The following lines, though not in a play, are so full of musical similes that it may be useful to take them at once.
Lucrece, line 1124.
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"My restless discord loves no stops nor rests; A woful hostess brooks not merry guests. Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears; Distress like dumps, when time is kept with tears." |
(Then to the nightingale)—
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"Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment, Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair: As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment, So I at each sad strain will strain a tear, And with deep groans the diapason bear; For burden wise I'll hum on Tarquin still, While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill. "And while against a thorn thou bear'st thy part, To keep thy sharp woes waking.... These means, as frets upon an instrument, Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment." |
Here Lucrece tells the birds to cease their joyous notes, and calls on the nightingale to sing the song of Tereus, while she herself bears the 'burden' with her groans.
The first line contains a quibble on 'rests' and 'restless' discord. 'Nimble notes' was used in the Shakespearian time as we should use the term 'brilliant music.' Lucrece was in no humour for trills and runs, but rather for Dumps, where she could keep slow time with her tears. The Dumpe (from Swedish Dialect, dumpa, to dance awkwardly) was a slow, mournful dance. [See [Appendix].] There is another quibble in l. 1131, on strain. A 'strain' is the proper Elizabethan word for a formal phrase of a musical composition. For instance, in a Pavan, Morley (Introduction to Practical Music, 1597) says a 'straine' should consist of 8, 12, or 16 semibreves (we should say 'bars' instead of 'semibreves') 'as they list, yet fewer then eight I have not seene in any pauan.'
'Diapason' meant the interval of an octave. Here Lucrece says she will 'bear the diapason' with deep groans, i.e., 'hum' a 'burden' or drone an octave lower than the nightingale's 'descant.' The earliest 'burden' known is that in the ancient Round 'Sumer is icumen in,' of the 13th century. Here four voices sing the real music in canon to these words—
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'Sumer is icumen in, Lhudè sing Cuccu, Groweth seed and bloweth mead and springth the wdè nu, Sing Cuccu, Awè bleteth after lomb, lhouth after calvè cu, Bulluc sterteth, Buckè verteth, murie sing cuccu, Cuccu, Cuccu, Wel singès thu cuccu, ne swik thu naver nu.'— |
while all the time two other voices of lower pitch sing a monotonous refrain, 'Sing cuccu nu, Sing cuccu,' which they repeat ad infinitum till the four who sing the Round are tired. This refrain is called Pes (or 'foot'), and this is the kind of thing which Lucrece means by 'burden.' The word 'hum' may be considered technical, see the [Introduction], where 'buzzing bass' is referred to. The tune, 'Light o' love' [see [Appendix]], as we know from Much Ado III, iv, 41, used to go without a burden, and was considered a 'light' tune on that account, see Two Gent. I, ii, 80.