In Love's Labours Lost, a sweet air, as Armado terms it, commencing with the word Concolinel, is sung by Moth[580:D], but no further intimation is given; and in another part of the same comedy, the burden of an ancient ditty is chaunted by Roseline and Boyet.[580:E] In As You Like It Touchstone quotes a stanza from a ballad of which the first line is O sweet Oliver, and which appears to be the same with the ballad of
"O sweete Olyver
Leave me not behinde thee,"
entered by Richard Jones, on the books of the Stationers' Company, August 6th, 1584[580:F]; and in the subsequent act, Orlando alludes to a madrigal under the title of Wit whither wilt.[580:G]
All's Well that Ends Well affords but two passages from the minstrel poesy of the day, which are put into the mouth of the clown;
one of these is evidently taken from a ballad on the Sacking of Troy, and the other seems to have been the chorus of a song on courtship or marriage.[581:A]
From the Taming of the Shrew we collect the initial lines of two apparently very popular ballads; the first beginning Where is the life that late I led[581:B], which is likewise quoted by Ancient Pistol[581:C], and referred to in A gorgious Gallery of gallant Inventions, 4to. 1578; there is also a song or sonnet with this title, observes Mr. Malone, in a handeful of pleasant Delites, containing sundrie new Sonets, &c. 1584, where we read of "Dame Beautie's replie to the lover late at libertie, and now complaineth himselfe to be her captive, intituled, Where is the life that late I led:
"The life that erst thou led'st, my friend,
Was pleasant to thine eyes," &c.[581:D]
The second fragment with which Petruchio has favoured us, commencing