Shakespeare's hero than of the facts of history, for at the end, where the composer pictures Bosworth field, the tune of " The Campbells are Comin' " accompanies the slaughter ; a Scottish tune upon an English battle- field, and in a combat which occurred about a century before the melody was written ! Smetana has written a " Symphonic poem " on " Richard III." Among the histories, the two parts of "King Henry IV." have possessed the most attraction for librettists and composers. They have melted the two parts into one and have made Prince Hal the hero. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 335 Only Herold's version, in two acts, seems to have remained, of the seven operatic settings of this theme. As the other six composers were Italians (with the exception of Garcia), it is natural to find the title running " La Gioventu di Enrico V." " Henry VIII." has a single setting, but a very good one. It was St. Saens who introduced this theme to the operatic stage. It is full of good music, and is finely orchestrated, but swerves somewhat from Shakespearian lines, altering the plot unnecessarily. One would imagine that the composer would make the most of the two pageants introduced by Shake- speare into this play, — the masque and the great procession ; but St. Saens discards them both and gives instead a ballet, in the " Pare du Richmon " (!) in which Scottish and other un-English caperings are introduced. " Coriolanus " has had a host of operatic settings by old Italian composers, none of which have held the stage. Beethoven's overture of " Coriolanus " does not deal with the Shakespearian play, but is founded on Collin's tragedy of the same name. When Eleonora von Breuning inducted Beethoven into the delights of poetry, she seems not to have imbued him with that love of Shakespeare which might have resulted in giving tcrthe poet his greatest musical settings. " Macbeth " has been set many times, and from the 336 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Shakespearian century. The incidental music to Sir William Davenant's amplification of " Macbeth," reputed to be by Matthew Locke, is now more gener- ally believed to be by the great Purcell. Cummings, in his " Life of Purcell," gives all the evidence rela- tive to this subject, and even those who do not agree with the conclusion that the youth Purcell wrote the music, will scarcely be inclined to attribute it to Locke. The Germans took up the tragedy very early, and in 1787 J. F. Reichardt set incidental music to Burger's translation of the play. The famous Spohr wrote music to the tragedy, all of which is lost with the exception of the overture, and even that is rarely heard at present. Weyse pub- lished some excellent incidental music to the play seventy-five years ago. Some extremely modern music to Macbeth was composed by the American, Mr. Edgar S. Kelley, but it has been seldom heard save at the performances of the play in San Francisco in 1885. Very much orchestral music has been written about "Macbeth," a half-dozen overtures, among them one by Raff and one by Briill, and a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, which is prob- ably the greatest musical outcome of the play. As regards operatic settings, one finds only three, not one of them of importance. Auguste Hix wrote a French version, to a libretto by Rouget de ITsle (composer of the " Marseillaise "), which was after- SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 337 ward translated into German. Mr. Philip Hale (in the Boston Journal) writes thus about the setting: " The music of the first opera, ■ Macbeth,' was written by Hippolyte Che'lard, text by Rouget de l'lsle and Auguste Hix. It was produced for the first time at the Paris Ope'ra, June 29, 1827. Derdvis was Macbeth; Nourrit, Douglas; Dabadie, Duncan; Mrs. Dabadie, Lady Macbeth, and Miss Cinti, Moina. The trio of witches and several choruses were re- marked, but the opera failed, and was only performed five times. " It was afterward given in German, and with certain changes, at Munich in 1828 ; it was then sung in many German towns, and July 4, 1832, it was produced in German at the King's Theatre, London. At Munich Pellegrini was Macbeth and Nanette Schechner was Lady Macbeth. In London the part of Lady Macbeth was sung by Schroder-Devrient. Al- though