Shakespeare and Music Part 21

[Music]

Beginning at the 1st complete bar, and reckoning one step to each semibreve--1. Deux simples (ss). 2. Double (d). 3. ss. 4. d. 5. ss.

6. d. 7. ss. 8. d.

The Morisque, which may at all events be compared with the little we know of the Shakespearian Morris dance, seems to have been very violent exercise for the heels (talon). Arbeau mentions that it is bad for the gout. The reader will notice that there is a separate movement for each crotchet in the following tune.

MORISQUE.

[Music]

1. Frappe talon droit (strike right heel).

2. " gaulche (left).

3. " " d.

4. " " g.

5. Frappe talons (perhaps 'strike heels together').

6. Soupir (slight pause).

Repeat, then the second half--1-4, 5-8, 9-12, are same as 1-4, ending with 5, 6, as in the 1st half.

No wonder it was bad for the gout!

VI

MISCELLANEOUS, INCLUDING PYTHAGOREANISM AND SHAKESPEARE'S ACCOUNT OF THE MORE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF MUSIC

A well-known pa.s.sage in _Twelfth Night_ gives us the Opinion of Pythagoras 'concerning wild-fowl.'

The Opinion of Pythagoras 'concerning Music' is at least equally interesting, and is appropriated and a.s.similated by Shakespeare. The particular branch of the Pythagorean system with which we are concerned, is that which treats of the Music of the Spheres. Besides the two pa.s.sages here quoted, there are others dealing with this subject--_e.g._,

_Ant._ V, ii, 84, 'the tuned spheres'; _Twelf._ III, i, 115, 'music from the spheres'; _Per._ V, i, 226, 'The music of the spheres.'

'This, Pythagoras, first of all the Greeks [560 B.C.] conceived in his mind; and understood that the spheres sounded something concordant, because of the necessity of proportion, which never forsakes celestial beings.'[22]

[Footnote 22: Hist. of Philos., by Thomas Stanley, edit. 1701.]

'Pythagoras, by musical proportion, calleth that a tone, by how much the moon is distant from the earth: from the moon to Mercury the half of that s.p.a.ce, and from Mercury to Venus almost as much; from Venus to the Sun, sesquiple [_i.e._, half as much more as a tone]; from the Sun to Mars, a tone, that is as far as the moon is from the earth: from Mars to Jupiter, half, and from Jupiter to Saturn, half, and thence to the zodiac, sesquiple.'

'Thus there are made _seven tones_, which they call a _diapason_ harmony, that is, an _universal concent_, in which Saturn moves in the Doric mood, Jupiter in the Phrygian, and in the rest the like.'

'Those sounds which the seven planets, and the sphere of fixed stars, and that which is above us, termed by them Antichton [opposite the earth], make, Pythagoras affirmed to be the Nine Muses; but the composition and symphony ... he named Mnemosyne [Memory, the Mother of the Muses].'

Censorinus, a Roman Grammarian, B.C. 238, in his book De Die Natali, says--

'To these things we may add what Pythagoras taught, namely, that the whole world was constructed according to musical ratio, and that the seven planets ... have a rhythmical motion and distances adapted to musical intervals, and emit sounds, every one different in proportion to its height [Saturn was said to be the highest, as it is the farthest away, and was supposed to give the gravest note of the heavenly Diapason, which note was therefore called Hypate, or 'highest'], which sounds are so concordant as to produce a most sweet melody, though _inaudible to us by reason of the greatness of the sounds_, which the narrow pa.s.sages of our ears are not capable of admitting.'

These extracts fairly represent the ancient opinion about the Music of the spheres. There was a strong tendency last century to revive the notion, and even to our modern ideas, with our Copernican astronomy, there remains at least the possibility of drawing fantastical a.n.a.logies between the proportionate distances of the planets and the proportionate vibration numbers of the partial tones in a musically vibrating string or pipe.

The idea of the musical Chorus or dance of the heavenly bodies was perfectly familiar to all writers in the 16th and 17th centuries. An excellent example is in Paradise Lost, Book V., in the twelve lines beginning 'So spake the Omnipotent.' Even finer is the 13th verse of the Nativity Hymn.

'Ring out, ye crystal spheres, Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, And let the ba.s.s of heaven's deep organ blow; And, with your nine-fold harmony, Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.'

No one could help thinking of the text in Job x.x.xviii. 7, 'When the morning stars sang together,' in this connection, and Milton naturally refers to it in the previous verse.

Here follow the two Shakespeare extracts. The second one is full of beauty of every kind, but the Pythagoreanism is in the last six lines, with Shakespeare's own view about _why_ we cannot hear the heavenly music.

_As You Like It_ II, vii, 5.

_Duke Senior_ [of Jaques].

If he, _compact of jars_, grow musical, We shall have shortly _discord in the spheres_.

_Merchant_ V, i, 51.

_Lor._ My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you, Within the house, your mistress [Portia] is at hand; And _bring your music forth into the air_.

[_Exit_ STEPHANO.

(Lorenzo and Jessica alone.)

_Lor._ How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here we will sit, and _let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night, Become the touches of sweet harmony_.

L. 60.

There's not the _smallest orb_, which thou behold'st, _But in his motion like an angel sings_, Still _quiring_ to the young-ey'd cherubims; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But, _whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it_.

This is finer than Pythagoras.

The next three pa.s.sages are concerned with the 'fantasie' of Music.

Jaques gives an opinion in a general form--viz., that the musician's 'melancholy' is 'fantastical'; Mariana and the Duke speak of a certain _doubleness_ that may be noticed in the action of music on the mind.

Jessica is 'never merry' when she hears sweet music: Lorenzo descants on the evident effects of music on even hardened natures; while Portia and Nerissa preach a neat little sermon on the text 'Nothing is good without respect,' with musical ill.u.s.trations of the powerful influence of time and place--_e.g._, the silence of night, makes the music sound sweeter than by day; the crow sings as well as the lark, if the circ.u.mstances favour the crow, or if the lark is not present to give immediate comparison; and even the nightingale's song is no better than the wren's, 'by day, when every goose is cackling.'

_As You_ IV, i, 13.

_Jaques._ I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the _musician's_, which is _fantastical_, etc.

_Measure for Measure_ IV, i, 12. Enter Duke, disguised as a friar (after Song).

_Mariana._ I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish You had not found me here _so musical_: Let me excuse me, and believe me so, My _mirth it much displeased_, but _pleas'd my woe_.

_Duke._ 'Tis good: though _music oft hath such a charm, To make bad good, and good provoke to harm_.

_Merchant_ V, i, 66. Enter musicians.