Here are a few relics of Stage Music before Shakespeare's day.

The playing of the minstrels is frequently mentioned in the old Miracle Plays, and the instruments used were the horn, pipe, tabret, and flute. In the Prologue to the Miracle Play, Childermas Day, 1512, the minstrels are requested to 'do their diligence,' and at the end of the Play to 'geve us a daunce.'

In Richard Edwards's Damon and Pithias, acted in 1565, there is a stage direction. "Here Pythias sings and the regalles play." Also, when Pythias is carried to prison, "the regalls play a mourning song." Thus the Regal, a tiny organ that could be easily carried about, was considered a proper instrument for the stage. In the old Comedy, Gammer Gurton's Needle, 1566, mention is made by one of the characters of the music between the acts—

"Into the town will I, my friendes to visit there,
And hither straight again to see the end of this gere;
In the meantime, fellowes, pype up your fidles: I say take them,
And let your friends hear such mirth as ye can make them."

In Gascoyne's Jocasta, 1566, each act is preceded by a dumb show, accompanied by "viols, cythren, bandores, flutes, cornets, trumpets, drums, fifes, and still-pipes." In Anthony Munday's comedy The Two Italian Gentlemen (about 1584), the different kinds of music to be played after each act are mentioned—e.g., 'a pleasant galliard,' 'a solemn dump,' or 'a pleasant Allemayne.' A little later, Marston, in his Sophonisba, 1606, goes into considerable detail as to the music between the Acts; after Act I., 'the cornets and organs playing loud full music'; after Act II., 'organs mixed with recorders'; after Act III., 'organs, viols, and voices'; after Act IV., 'a base lute and a treble viol'; and in the course of Act V., 'infernall music plays softly.' Fiddles, flutes, and hautboys are mentioned by other dramatists as instruments in use at the theatre at this time.

Rimbault's Introduction to Purcell's opera 'Bonduca' gives the names of twenty-six Masques and Plays produced between 1586 and 1642 (when the theatres were closed), all of which contained important music. Amongst them are Jane Shore, by Henry Lacy, 1586, with music by William Byrd; seven masques by Ben Jonson, dating 1600-1621, four of which had music by Ferrabosco; a masque by Beaumont (1612) with music by Coperario; a play Valentinian, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1617) set by Robt. Johnson; The Triumphs of Peace by Shirley (1633), with music by William Lawes and Simon Ives; several other masques, set by Henry Lawes, who did the music to Milton's Comus (1634), etc. The list also includes Shakespeare's Tempest, with Robt. Johnson's music, two numbers of which, viz., 'Full fathom five,' and 'Where the bee sucks,' are printed in Bridge's Shakespeare's Songs, with date 1612.

Retreat, or A Retreat sounded, generally with Alarum, or Excursions, or with both.

Retreat by itself occurs only three times, but in company with Alarums and [or] Excursions may be found in 16 other places. The whole 19 cases occur in eleven plays.

The word explains itself. The actual notes of a Retreat of Shakespeare's time are not known.

In the text it has the same meaning.