Chorley says that her fatal and sinister acting as the lady was hampered, in some measure, by the music, — for this demanded an executive facility which she did not possess, — she nevertheless made a deep impression on him. His criticism is even to-day of interest : ' One could not look at her without at once recollecting the ideal which Mrs. Siddons is reported to have conceived of this " grand, fiendish " character (to use her own epithets). " She had an idea," says Mrs. Jameson, " that Lady Macbeth must, from her Celtic origin, have been a small, fair, blue-eyed woman." Save in stature the great German operatic actress (daughter, by the way, to the great Lady Mac- beth of Germany, " die grosse Schroder ") gave full justification to this fancy. With an alluring and dignified grace of manner was combined an aspect of evil — a sinister, far-reaching ex- pression in her eyes, all the more terrible for their being at variance with those hues and contours which we have been used to associate with innocence and the tender affections. That which makes the flesh creep, in the name of " the White 338 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. Devil," spoke in every line of Madame Schroder-Devrient's face — in her honeyed and humble smile, as she welcomed the doomed king; in the mixture of ferocity and blandishment thrown by her into the scene of the murder; in the ghastly soliloquy of the soul that waked when the body was asleep. When I think of Pasta, as Medea, watching the bridal train pass by her, with her scarlet mantle gathered round her, the figure of Madame Schroder-Devrient's Lady Macbeth, too, rises, as one of those visions concerning which young men are apt to rave and old men to dote.' The libretto departs widely from Shakespeare's tragedy." Another setting was made by Taubert and per- formed in Germany, which also departed from the Shakespearian path. But the strangest alterations that Shakespeare was obliged to submit to, on his journey to the operatic stage, took place in the version composed by Verdi, in 1 847, before he decided to follow Wagner into the domain of earnest librettos. " Macbeth," with a bal- let introduced, with Lady Macbeth singing a drink- ing-song, with a chorus of murderers, with Macduff singing a liberty-song, — " Our country, forsaken, Our tears should awaken ; 'Gainst Tyrants, unshaken, Our courage should rise," — must have been comical enough for any Shakespear- ian, but the Italians accepted it cordially, and the "liberty-song" was received with frenzy, as a pro- test against Austrian tyranny. SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 339 Of the three inconsequential settings of " King Lear," Kreutzer's " Cordelia " makes the best opera. The best musical outcome of this subject, however, is an overture, by Berlioz, "Le Roi Lear," which pictures the frenzied monarch in a manner not un- worthy of the tragedy. Berlioz was one of the great composers who really studied Shakespeare (as we shall see a little later on), and his Shakespeare set- tings may be accorded the first rank among the French attempts in this field. His two successes are, however, in the orchestral forms (sometimes with vocal addition), for his opera of " Beatrice and Benedict" ("Much Ado About Nothing") is not of high rank. There are but two operatic settings of " Othello," and the first of these, chronologically speaking, was a perversion of Shakespeare, by Rossini. The part of Desdemona was a great favourite with both Pasta and Malibran, for it was very singable music. It was first performed in 1816. The great setting of " Othello," however, is due to Verdi, who, in his later period, discarded the absurdities which marked such librettos as that of " Macbeth " (mentioned above) and treated our poet with becoming respect. This setting of " Othello " may be pronounced one of the very greatest operate of the modern Italian school, and to this result the earnest and poetic Shakespear- ian, Arrigo Bofto, has contributed in no slight degree. 