Good now, sit down [2nd person], and tell me, he [3rd person] that knows, why this same strict and most.-Hamlet, i. I. And occasionally he makes a speaker address in the second person some one who is not present :— Why blame you me to love you?-Whom do you speak to, "Why blame you me to love you?"-To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.-As You L., V. 2. My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer, Pry'thee, return! with thy approach, I know.-H. VIII., ii. 4. No And, thou great-siz'd coward, space of earth shall sunder our two hates: I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still.-Tr. & Cr., v. II. I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me.-Coriol., i. 10. Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius.—Jul. C., iv. 3. Thou hast one daughter, Who redeems nature from the general curse.-Lear, iv. 6. Antony, Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel Did famine follow, &c., &c. [to the end of speech].-Ant. & C., i. 4. What monsters her accuse? Leonatus! O master! what a strange infection Is fallen into thy ear! &c., &c.-Cym., iii. 2. Pisanio, I'll now taste of thy drug.—Ibid., iv. 2. Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done't! though valour And, in the following passage, he causes a speaker to apostrophise the absent and the present together : What have you done? Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd? Whose reverence the head-lugg'd bear would lick, Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded. Could my good brother suffer you to do it ?—Lear, iv. 2. MUSICAL TERMS. So frequent and so apt is Shakespeare's use of musical terms and his introduction of them into various passages of his works, that he might as well be supposed to have been a musician as a lawyer [See LEGAL PHRASES]; but we believe that his knowledge of musical terms no more proves him to have been a practical musician than his acquaintance with legal expressions shows him to have practised the law. From professional men in both pursuits, he was able—with his capacity for gathering whatever might turn to profit in his art as poet dramatist-to acquire even the large amount of familiarity with the and several technicalities in each vocation that he has displayed. He has more than once introduced some of the Guidonian names for the notes in the musical scale-ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si : Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir.-Love's L. L., iv. 2. A re, to plead Hortensio's passion, B mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord, C fa ut, that loves with all affection; D sol re, one cliff, two notes have I: E la mi, show pity, or I die.-Ibid., iii. 1 (Gamut). I'll re you, I'll fa you; do you note me ?- —R. & Jul., iv. 5. These eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.—Lear, i. 2. He uses some of the terms belonging to musical notation : One cliff, two notes have I.-Tam. of S., iii. 1. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she's noted.-Tr. & Cr., v. 2. As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, And stand a comma* 'tween their amities.-Hamlet, v. 2. Do it in notes.-Note this before my notes, There's not a note of mine that 's worth the noting.- Note, notes, forsooth, and, nōthing†.-M. Ado, ii. 3. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the nothing↑ of it.— W. T., iv. 3. I will carry no crotchets.-R. & Jul., iv. 5. Rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in.—Ibid., ii. 4. ... To teach you gamut. I am past my gamut long ago.-Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.-Gamut I am, the ground of all accord. . . Tam. of S., iii. 1. Call you this gamut ?— He uses several terms pertaining to musical instruments : It is a vice in her ears, which horse-hairs and calves'-guts.-Cym., ii. 3. What say you, Simon Catling ?—R. & Jul., iv. 5. Unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.-Tr. & Cr., iii. 3. An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here's my fiddlestick.-R. & Jul., iii. 1. Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Hamlet, iii. 2. Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me. I did but tell her she mistook her frets, And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering; "Frets, call you these?" quoth she; "I'll fume with them.” 6 Tam. of S., ii. 1. * Some commentators have supposed that the word "comma" here means the smallest point in punctuation; but, considering the context of the whole passage, we think it is not so likely that he used a term in punctuation, as a term referring to concord. "Comma" is employed by theoretical musicians to express the least of all the sensible intervals in music,' showing the exact proportion between concords. Tuners of organs and pianofortes use the word "comma "thus to the present day. We believe that Shakespeare used "comma" here to express a link of amicably harmonious connection. + Shakespeare was evidently so tickled with this pun, that he could not resist repeating the play upon the word between nothing (sounded with a long o) and noting. How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, To kiss the tender inward of thy hand . . . Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.-Sonnet 128. Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lute-string, and now governed by stops.-M. Ado, iii. 2. The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prosper: it did base my trespass.-Temp., iii. 3. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, est.-John, v. 7. O, you are well tun'd now! Open your ears; for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? ... ... Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures; And of so easy and so plain a stop, That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, Can play upon it.—2 H. IV. (Induc.) That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she pleases.