Ham. O! the recorders: let me see one....
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L. 351.
... Will you play upon this pipe?
Guildenstern. My lord, I cannot.
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Ham. It is as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony: I have not the skill.
Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me: you would seem to know my stops; ... you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ [the recorder], yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood! do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
The holes in a flute have always been called 'ventages,' because the 'wind' comes through them when the fingers are removed. They were 'governed' 'with the finger and thumb.' One of the illustrations from Mersennus [b. 1588] shows a conical flute with four holes in front and two at the back. These latter would, of course, be controlled by the thumbs, while the others would occupy two fingers on each hand. (Modern flageolets still keep a thumb hole at the back.) There were other beaked flutes of the same period, of a better class, which had several keys as well as the holes.