340 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. When he has changed a Shakespearian libretto it has generally been entirely in^the spirit of the poet, as witness his introduction of Falstaff's soliloquy on " Honour " (" Henry IV.," First Part, Act v. Sc. i) into the opera of " Falstaff " (" Merry Wives of Windsor "), or the addition of a diabolical creed, full of "motiveless malignity," to the part of Iago, m this opera of " Othello." But to Verdi, too, all honour is due for his dramatic setting of the text and for the abnegation of all attempts to allow the composer to shine at the expense of the poet. " Hamlet " has been set as opera, even from the time of Domenico Scarlatti, yet no opera exists that can be called worthy of Shakespeare's greatest topic. Ambroise Thomas's version has held the boards in France chiefly because it is a very tuneful opera. Barbier and Carre* (the librettists) have dallied with Shakespeare, in the usual insouciant Gallic fashion ; Ophelia sings the most ornate music, together with a pretty Swedish folk-song, in her mad-scene, instead of the very fitting music which Shakespeare chose for the part, and which could easily have been incorpo- rated into the opera. There is considerable orches- tral music founded upon " Hamlet," but this also does not attain the level of the great subject. " Romeo and Juliet " is the topic toward which musicians have instinctively turned as the one afford- ing them the greatest chances in the display of their SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 341 art. Mr. William F. Apthorp, in a list of Shake- spearian operatic settings, counts up seventeen operas that have been made of Shakespeare's play. They range from Bellini's " I Capuletti ed i Montecchi," with a female Romeo (Madame Pasta loved the part), to a burlesque entitled, with punning ardour, " Rhum et Eau en Juillet," — "Rum and Water in July!" Gounod's sugar-plum, skilfully manufactured out of this subject, is the most popular of all the settings, and will be so as long as a romantic tenor and an attractive soprano can be found for the chief pair of the opera. Its performances in Paris alone are num- bered by many hundreds, and its popularity is by no means confined to France. " All the world loves a lover," and here the com- posers find two of the most attractive of them made to their hands ; therefore it is not astonishing to dis- cover the orchestral settings of the theme as numer- ous and as important as the operatic treatments. It would be well-nigh impossible to collect a list of all the orchestral settings extant ; it may suffice to men- tion the two most important. Berlioz has given to the world a " Romeo and Juliet " symphony, which is not a symphony at all, but rather a free cantata, with much orchestral interluding, or a set of orches- tral movements wit!* vocal adjuncts. This is the very best musical outcome of the Shakespearian sub- ject up to the present time. We have already stated 342 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. that Berlioz may be ranked as the best French Shake- spearian in music ; for this preeminence there was a cause. Berlioz's grande passion was his sudden and vehement affection (not so lasting as intense) for the young Irish actress, Harriet Smithson. The beauti- ful actress had carried Paris by storm when she ap- peared there in Shakespearian r61es. Berlioz saw her and was one of her willing captives. Moved by his love, he began to study the poets that Miss Smithson must have read, and Moore, Byron, and Shakespeare were studied with some degree of en- thusiasm. Each of these poets transmuted himself into music in Berlioz's hands, but it is pleasant to notice that only with Shakespeare does he remain faithful to the poetic model. In addition to the two Shakespearian works already mentioned, he composed this third one, the " Romeo and Juliet " symphony. It is a commendable, at times a glorious, Shakespear- ian picture. The ball at the Capulets, the picture of Queen Mab, Romeo brooding alone in the garden, the combats of the two houses, and, above all, the balcony scene (purely instrumental, this last) are beautiful illustrations of the transmutation of our greatest poet into tones. It was falsely stated that Berlioz resolved to marry Harriet Smithson, and to picture in music the scene that won him, when he first saw her, in the part of Juliet ; he has denied this, although he accomplished both tasks; yet it is not SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. 