-Hamlet, iii. 2. Look you, these are the stops.. you would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops.-Ibid., iii. 2. Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb.—Ibid., iii. 2. He acts thy greatness in.-Tr. & Cr., i. 3. But this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs, He makes mention of several musical instruments : And others, when the bag-pipe sings i' the nose... why he, a swollen bag-pipeMer. of V., iv. I. No, the bag-pipe could not move you.-W. T., iv. 3. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bag-pipe.—1 H. IV., i. 2. He that went, like a base-viol, in a case of leather.-Com. of E., iv. 3. What is this?-A cittern head.-Love's L. L., v. 2. I have known, when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe.-M. Ado, ii. 3. And when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife.-Mer. of V., ii. 5. Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife.-Oth., iii. 3. The oars were silver, which to the tune of flutes kept stroke.—Ant. & C., ii. 2. These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!—Ibid., ii. 7. His word is more than the miraculous harp.-Temp., ii. 1. To be sung by an Athenian eunuch to the harp.-Mid. N. D., v. 1. The case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him.-2 H. IV., iii. 2. As sweet and musical as bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.-Love's L. L., iv. 3. Take you the lute; and you the set of books.-Tam. of S., ii. 1. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.-1 H. IV., i. 2. Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, With ravishing division, to her lute.-Ibid., iii. 1. And, like thee, Nero, play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.—1 H. VI., i. 4. He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.-R. III., i. 1. Take thy lute, wench. . . . Orpheus with his lute.-H. VIII., iii. 1. Or when to the lute she sung.-Per., iv. (Gower). Upon the lute doth ravish ... that Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes.— Pass. Pil., Stanza 6. Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck ?-R. & Jul., iv. 5. Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder.-Mid. N. D., v. I. Come, some music! come, the recorders! . Oh, the recorders: let me see one.-Hamlet, iii. 2. The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes, Stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor stands by the church.-Tw. N., iii. 1. He plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book.-Tw. N., i. 3. He uses several terms for tunes, or pieces of music : Will you troll the catch you taught me. . . . This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture.-Temp., iii. 2. Now let's have a catch. ... Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch. at a catch. . . . Let our catch be, "Thou knave."-Tw. N., ii. 3. We did keep time in our catches.—Ibid., ii. 3. Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd.-1 H. IV., iii. 1. For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty.-Pass. Pil., Stanza 11. And there sung the dolefull'st ditty.—Ibid., 15. To their instruments tune a deploring dump.-Two G. of V., iii. 2. I am dog Play me some merry dump, to comfort me.-Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.-R. & Jul., iv. 5. Sing no more ditties, sing no mo Of dumps so dull and heavy.-M. Ado, ii. 3 (Song). An old hat and "the humour of forty fancies" pricked in 't for a feather.Tam. of S., iii. 2. And sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the carman whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-nights.—2 H. IV., iii. 2. And profound Solomon tuning a jig.—Love's L. L., iv. 3. She dances as goddess-like to her admired lays.-Per., v. (Gower). He employs some technicalities of musical execution : And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering.-Tam. of S., ii. 1. Madam, before you touch the instrument, To learn the order of my fingering.—Ibid., iii. 1. Come, on, tune: if you can penetrate her with your fingering, so.—Cym., ii. 3. Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb.-Hamlet, iii. 2. A sound, but not in government.—Mid. N. D., v. I. And to the nightingale's complaining notes -Two G. of V., v. 4. Made the night-bird mute, that still records with moan.-Per., iv. (Gower). And turn his merry note unto the sweet bird's throat.-As You L., ii. 5 (Song). How? out of tune on the strings.-Not so; but yet so false, that he grieves my very heart-strings.-Ibid., iv. 2. It is too sharp. . . . Nay, now you are too flat.—Ibid., ii. 1. It is the lark that sings so out of tune.-R. & Jul., iii. 5. Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.—Hamlet, iii. 1. And scald rhymers ballad us out o' tune.-Ant. & C., v. 2. His lecture will be done, ere you have tuned.-Tam. of S., iii. 1. Though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.You are deceived, sir; we kept time, we lost not our time.-As You L., v. 3. ... We did keep time, sir, in our catches out o' time, sir? ye lie.-Tw. N., ii. 3. And several technicalities of musical nomenclature:- 'Tis now in tune.-All but the base. The base is right.-Tam. of S., iii. 1. I have sounded the very base string of humility.-1 H. IV., ii. 4. Is there any one else longs to see this broken music.*-As You L., i. 2. Come, your answer in broken music.-H. V., v. 2. Fair prince, here is good broken music.-Tr. & Cr., iii. 1. And boding screech-owls make the concert full !—2 H. VI., iii. 2. Visit by night your lady's chamber-window with some sweet consort.-Two G. of V., iii. 2. Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. . . . Zounds, consort !—R. & Jul., iii. 1. I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder.-Mid. N. D., iv. 1. How shall we find the concord of this discord ?—Ibid., v. I. "Broken music" was an old English technicality for music performed on stringed instruments. |