_Bru._ Boy!--Lucius!--Varro! Claudius! sirs, awake!--Claudius!
_Luc._ [asleep]. _The strings_, my lord, _are false_.
_Bru._ He thinks he still is _at his instrument_.
In _Henry VIII._ III, i is a case of the same kind.
_Queen Catherine._ Take thy _lute_, wench: my soul grows sad with
troubles:
_Sing, and disperse them_, if thou canst. Leave working.
[Song. 'Orpheus.']
The next passage brings us to another class of music--viz., dirges,
funeral songs, or 'good-nights.' [See _H. 4. B._ III, ii, 322]. In
_Cymbeline_ IV, ii, 184, Cadwal (Arviragus) sounds an 'ingenious
instrument' to signify Imogen's death. Polydore (Guiderius) says they
had not used it since their mother died. The song, or more properly,
duet, which they sing directly after, in memory of Imogen, may be
taken in this connection. Unfortunately there seems to be no musical
setting of 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun' any older than 1740.
In the following quotation 'dirges' are mentioned by name.
_Rom._ IV, iv, 21.
_Capulet._ ... "Good faith! 'tis day:
The county [Count Paris] will be here _with music_ straight."
Sc. v. 84.
_Cap._ All things, that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our _instruments_ to _melancholy bells_;
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our _solemn hymns_ to _sullen dirges_ change.
In close connection with these funeral songs is the passage in _Hen.
VIII._ IV, ii, 77, where Queen Katherine, sick, requests her
gentleman-usher to get the musicians to play a favourite piece of this
class--
... Good Griffith,
Cause the musicians play me _that sad note
I named my knell_, whilst I sit meditating
On that celestial harmony I go to.
[She sleeps, then, waking from the vision--]
... Bid the music leave,
They are harsh and heavy to me.
It would be of great interest if it were possible to identify Queen
Katherine's 'Knell.'
There is an old song, given in Chappell's Popular Music, 'O Death,
rock me to sleep,' which might be the very one, for both music and
words are singularly appropriate. The Refrain is as follows:--
'Tole on thou passing bell
Ringe out my dolefull _knell_
Let thy sound my death tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedye.'
The song is most plaintive, and has a very striking feature in the
shape of a real independent accompaniment, which keeps up a continual
figure of three descending notes, like the bells of a village church.
Hawkins gives the poem, with certain variations, and two extra verses
at the beginning, the first commencing--
'Defiléd is my name full sore,
Through cruel spite and false report.'
and he says the verses are thought to have been written by Anne
Boleyn. Hawkins also gives music (in four parts) to the first two
verses, by Robt. Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare's. The music
of the song in Chappell is much older than that; indeed, it is very
possibly of Hen. VIII.'s time.
V