343 too much to say that his fiery passion led him to Shakespeare, and Shakespeare led him to some of his greatest music. Tschaikowsky, the famous Russian composer, has also won an orchestral triumph through this play. His " Romeo and Juliet " overture must be ranked among his very best works, and as one of the worthy pictures of Shakespeare in orchestral music. It is, however, far less lyrical than Berlioz's romantic scenes, or Gounod's tender amativeness. In this final chapter we have not endeavoured to give a complete list of Shakespearian orchestral or operatic music. Such a list would be of great di- mensions and might even require a volume to itself. We have sought rather to show, by the citation of some of the master-works, what an inspiration Shake- speare has been to the general musician. He has been the same to the painter and to the sculptor. His influence has permeated every art. Lawyers have been amazed at Shakespeare's legal references ; physicians at his medical knowledge ; theologians at his evident study of their polemics ; we hope that we have shown by this book (and may its faults and shortcomings be pardoned for the sake of its intention) that the musician has more reason than any of these to x join in the chorus of homage. Shakespeare loved our art, he understood it, and he most perfectly voiced its beauties to the world. We 344 SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC. can, in common with many another profession, pay to him the tribute which was written of a lesser man: 1 " Long shall we seek his likeness — long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die." * Byron's lines on Sheridan. THE END. INDEX A. A., 64. " Abt Vogler," 92. " Actor's Remonstrance," 174. Adams, Thomas, 196. Addison, 156. Advocate's Library, Edinburgh, 192. 11 Aged Lover Renounceth Love, The,'' 300-304. Albrechtsberger, 40. Alfred the Great, 230. Allen, Charles, 19-20. " All Fools," 20. "All's Well That Ends Well," Act ii. Sc. 2, 124. Amati, 26. "Amenities of Literature," 14. ■ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," 230. "Antony and Cleopatra," 164. Act ii. Sc. 5, 161. " Aphorisms " of Rich, 31. Apthorp, William F., 341. "Arcadia," 158. Aristophanes, 161. Armin, Robert, 35. Arne, Doctor, 315, 331, 334. Arnold, Doctor, 234. "Arthur a Bland,''' 206, 213-214. Artusi, 324. ■ As It Fell upon a Day," 93. "As You Like It," 31 5- Act i. Sc. 2, 83. Act ii. Sc. 5, 60-65, 165. Act iv. Sc. 1, 162. Act iv. Sc. 2, 222-223. Act. v. Sc. 3, 65-66, 190-193. Bach, 134, 138. Bacon, Francis, 14-24, 32, 56, 146, 158. Bagpipe, The, 13, 34-36, 74, H9- Ballet, William, 241. Baltazarini, 58 (note). Bandora, The, 17. Barbier, 340. Barley, William, 181. Barnfield, Richard, 93. Bassoon, The, 41, 338. " Beatrice and Benedict," 339. Beaumont, 20, 56, no (note), 286, 310. Beethoven, 40, 335. " Beginning of the World, The," 43- Bell, The, 326-327. "Belle Helene," 166. Berlioz, 339, 341-343- Bishop, Sir Henry, 47, 315, 332, 334- "Black and Yellow," 256, 259. " Bloody Brother," 310. Bodenstedt, 311. Bodleian Library, 64. Boito, Arrigo, 332, 339-340. Boleyn, Anne, 297. " Bonny Robin," 241-242. " Boston Daily Advertiser," 20 (note). " Boston Journal," 337. Boston Public Library, n (note). Boswell, 31. Brandt, 7^ I 44« Brawl, The, 139-140, 142. 345 34^ INDEX. "Break, break, break I " 330 (note). Breuning, Eleonora von, 335. Bridge, Doctor, 184. " British Grenadiers, The," 142. British Museum, 194, 209, 230, 290. Browning, 40, 41, 92. Bruch, Max, 333. Briill, 336. Brydges, Sir Egerton, 301. Bugle, The, 326. Bull, 56. Burger, 336. Burney, III, 114, 147, 179, 210, 299. Byrd, Doctor, 43, 56, 147, 200 (note), 209. Byron, 342, 344. " Qa Ira," 233. Callcott, Doctor, 179. " Campbells are Comiri, The" 334. Canary, The, 139-140. " Cancan," Offenbach's, 285. " Canterbury," 99 (note). Canute, King, 230. Capell, 64. "Captain," 175 (note). " Carmagnole" 233. " Carman's Whistle, The," 76. Carre, 340. Chapman, 20. Chappell, 60 (note), 74 (note), 192, 227 (note), 286, 297, 321. Charles L, 176. Charles II., 313. Chaucer, 12, 36. Chelard, Hippolyte, 337. Chopin, 53. Chorley, 337. " Chronicle," Hall's, 147. Cinque-pace, The, 134-136. Cinti, Miss, 337. Cithron, The, 13. Clapp, Henry Austin, 20-22. Clavichord, The, 80, 81. Coke, 20. "Collection of English Songs," 74 (note), 169. " Collection of National English Airs," 60 (note), 74 (note). Collier, 35, 64. Collin, 335. " Come away, Come away. Death" 190. " Comedy of Errors," 