Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age

Chapter 10

Chapter 101,753 wordsPublic domain

_Page_ 121. "The man of life upright."--In some old MS. copies this poem is ascribed to Francis Bacon: see Hannah's "Poems of Raleigh and Wotton," p. 119. Canon Hannah makes no mention of Campion's claim. Campion distinctly tells us that he wrote both the verses and the music of his songs: and I have no doubt that he was the author of the present lyric, which has more merit than any of Bacon's poems. In an epigram printed in his "Observations in the Art of English Poetry," 1602, there is a striking image that reappears in the present poem:--

"A wise man wary lives yet most secure, Sorrows move not him greatly, nor delights, Fortune and death he scorning only makes _Th' earth his sober inn_, but still heaven his home." (SIG. C2).

Henceforward let nobody claim "The man of life upright" for Bacon.

_Page_ 124. "The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay."--"According to Peacham," says Oliphant ("_Musa Madrigalesca_," p. 45), "there was a virtuous contention between W. Byrd and Ferrabosco who of the two should best set these words; in which according to his (Peacham's) opinion, Ferrabosco succeeded so well that 'it could not be bettered for sweetness of ayre and depth of judgment.'"

_Page_ 124. "The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth."--From the first stanza of a poem printed in the third edition of Sidney's "Arcadia," 1598.

_Page_ 126. "There is a garden in her face."--This poem is also set to music in Alison's "Hour's Recreation," 1606, and Robert Jones' "Ultimum Vale" (1608). Herrick's dainty verses "Cherry-Ripe" are well-known:--

"Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe! I cry: Full and fair ones, come and buy. If so be you ask me where They do grow, I answer,--There, Where my Julia's lips do smile, There's the land or cherry-isle, Whose plantations fully show All the year where cherries grow."

_Page_ 127. "There is a lady sweet and kind."--Printed also in "The Golden Garland of Princely Delights," 1620.

_Page_ 128. "There were three Ravens."--The north-country version of this noble dirge contains some verses of appalling intensity:--

"His horse is to the huntin gane His hounds to bring the wild deer hame; His lady's ta'en another mate, So we may mak our dinner sweet.

"O we'll sit on his bonny breast-bane, And we'll pyke out his bonny gray een; Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair, We'll theek our nest when it blaws bare.

"_Mony a ane for him makes mane, But none sall ken where he is gane: Ower his banes when they are bare, The wind sall blaw for evermair_."

_Page_ 130. "Think'st thou to seduce me," &c.--In William Corkine's "Airs," 1610, this song is found with considerable variations. Corkine gives only three stanzas. The first stanza agrees closely with Campion's text; the second and third stanzas run thus:--

"Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth; He that hath not art to hide, soon falters when he feigneth, And, as one that wants his wits, he smiles when he complaineth.

"If with wit we be deceived our faults may be excused, Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refused, But of all accursed are they that are by fools abused."

_Page_ 131. "Thou art not fair for all thy red and white."--These lines are printed in Dr. Grosart's edition of Donne's poems, vol. ii. p. 259. They are ascribed to Donne in an early MS.; but I see no reason for depriving Campion of them. (The first stanza is also set to music in Thomas Vautor's "Airs," 1619.)

_Page_ 132. "Though Amaryllis dance in green."--Also printed in "England's Helicon," 1600.

_Page_ 148. "We must not part as others do."--These lines are very much in Donne's manner. The MS. from which they are taken (Egerton MS. 2013) contains some undoubted poems of Donne.

_Page_ 151. "Were I a king."--Canon Hannah prints these verses (in his "Poems of Raleigh and Wotton," p. 147) from a MS. copy, in which they are assigned to Edward Earl of Oxford. Appended in the MS. are the following answers:--

"ANSWERED THUS BY SIR P. S. Wert thou a king, yet not command content, Sith empire none thy mind could yet suffice; Wert thou obscure, still cares would thee torment; But wert thou dead all care and sorrow dies. An easy choice, of these three which to crave: No kingdom, nor a cottage, but a grave.

"ANOTHER OF ANOTHER MIND. A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind, A cottage makes a country swad rejoice: And as for death, I like him in his kind But God forbid that he should be my choice! A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,-- Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave; The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy, Till then salute me thus--_Vive le roy_!

"ANOTHER OF ANOTHER MIND. The greatest kings do least command content; The greatest cares do still attend a crown; A grave all happy fortunes doth prevent Making the noble equal with the clown: A quiet country life to lead I crave; A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave."

_Page_ 152. "What is our life?"--A MS. copy of these verses is subscribed "S^r W. R.", _i.e._, Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah's "Poems of Raleigh and Wotton," p. 27.

Compare the sombre verses, signed "Ignoto," in "Reliquiae Wottonianae":--

"Man's life's a tragedy; his mother's womb, From which he enters, is the tiring-room; This spacious earth the theatre, and the stage That country which he lives in: passions, rage, Folly and vice are actors; the first cry The prologue to the ensuing tragedy; The former act consisteth of dumb shows; The second, he to more perfection grows; I' the third he is a man and doth begin To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin; I' the fourth declines; i' the fifth diseases clog And trouble him; then death's his epilogue."

_Page_ 153. "What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?"--Suggested by Spenser's fifteenth sonnet:--

"Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain, And both the Indias of their treasure spoile, What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine? For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found. If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine; If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound; If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round; If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene; If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground; If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene: But that which fairest is but few behold, Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold."

