_Boy_ (speaks of the 3 rogues).... They will steal anything,
and call it purchase. Bardolph _stole a lute-case_, bore it
twelve leagues, and _sold it for three half-pence_.
Falstaff's worthy body-guard are getting tired of hard knocks in
fight; Nym compares their late activity to a somewhat florid
'plain-song' [meaning an extempore descant, as explained above];
Pistol says it is a 'just' plainsong. A 'just' plainsong would mean
that the singer had managed his extempore descant 'without singing
eyther false chords or forbidden descant one to another.' Similarly,
there is little doubt that both Ancient and Corporal managed to take a
part in the skirmishings with as little damage as possible to their
sconces.
The speech of the boy at l. 41 hardly enrols Bardolph amongst music
lovers. At all events he stole a lute-case, and seems to have liked it
so much that he carried it 36 miles before his worser nature prevailed
on him to sell it for 1-1/2d.
The next quotation still concerns Jack Falstaff and his crew, all of
whom (and strictly in accordance with history) seem to have been sound
practical musicians. This time they are speaking, not of descant, but
of Prick-song. The chiefest virtue in the performance of Prick-song,
by which Falstaff and Nym probably understood both sacred and secular
part-music, is that a man should 'keep time,' religiously counting his
rests, 'one, two, three, and the third in your bosom,' and when he
begins to sing, that he should 'keep time, distance, and proportion,'
as Mercutio says Tybalt did in his fencing, see _Romeo_ II, iv, 20.
All this is thoroughly appreciated by Falstaff and his corporal in the
following lines:--
_Merry Wiv._ I, iii, 25.
_Falstaff_ (of Bardolph) ... his thefts were too open; his
filching was _like an unskilful singer_, he _kept not time_.
_Nym._ The good humour is to _steal at a minim's rest_.
['Minims' is a modern conjecture.]
The metaphor is of an anthem or madrigal, say in four parts. We will
suppose the Hostess of the 'Garter' is taking the _Cantus_, a tapster
the _Altus_, mine Host the _Tenor_, and Nym the _Bassus_. The three
former are all hard at work on their respective 'parts,' one in the
kitchen, another in the taproom, the third in familiar converse
outside the front door. But Nym has 'a minim rest,' and during that
short respite takes advantage of the absorbing occupations of the
other three 'singers' to lay hands on whatever portable property is
within his reach. 'A minim rest' is not much--but the point remains.
Any musician has had experience of what can be done during a short
'rest'--_e.g._, to resin his bow, or turn up the corners of the next
few pages of his music, light the gas, or find his place in another
book.