333. Act iii. Sc. 2, 163-164. " Come live with me and be my love," 304-309. " Come o'er the Bourn, Bessie" 245- " Come unto these yellow sands" 314. " Concerto Grosse, No. 7," Han- del's, 142. " Consort Lessons," 209. " Constant Susanna" 206, 213, 215. Contrabass, The, 26, 27, 53. Cook, 20. Coperario, 147. " Cordelia," 339. " Coriolanus," 335. Act. v. Sc. 4, 29. Cornemuse, The, 12. Cornemute, The, 13. Cornet, The, 13, 17-18, ^6, 201, 323-324. Coranto, The, 134, 138, 140. " Corydon's Farewell to Phillis" 206. Cowley, 171. Cromwell, 174. "Crown Garland of Goulden Roses," 276. " Cujus Animam" 285. Cummings, 336. Cymbal, The, 29. " Cymbeline," Act ii. Sc. 3, 51, 62, 227. Act v. Sc. 3, 105. Dabadie, 337. Dabadie, Mrs., 337. Dallam, Thomas, 53. " Das Liebesverbot" 332. Davenant, Sir William, 336. Dekker, 20, 40. INDEX. 347 " Deutermelia," 182, 196-198. Derevis, 337. ** Diary," Manningham's, 209. Disraeli, 14. Doloony, 77. Donizetti, 285. Donne, 20. Doppler, 313. Dowced, The, 12. Dowiand, John, 56, 93 (and note). Dowland, Robert, 93 (note). Drayton, Michael, 13-14, 78, 171, 198. "Drink to me only with thine eyes" 298-299. Drum, The, 29, 30, 31, 32, 201, 322. " Du bist wie eine Flume," 310 (note). " Ducdame," 62, 64-65. Dulcimer, The, 12 (note), 29. Dump, The, 67, 69-71, 83, 84, 142-144. Dvorak, 143. " Education," Spencer's Essay on, 94, 285. Edward, King, 230. Edward III., 105. Edward VI., 57. Edwards, Richard, 70-72. Elderton, 286. " Elegy," Gray's, 285. Elizabeth, Queen, 41-44, 52, 56, 57, 70, 124, 174, 179, 200, 209, 241, 3°7, 327. Ely, Bishop of, 89 (note). " England's Helicon," 305, 309. Erasmus, 79. " Essay es" of Francis Bacon, 22- 24. Essex, 39. Este, T., 216. " Euridice," 25 (note). " Evening Hymn, An" 107^1 09. " Faerie Queene," 289. « Falstaff," 332, 340. " Farewell to the Military Profes- sion," 134. Farmer, 64, 219. Farrant, 56. " Father Hubbard's Tales," 39. « Faust," 330. Ferrabosco, 147. Field, 20. Field, Miss, 234. Fielding, 321. Fife, The, 13, 29, 30-32, 145, 201. "First Booke of Ayres, The," 216. First Psalm, Bacon's translation of, 20-22. Fitz-Stephen, 77. Flageolet, The, 32. Fletcher, 20, 56, 100, no (note), I73> J 75 (note), 241, 243, 286, 304, 310. Flute, The, 13, 17, 18, 25 (note), 26, 30, 32, 41, 74, 77, 324. " Flying Fame" 261-268. Ford, 20, 142. Forde, 56. " For He's a Jolly Good Fellow? 2 33- Forster, Mrs., 234. "Fortune" 269. Franz, P>.obert, 94, 330. Fuchs, Rein eke, 89. Fuller, 107-109, 289. "Full Fatho?ns Five," 187-189, 3M. Furness, 58 (note), 64, 114, 154, 167 (note), 183 (note), 208 (note), 223 (note), 253, 254, 3"- Furnivall, 53, 304, 306. Fytton, Mrs., 38 (note). Galliard, The, 126, 133-136, 140, 142. Galuppi, Martini, 40-41. " Gammer Gurton's Nedle" 169. Garcia, 335. " Gemutus, The Jew oj Venice? 254-261. Gervinus, 311. 348 INDEX. Gibbons, Orlando, 56. Gildon, 310. Giovanni, Ser, 254. " Gioventu di Enrico V., La" 335. Gittern, The, 13. Goethe, 311, 330. Goetz, Hermann, 333. Gosson, 173. " Gotterdammerung," 325. Gounod, 341, 343. Grassineau, 12 (note), 29. Gray, 285. Greene, 20. Greenhill, 304. " Greensleeves" 284-287. "Ground Bass," 115 (note). Guarnerius, 26. Guido of Arezzo, 81, 106. Guitar, The, 25 (note), 45. Hale, Philip, 337. Hall, 147, 241 (note.) Hailing, The, 121. Halliwell, 64, 238, 253. ** Hamlet," 20, 340. Act ii. Sc. 2, 281-284, 316- 318. Act iii. Sc. 1, 326-327. Act iii. Sc. 2, 32-33, 322- J Act iv. Sc. 5, 221, 233-244, 297. Act v. Sc. 1, 299-300. " Handbook of Shakespeare Mu- sic," 304. Handel, 59 (note), 138, 142. Hanmer, 62, 228. "Harhf hark! the lark," 228, 312-313. Harp, The, 18, 28, 74, 155, 328. Harpsichord, The, 25 (note). Harrison, 304. Hauptmann, 91. Hautboy, The, 13, 29, 55, 81, 324. " Have you not heard" 282-284. Hawkins, Sir John, 210, 244, 286, 3°7- Hay, Lord. 147. Hay, The, 148, 149. Haydn, 315. " Hearfs-ease," 67-69. Heine, 310 (note), 330. Henry III. of France, 58 (note). "Henry IV.," Part I., 199, 334, 335- Act i. Sc. 1, 34 ; Act ii. Sc. 4, 52,175- Act iii. Sc. 1, 116-117, 155— 156. Act iii. Sc. 2, 55. Act v. Sc. 1, 340. " Henry IV.," Part II., 199, 334- 335- Induction, 54. Act ii. Sc. 1, 73. Act ii. Sc. 4, 173, 296. Act. iii. Sc. 2, 76, 225-226. Act v. Sc. 3, 276. " Henry VI.," Part I., 331. Act i. Sc. 1, 327. Henry VII., 121. Henry VIII., 57, 79, 89 (note), 145, 220. Hentzner, P., 201 (note), 327. Herbert, William, Earl of Pem- broke, 38 (note), 91. " Hermione," 333. Herold, 335. "Hey down a down" 206, 213- 214. Hey wood, 20. Hilton, 101, 223. "History of Music," in, 147, 179, 244. " History of the Gentle Craft," 77. Hix, Auguste, 336-337. "Hold Thy Peace" 205, 21 0-21 1. Holinshed, 147. Holmes, George, 176-177. Hone, 105 (note). Hood, Robin, 121, 122, 213. Horace, 31. Horn, 315. Horn, The, 59, 141. Hornpipe, The, 141-142, 149. " How Should I Your True Lover Know" 221, 234-238. Hunsden, Lord, 41-42. " Hunfs-up," 116,226-227. INDEX. 