_Page_ 154, l. 1. "And fortune's fate not fearing."--Oliphant boldly reads, for the sake of the rhyme, "And _fickle fortune scorning_."--in "England's Helicon" the text is the same as in the song-book.

_Page_ 158, l. 5. "And when she saw that I was in her danger."--_Within one's danger_ = to be in a person's power or control.

L. 16. "White _Iope_."--Campion must have had in his mind a passage of Propertius (ii. 28);--

"Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum: Pulchra sit in superis, si licet, una locis. Vobiscum est _Iope_, vobiscum candida Tyro, Vobiscum Europe, nec proba Pasiphae."

See Hertzberg's note on that passage.

_Page_ 162. "While that the sun."--Also printed in "England's Helicon," 1600.

LIST OF SONG-BOOKS.

ALISON, RICHARD. _An Hour's Recreation in Music_, 1606.

ATTYE, JOHN. _First Book of Airs of Four Parts_, 1622.

BATESON, THOMAS. _First Set of English Madrigals_, 1604.

BYRD, WILLIAM. _Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety_, 1588. _Songs of Sundry Natures_, 1589. _Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets_, 1611.

CAMPION, THOMAS. _see_ ROSSETER, PHILIP. _Two Books of Airs_ [circ. 1613]. _The Third and Fourth Book of Airs_ [circ. 1613].

CARLTON, RICHARD. _Madrigals to five voices_, 1601.

COPRARIO, JOHN. _Funeral Tears for the death of the Right Honourable the Earl of Devonshire_, 1606.

CORKINE, WILLIAM. _Airs to sing and play to the Lute and Bass-viol_, 1610. _The Second Book of Airs_, 1612.

DANYEL, JOHN. _Songs for the Lute, Viol, and Voice_, 1606.

DOWLAND, JOHN. _The First Book of Songs or Airs of four parts_, 1597. _The Second Book of Songs or Airs, of two, four, and five parts_, 1600. _The Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs_, 1603. _A Pilgrims Solace_, 1612.

DOWLAND, ROBERT. _A Musical Banquet furnished with variety of delicious Airs_, 1610.

EARSDEN, JOHN and MASON, GEORGE. _The Airs that were sung and played at Brougham Castle in Westmoreland_, 1618.

EGERTON, MS. 2013.

ESTE, MICHAEL. _Madrigals to three four and five parts_, 1604.

FARMER, JOHN. _The first set of English Madrigals to four voices_, 1599.

FARNABY, GILES. _Canzonets to four voices_, 1598.

FORD, THOMAS. _Music of sundry kinds_, 1607.

GIBBONS, ORLANDO. _The first set of Madrigals and Mottets_, 1612.

GREAVES, THOMAS. _Songs of sundry kinds_, 1604.

JONES, ROBERT. _The first took of Airs_, 1601. _The second book of Songs and Airs_, 1601. _Ultimum Vale, or the third book of Airs_, 1608. _A Musical Dream, or the Fourth Book of Airs_, 1609.

LICHFILD, HENRY. _The first set of Madrigals to five parts_, 1614.

MAYNARD, JOHN. _The XII wonders of the world_, 1611.

MORLEY, THOMAS. _Canzonets or little short songs to three voices_, 1593. _Madrigals to four voices_, 1594; 1600. _The first book of Ballets to five voices_, 1595.

MUNDY, JOHN. _Songs and Psalms_, 1594.

PEERSON, MARTIN. _Mottects, or grave chamber-music_, 1630.

PILKINGTON, FRANCIS. _The first Book of Songs or Airs_, 1605. _The First Set of Madrigals and Pastorals_, 1613. _The Second Set of Madrigals_, 1624.

RAVENSCROFT, THOMAS. _Pammelia; Music's Miscellany or mixed variety of Pleasant Roundelays_, 1609. _Deuteromelia; or the second part of Music's Melody_, 1609. _Melismata; Musical Fancies fitting the court, city, and country humours_, 1611. _Brief Discourse of the true use of Charact'ring the Degrees, &c._, 1614.

ROSSETER, PHILIP and CAMPION, THOMAS. _A Book of Airs_, 1601.

TOMKINS, THOMAS. _Songs of three, four, five, and six parts_, 1622.

VAUTOR, THOMAS. _The First Set: being songs of divers Airs and Natures, of five and six parts_, 1619.

WARD, JOHN. _The First Set of English Madrigals to three, four, five and six parts_, 1613.

WEELKES, THOMAS. _Madrigals to three, four, five and six voices_, 1597. _Ballets and Madrigals to five voices_, 1598. _Madrigals of five and six parts_, 1600. _Madrigals of six parts_, 1600. _Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices_, 1608.

WILBYE, JOHN. _The First Set of English Madrigals to three, four, five and six voices_, 1598. _The Second Set of English Madrigals to three, four, five and six voices_, 1609.

YONGE, NICHOLAS. _Musica Transalpina: the Second Book of Madrigals to five and six voices_, 1597.

YOULL, HENRY. _Canzonets to three voices_, 1608.

CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Greek has been transliterated in this version of the e-text, and is surrounded by braces, {like this}.

A caret (^) is used to indicate a superscript in "S^r W. R."

"... land in Kent (Malismata)" corrected to "Melismata".

"... full of all heavenby fire" corrected to "heavenly fire".

"She of my love and I of hers had failed" corrected to "failed".

Minor punctuation omissions have been silently corrected.

Inconsistencies in the spelling and hyphenation of words between different songs have been retained.