And dares not answer, nay—
for, indeed, who would set his wish to so foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry ‘cuckoo’ never so?”—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1.
This passage always brings to our recollection those beautiful lines which Wordsworth addressed “To the Cuckoo,” and which must be so well known to all.
The cuckoo, as long ago remarked by John Heywood,[80] begins to sing early in the season with the interval of a minor third; the bird then proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then a fifth, after which its voice breaks, without attaining a minor sixth. It may, therefore, be said to have done much for musical science, because from this bird has been derived the
minor scale, the origin of which has puzzled so many; the cuckoo’s couplet being the minor third sung downwards. Kircher, however,[81] gives it thus:—
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In Gardiner’s “Music of Nature” it is rendered as follows:—
Cuc-koo, Cuc-koo.