349 "I Capuletti ed i Montecchi," 34i. " Imperfections of Modern Music, The," 324. "Introduction to the Skill of Musick," 90,98, 103, 109-110, 112-113. Isle, Rouget de V, 336-337. " Itinerarium," 201 (note). " Itinerary," 227, 327. " // was a Lover and His Lass" I9*-I93> 3°4- "Jack, Boy, Hoi Boy!" 221. Jaggard, William, 92, 304. James I., 56, 57 (note). Jameson, Mrs., 337. Jig, The, 119, i2i f 134, I35> l 3 s ~ 141, 142. "Jog on ij°g on the Joot-path way" 247-248. Johnson, Doctor, 156, 208,225. Johnson, Richard, 276,314 (note). Johnson, Robert, 147, 184-189. Jones, Inigo, 147. Jones, Robert, 216-219. Jonson, Ben, 20, 52, 56, 1 10, (note), 147, 171, 173, 298. Jordan, Mrs., 234. " Julius Caesar." Act i. Sc. 2, 156-157. Act iv. Sc. 3, 51. Act iv. Sc. 4, 16. Kamarinskaia, The, 121. Kelley, Edgar S., 336. Kempe, Will, 69, 1 21-122, 322 (note). "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," 275-281. " King Harry the VIIFs Pavyn," 1 36- 1 37- « King Henry V., w 325. Act i. Sc. 2, 95. ^ Act ii. Sc. 4, 124. Act iii. Sc. 2, 54, 105. Act iv. Sc. 2, 325-326. Act iv. Sc. 8, 326. Act v. Sc. 2, 82. " King Henry VIII.," 328, 335. Act i. Sc. 3, 29. " King John." Act. v. Sc. 7, 53-54. "King Lear," 243-245, 261-268, 320-321. Act i. Sc. 2, in, 115. Act ii. Sc. 1, 325. Act ii. Sc. 4, 325. Act iii. Sc. 6, 245. "King Lear and His Three Daughters," 262-268. " King Richard II." Act i. Sc. 3, 28. Act ii. Sc. 1,94-95. Act ii. Sc. 5, 84 (note). Act iii. Sc. 4, 138. Act v. Sc. 5, 88. " King Richard III.," 334. King's College, 53. Kit, The, 13. Knight, 31, 64, in, 158, 161, 207, 223, 235 (note), 240, 253, 311 (note). " Kreutzer," 339. "Kyng's Maske, The," 145-146. " Lady Carey's Dump," 143. Lamb, Charles, 156. Laneham, 124. Laniere, Nic, 147. " VAnima e nel Corpo" 25 (note). Lawes, Henry, 147. Lawes, William, 147. " Legend of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex," 198. Lessing, 311. " Life of Purcell," 336. "■Light o' Love" 97, 99-101, 140. Linley, 234, 315. " Litchfield," 99. Locke, Matthew, 336. Long Dance, The, 252. " Lord Lovell" 233. Lounsbury, T. R., 12 (note). Loure, The, 138. "Lover's Complaint, A" 290-296 "Love's Labour's Lost," 331. Act i. Sc. 2, 275. 350 INDEX. Act iii. Sc. i, 139-140. Act iv. Sc. 1, 280-281. Act iv. Sc. 2, 114-115, 122- 123. Act v. Sc. 1, 148. Act v. Sc. 2, 104, 137-138. " Loyal Subject, The," 286. * Lucia di Lammermoor " 285. Lute, The, 13, 15, 17, 18, 25 (note), 26, 34, 37, 43» 44-5 2 > 54> 55> 6 9 (note), 71, 74, 80, 84, 85, 93, 109, 116. " Lute-book," Ballet's, 241. Lyly, 20, 289. Lyre, The, 25 (note). " Macbeth, " 314, 335-338. Macfarren, Sir G. A., 81 (note). " Malbrooke," 233. Malibran, 339. Malmesbury, William of, 230. Malone, 34, 252, 322. " Mambron," 233. Mandolin, The, yj, 81. Manningham, John, 209. Marion, Maid, 121, 122, 125. Marlowe, 56, 304-309. " Marseillaise" 334, 346. Marston, 20. Martin, Humphrey, 124. Mary, Queen, 57. Massinger, 20, 56. Mattheson, 47. "Maud," 41. Mazurka, The, 120. Measure, The, 135, 136, 137-138. " Measure for Measure," 332. Act ii. Sc. 1, 175. Act iv. Sc. 1, 166-167, 310. Melvil, Sir James, 41-43. Mendelssohn, 333-334. u Merchant of Venice, The," 21, 254-261. Act ii. Sc. 5, 30, 145. Act iii. Sc. 2, 223, 225. Activ. Sc. 1,35, 1 51-153. Act v. Sc. 1, 162, 325. * Merry Wives of Windsor, The," 33^34 2. Act i. Sc. 3, 240. Act ii. Sc. 1, 284-285. Act iii. Sc. 1, 305-306. Act v. Sc. 5, 284. Mersennus, 30, 324. Middleton, 20, 39. " Midsummer-Night's Dream, A, n 21, 333-334- Act ii. Sc. 1, 163. Act ii. Sc. 2, 133. Act v. Sc. 1, 33-34, 328-329. Act v. Sc. 2, 126. Milton, 25 (note), 147. Minuet, The, 136. Mommsen, 311. Monochord, The, 80, 81. Moore, 342, "Moral Plays," Skelton's, 172. Morley, 56, 101, 102-104, 126, 156 (note), 203, 209. " Morning Song" 226-227. Morris-dance, The, 120-125, 139, 148, 149, 245. Moryson, Fynes, 227. Mozart, 92 (note), 299. * Much Ado About Nothing," 122, 133, 289, 339. Act i. Sc. 1, 241. Act ii. Sc. 1, 55, 65, 135, 139. Act ii. Sc. 2, 1 50. Act ii. Sc. 3, 31-33, 57-60, 118, 162-163. Act iii. Sc. 2, 51. Act iii. Sc. 4, 99-100, 140. "Musa Madrigalesca," 124-125, 196. • Musical Companion," 178-179, 223. " Musical Illustrations of Ancient English Poetry," 216, 269. Musicians, Status of, 25, 57-76. " My flocks feed not" 309. Nash, 20. " National Music," 286. Naylor, Edward W., 30, 35, 73, 79, 143, 195-196, 253, 286. " Nest of Ninnies, A," 35. Nicolai, 332. INDEX. 