[852] [V. 63. wee will live nowe as wee began.]
[853] [V. 64. Ile have.]
VIII.
WILLOW, WILLOW, WILLOW.
It is from the following stanzas that Shakespeare has taken his song of the Willow, in his Othello, act iv. sc. 3, though somewhat varied and applied by him to a female character. He makes Desdemona introduce it in this pathetic and affecting manner:
"My mother had a maid call'd Barbara:
She was in love; and he, she lov'd, prov'd mad,
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garlànd!And did forsake her. She had a Song of—Willow.
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
And she died singing it."
This is given from a black-letter copy in the Pepys collection, thus intitled, A Lover's Complaint, being forsaken of his Love. To a pleasant tune.
["Willow, willow" was a favourite burden for songs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and one of John Heywood's songs has the following—