Shakespeare and Music Part 10

The 'delicate burdens,' 'd.i.l.d.os and fadings,' 'jump her and thump her,' are to be found in examples of the period. A Round of Matt.

White, 'The Courtier scorns the country clowns' (date about 1600) has for its third and last line 'With a fading, fading, fading, fading,'

etc. 'Whoop, do me no harm' has already been spoken of.

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

From l. 285 to l. 327, the pa.s.sage refers to a very interesting department of 16th century singing--viz., the habit of performing songs in three vocal parts. The singers were called Threeman-songmen, and the songs themselves 'Threeman songs,' or 'Freemen's Songs.'

[_Freemen_ is simply a corruption of _Threemen_. Mr Aldis Wright tells me it is a.n.a.logous to _Thills_ or _Fills_, for the shafts of a waggon.

Rimbault, in the preface to 'Rounds, Canons, and Catches,' is highly indignant with Ritson's 'inconceivably strange notion' that Freemen is only a form of Threemen. Rimbault's reason was that 'Deuteromelia'

(1609) does contain Freemen's Songs in _four_ parts. Mr Aldis Wright also gives me the expression '_six_-men's song,' from Percy's Reliques, also these definitions, which will all go to settle the matter: Florio, Italian Dictionary, 1611; _Strambotti_, country gigges, rounds, catches, virelaies or _threemen's songs_; _Cantarini_, such as sing _threemen's songs_; _Berlingozzo_.... Also a drunken or _threemen's song_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two other worthy knights claim our attention in the next quotation, which contains many interesting allusions. _Inter alia_; Sir Toby gives Feste sixpence to sing a song; Sir Andrew follows it up with a 'testril.' The Clown then sings them 'O mistress mine.' [For the original music see Prof. Bridge's 'Shakespeare Songs,' Novello, a collection which every reader of Shakespeare ought to have. Price 2s.

6d.] Then, at Sir Toby's suggestion, they all three sing a catch, or, in his own words, 'draw _three_ souls out of _one_ weaver,' an allusion to the _three_ vocal parts which are evolved from the _one_ melody of the catch, as well as a sly reference to 'weavers' singing catches. (See Introduction.) They sing 'Thou knave,' for which see the Appendix. It is not a good catch, but sounds humorous if done smartly, and perhaps its very roughness suits the circ.u.mstances. Next, after Maria's entrance, Toby either quotes the t.i.tles, or sings odd lines of four old songs [Appendix]; and when Malvolio comes in, furious with the noise they are making in the middle of the night, he applies precisely those epithets to their proceedings that our histories lead us to expect--_e.g._, 'gabbling like _tinkers_,' '_alehouse_,'

squeaking out your '_cozier's_ catches' ['cozier' is 'cobbler']. Sir Toby's puns on 'keep time' in ll. 94 and 115 ought not to be missed.

To 'keep time' is almost the only virtue a catch singer _must_ have.

_Tw._ II, iii, 18.

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

_Sir And._ By my troth, the fool has an _excellent breast_.

I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so _sweet a breath to sing_, as the fool has.

L. 30.

_Sir And._ Now, _a song_.

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

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

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

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

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

[_Clown_ sings 'O mistress mine.']

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

_Sir To._ A contagious breath.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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