351 Norman, Sir John, 194. " Notes and Queries," 64. " Notes on the Bacon-Shake- speare Question," 20. Nourrit, 337. " Now God be with old Simeon" 75. 21 5. " Now is the Month of Maying" 103, 203. Oboe, The, 18, 323, 324. Offenbach, 166, 285. " Oh, Death, rocke me asleep" 296- 297. • Oh I Willow, Willow, Willow!" 288-296. * Old English Ditties," 227 (note), 297. " Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Maid Marian," 149. Oliphant, 124, 195-198. ■ Mistress Mine" 190, 204-205, 208-210. Opera, Invention of the, 12. Ophicleide, The, 333. Organ, The, 53-54, 89 (note). " Orpheus with His Lute," 304. " 0, Salce, Salce," 290. "Othello," 31, 339, 340. Act ii. Sc. 1, 87. Act ii. Sc. 3, 199-200. Act iii. Sc. 1, 154-155. Act iv. Sc. 3, 28S-296, 297. Oxford, Lord, 39. Paderewski, 39. Paine, John K., 331. u Pammelia," 179, 181-182, 197, 200 (note). Pandore, The, 13 (see also Ban- dora). " Pare du Richmon" 335. Passacaglia, The, 120. Passa-mezzo, The, 136. Pasta, 338, 339, 341. " Passionate Pilgrim," 78, 92-93, 95» 304, 3°9- Pavane, The, 119, 136-137, 140, 142, 144. Peele, 20. "Peg-a-Ramsey," 206, 21 1-2 12. Pellegrini, 337. Pemberton, 99. Pembroke, Earl of, (see William Herbert). Pepys, 37 •, 76, 215, 290. Percy, Bishop, 74 (note), 213, 220, 255, 269, 276, 282, 290, 3 OI > 3°3- " Pericles." Act 1. Sc. 1, 28. Act v. Sc. 1, 164. Piano, The, 37, 38, 39, 81. " Piers Ploughman" 64. Pipe, The, 13, 17, 18, 31-33, 54, 66, 141, 149, 155, 182, 319. Playford, John, 90, 98, 102, 109- no, 1 1 2-1 1 3, 178, 223. Plautus, 147. Polka, The, 120. «' Poly-Olbion," 13-14. Pope, 158,235 (note). Praetorius, 134. " Proceedings of the Musical As- sociation," 81 (note). Psaltery, The, 29. Puns, Shakespeare's fondness for, 25, 33, 66 (note), 82, 83, 85, 102, 104-105, 115, 118, i37-i3 8 » 179. Purcell, Henry, 57, 106-109, 115 (note), 314-315, 331,336. Pythagoras, 165. Raff, 336. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 39, 309. " Rape of Lucrece, The," 78, 83-84. Ravenscroft, 56, 182. Recorder, The, 13, 17, 18, 32-34. Rede, The, 12. Reichardt, J. F., 336. " Reigen," 1 20. " Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," 74 (note), 213, 220, 255, 269, 290, 303. " Return from Parnassus," 122. Rhum et Eau en Juillet, 341. Rich, Barnaby, 31, 134, 135. 352 INDEX. Richter, 40. Rimbault, 216, 255, 269, 303. Rinca Fada, 252. Ritson, 74 (note), 169, 196, 197, 298, 301. " Robin Hood is to the Greenwood Gone" 241. " Robyn, Jolly Robyn, A" 219- 220. Roffe, 304. " Roi Lear, Le," 339. Roife, 289. Romanesca, The, 126-132, 135. " Romeo and Juliet," 122, 331, 340-343. Act i. Sc. 5, 88-90, 102, 118. Act ii. Sc. 2, 276. Act ii. Sc. 4, 215. Act iii. Sc. 1, 25-26. Act iii. Sc. 5, 115-116. Act iv. Sc. 5, 66-73, *44> 275, 322 (note). Rossini, 285, 290, 339. " Rosy Bowers" 314-315. " Retybulle Joyse" 80, 81. Round Dances, 120, 126, 133, 148. Rowbotham, 74. Rowe, 158. Rowley, 20. " Rmo the Boat, Norman, Row" 194-195. " Rum and Water in July" 341. Sackbut, The (see also Sagbut), 17, 18, 29. Sagbut, The (see also Sackbut), " Sappho and Phao," 289. Sarabande, The, 1 19. " Satiro-Mastix, or the Untruss- ing of the Humourous Poet," 40. Scarlatti, Domenico, 340. Schechner, Nanette, 337. Schlag- Zither, The, 29. Schlegel, 311. Schmidt, 205 (note). Schroder-Devrient, 337, 338. Schubert, 86 (note), 228, 312- 3 J 3. 