Shakespeare and Music Part 14

_Per._ It is your grace's pleasure to commend, Not my desert.

_Sim._ Sir, _you are music's master_.

_Per._ The worst of all her scholars, my good lord.

The next quotation is also of 'morning music,' but with a different object--not a lady, but a soldier, and of a somewhat rough and ready kind, to judge by the Clown's critical remarks.

The pa.s.sage seems to indicate the use of Bagpipes; for 'they speak in the _nose_' (see _Merchant_ IV, i, 48), and are called _wind_-instruments, and are mentioned under the name 'pipes' in the last two lines. Moreover, there is the remark of the Clown, represented here by stars, which is terribly appropriate to that instrument.

_Oth.e.l.lo_ III, i. Ca.s.s...o...b..ings musicians to salute Oth.e.l.lo.

_Ca.s.s._ Masters, _play here_; I will content your pains: Something that's brief; and bid "Good morrow, general."

[_Music._]

_Enter Clown._

_Clo._ Why, masters, _have your instruments been in Naples_, that they _speak i' the nose_ thus?

_1 Mus._ How, sir, how?

_Clo._ Are these, I pray you, called _wind_-instruments?

_1 Mus._ Ay, marry, are they, sir.

_Clo._ ... masters, here's money for you; and _the general so likes your music_, that _he desires you_, for love's sake, _to make no more noise with it_.

_1 Mus._ Well, sir, we will not.

_Clo._ If you have _any music that may not be heard_, to't again; but, as they say, to _hear_ music the general does not greatly care.

_1 Mus._ _We have none such_, sir.

_Clo._ Then _put up your pipes in your bag_, for I'll away.

Go; vanish into air, away!

Pandarus appears to be a capital musician. In the following we find him questioning a musical servant of Priam's palace about some instrumental music which is going on within, 'at the request of Paris.' The servant amuses himself by giving 'cross' answers to Pandarus' crooked questions, and in the process gets out two or three musical jokes--_e.g._, '_partly_ know,' 'music _in parts_,' '_wholly_, sir.' Further on, Paris also plays on the term 'broken' music.

_Troilus and Cressida_ III, i, 19.

_Pandarus._ What music is this?

_Servant._ I do but _partly_ know, sir; it is _music in parts_.

_Pandarus._ Know you the _musicians_?

_Serv._ _Wholly_, sir.

_Pan._ Who play they to?

_Serv._ To the hearers, sir.

_Pan._ At whose pleasure, friend?

_Serv._ At mine, sir, and _theirs that love music_.

L. 52.

_Pan._ Fair prince, here is _good broken music_.

_Paris._ _You_ have _broke_ it, cousin; and, by my life, you shall make it whole again: you shall _piece_ it out with a _piece_ of your performance. [To _Helen_] Nell, he [_Pandarus_] is _full of harmony_.

L. 95.

_Pan._ ... Come, _give me an instrument_. [And at Helen's request, Pandarus sings, 'Love, love, nothing but love.']

The custom of having instrumental music in taverns has already been referred to in the Introduction, near the end, where we learn that the charge for playing before the guests was twenty s.h.i.+llings for two hours in Shakespeare's time; also that a man could hardly go into a public house of entertainment without being followed by two or three itinerant musicians, who would either sing or play for his pleasure, while he was at dinner. Accordingly, we find Sir John Falstaff enjoying such a performance at the Boar's Head, Eastcheap.

_H. 4. B._ II, iv, 10.

_1 Drawer._ Why then, cover, and set them down: and see if thou canst find out _Sneak's noise_; Mistress Tearsheet would fain have _some music_. (After supper, in a cooler room.)

_Id._ l. 227.

_Page._ The _music_ is come, sir.

_Falstaff._ Let them _play_.---- _Play_, sirs.

_Id._ l. 380.

_Fal._ _Pay the musicians_, sirrah.

The term 'Sneak's noise' is most interesting. 'Noise' means a company of musicians, and Mr Sneak was the gentleman who gave his name to the particular band of instrumentalists who favoured the Boar's Head.

Milton uses the word, in this sense, in the poem 'At a Solemn Music,'

where the 'saintly shout' of the seraphic choir, with 'loud uplifted angel-trumpets,' 'immortal harps of golden wires,' and the singing of psalms and hymns, are collectively called 'that melodious _noise_.'

Also in his Hymn on the Nativity, verse ix., he has 'stringed _noise_'--_i.e._, band of stringed instruments. The Prayer-book Version (Great Bible) of the Psalms, which was made in 1540, has the word in Ps. lx.x.xi. 1, 'Make a cheerful _noise_ unto the G.o.d of Jacob,' and this in the next verses is said to consist of various musical instruments--_e.g._, the tabret, harp, lute, and trumpet. Also in the Authorised Version of 1611, Ps. x.x.xiii. 3, 'play skilfully with a loud _noise_,' which was the instrumental accompaniment to a 'new song.' The same word is used in several other places, with the meaning of 'music'--_e.g._, Pss. lxvi. 1; xcv. 1, 2; xcviii. 4, 6; c. 1; where 'to make a joyful noise' is represented in the original by the same verb, except in one of the two cases in Ps. xcviii. 4.

The word was still in use in 1680, when Dr Plot was present at the annual Bull-running held by the Minstrels of Tutbury, one of the features of which festivity was a banquet, with 'a Noise of musicians playing to them.'

The reputed cure of the Tarantula's bite by music has already been mentioned. The next three examples are of somewhat similar cases.