330. Schumann, 330. Scott, 169. " Select Collection of English Songs," 298. " Sellinger's Round," 43-44, 120. Serpent, The, 36, 324. Sewall, Samuel, 99. Sewel, 310. Shadwell, 314, 331. " Shakespeare and Music," 30, 73» 79. *43> i95> 2 53> 286 - "Shakespeare in Germany," 311 (note). Shalmyes, The, 12. Shawm, The, 13. "Shepherd's Calendar," 149. Sheridan, 344. " Ship of Fools," 73, 144. Shirley, 20. Shore, John, 98. " Short apologie of the Schoole of Abuse," 174. Siddons, Mrs. 337. Sidney, 56. " Siegfried," 325. "Sigh no more ladies," 59. "Silent Woman, The," 52, 173. Simpson, Christopher, 115. Skelton, John, 79-81, 169, 171- 172. Smithson, Harriet, 342. Spanish Fandango, 121. " Speculum Mundi," 289. Spencer, Herbert, 94, 285. Spenser, 20, 56, 149, 289. Spinet, The, 29,81. Spohr, 336. " Sportive Wit," 252. " Sports and Pastimes," 105 (note). Staunton, 64, 244. " St. Leger's Round," 43. Steevens, 34, 35> 6 4> 142, 153- 154, 158, 208, 235 (note), 322. Stevens, 315. Still, John, 169. Stowe, 322. INDEX. 353 Stradivarius, 26-27. Strauss, Richard, 336. Strutt, 105 (note). Strype, 89 (note). St. Saens, 335. Stuart, Mary, 41-42. " Sumer is icumen in" 194. Swan, 289. Swift, Dean, 79, 156. Sydney, 158. " Sylva Sylvarum," 14-19, 158. " Sympson's Compendium of Mu- sick," 179-180. Tabor, The, 13, 29, 32, 33, 148, 182, 319. " lake Those Lips Away" 166- 168,304, 309-311. " Take 1/iy Old Cloak about Thee," 202-203. Tallis, 56. "''>ming of the Shrew, The," 333- Act i. Sc. 2, 114. Act ii. Sc. 1, 45-46, 222. Act iii. Sc. 1, 47-50, 109-110, in, 156 (note), 207. Act iv. Sc. 1, 221. Ta -bert, 338. " TeJ me, where is fancy bred," 225. "Tempest, The," 21, 145, 163, 184-190, 314, 331. Act ii. Sc. 2, 183-184. Act iii. Sc. 2, 182-183.. Act iv. Sc. 1, 53. Tennyson, 41, 156, 330. Theobald, 252. Theodal, Bishop, 81. Therbo, The, 13. " There were three crorvs sat on a tree" 233. Thomas, Ambroise, 331, 340. " Three Blind Mice," 194. " Three Merry Men be We? 195, 206, 213-214. Tibia, The, 30, 31, 32. Tieck, 311. Tieze, 312. " Timon of Athens," 145, 328. "Tinkers' Catch, The," 75. "Titus Andronicus," 78, 268- . 274. " Titus Andronicus y s Complaint" 269-274. "Toccata of Martini Galuppi," 40. Trinity College, Dublin, 241. " Trip arid Go," 123. " Troilus and Cressida." Act i. Sc. 3, 88. Act iii. Sc. 1, 82. Trombone, The, 18, 29. " Troubadours and Courts of Love," 74. Trumpet, The, 17, 18, 29, 77, 152, 201, 323-326. Tschaikowsky, 343. Tuck, Friar, 121. Tusser, 208. " Twelfth Night," 167 (note), 190, i95> x 99> 319-320, 334- Act i. Sc. 1, 157-158. Act i. Sc. 2, 96. Act i. Sc. 3, 27-28, 133-134, 139, 145- Act i. Sc. 4, 96. Act ii. Sc. 3, 172, 203-219, 275, 297. Act ii. Sc. 4, 1 59-161. Act iii. Sc. 1, 164. Act iv. Sc. 2, 219-220. Act v. Sc. 1, 136. " Two Gentlemen of Verona." Act i. Sc. 2, 96-98, 102, 104, 207. Act iii. Sc. 2, 84-85, 144. Act iv. Sc. 2, 85-87, 226. " Two Lovers, The," 69. "Two Noble Kinsmen," 100, 241, 245- Tye, 56. Tyrwhitt, 252. Udine, Girolamo da, 324. " Under the greenwood tree" 60- 63. 354 INDEX. " Variorum Edition," Furness, 58 (note), 64, 114, 154, 167 (note), 183 (note), 223 (note), 253> 3"- Vaux, Lord, 301. Verdi, 290, 332, 338, 339-340. Verulam, Lord (see Francis Bacon). Viol, The, 13, 18, 25 (note), 26- 29, 75, 81, 115. Violin, The, 18, 26-27, 29, 41, 53. 73> 333- Violincello, The, 27. Violl (see Viol). Violone, The, 27. Virginal, The, 18, 26, 37-45, 80, 81. " Virginal Book," Queen Eliza- beth's, 209, 241. Volkmann, 334. Wagner, Richard, 94, 285, 318, 325, 332, 338. Walker, Charles R., 243. Waltz, The, 120. Warburton, 236. Ward, Vicar, 171. Warren, 197. Warton, 208. Webster, 20. " Wedding March," 334. Weelkes, Thomas, s6, 122, 126, 3°9- Weimar, Duke of, 323. Wendell, Barrett, 331. " We Won't Go Home Till Morn. ing" 233. Weyse, 336. " What shall he have that killed the deer ?" 223-224. " When Griping Grief," 67, 68, 70-72. " When that I was a little tiny boy," 319-322. " Where the Bee Sucks," 184-186. White, 99. White, Richard Grant, 30-31, 35, 7^, 82, in, 158, 161, 222, 223, 310. Whitman, Walt, 163. " Who is Sylvia" 304. " Widerspenstigen Zahmung, P^" 333- Wieland, 311. Wilbye, 56. Wilkins, 20. Willard, 99. Wilson, Doctor John, 58 (note,, 167, 314. " Windsor," 99. * Winter's Tale," 74, ^3- Act i. Sc. 2, 38. Act iv. Sc. 2, 141, 195, 24.6- 248. Act iv. Sc. 3, 195, 221, 24f 254. " Worthies," 289. Zarlino, 165. Zumpogna, The, 34. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. iBM^ft AS STAMPED BELOW AUTO DISC. SEP 8 m ii CIRCULAT I ON JUL 1 3 20 2 itftf** SEP 1 7 ml FORM NO. DD6, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 General Library , y B 11363 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES II €02105=1207 M6t?8 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY