Part 17

The threemansong men are more particularly described in Winter's Tale IV, ii, 41.

Clown. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers; three-man song-men all, and very good ones, but they are most of them means and bases; but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.

These musical harvesters square closely with the account given in the Introduction, of music amongst the lower classes. Here were 24 good glee singers, with the single defect that their tenors were very weak, 'most of them means [altos] and basses.' The Puritan was most accommodating, and his singing the words of psalms to the tune of the hornpipe would tend to shew that the Old Adam was not all put away as yet. His compromise with his conscience reminds one of the old stories (all too true) of church singers in the 15th and 16th centuries, who would sing the by no means respectable words of popular comic ditties to the solemn strains of the mass 'l'homme arme,' or whatever well-known melody the music happened to be constructed on.

An example of a threemansong will be found in the Appendix, 'We be soldiers three.'

Shakespeare also alludes to sacred part-music. Falstaff, by his own account, was a notable singer of Anthems, in which holy service he had lost his voice; he was familiar with members of the celebrated choir of St George's Chapel at Windsor; and was not above practising the metrical Psalmody in his sadder moments.

H. 4. B. I, ii, 182.

Chief Justice. Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity, and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

Falstaff. My lord.... For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems.

H. 4. B. II, i, 88.

Hostess. Thou didst swear to me ... upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor.

Hen. 4. A. II, iv, 137. Falstaff laments the degeneracy of the times.

Fal. There live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat, and grows old; God help the while! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything.

This last sentence connects curiously with Sir John Oldcastle, the leader of the Lollards, who were noted for their psalm singing, which indeed gave them the name. These Flemish Protestants, who had fled from the persecutions in their own country, were mostly woollen manufacturers, and were distinguished for their love of Psalmody, throughout the western counties, where they settled. Hence the allusion to 'weavers' and 'Psalms.' But according to the Epilogue of Hen. 4. B., 'Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.'

Falstaff knew well what a Ballad was too--as the following shews:--

Hen. 4. A. II, ii, 43.

Fal. (to Hal.). Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison.

Two other worthy knights claim our attention in the next quotation, which contains many interesting allusions. Inter alia; Sir Toby gives Feste sixpence to sing a song; Sir Andrew follows it up with a 'testril.' The Clown then sings them 'O mistress mine.' [For the original music see Prof. Bridge's 'Shakespeare Songs,' Novello, a collection which every reader of Shakespeare ought to have. Price 2s. 6d.] Then, at Sir Toby's suggestion, they all three sing a catch, or, in his own words, 'draw three souls out of one weaver,' an allusion to the three vocal parts which are evolved from the one melody of the catch, as well as a sly reference to 'weavers' singing catches. (See Introduction.) They sing 'Thou knave,' for which see the Appendix. It is not a good catch, but sounds humorous if done smartly, and perhaps its very roughness suits the circumstances. Next, after Maria's entrance, Toby either quotes the titles, or sings odd lines of four old songs [Appendix]; and when Malvolio comes in, furious with the noise they are making in the middle of the night, he applies precisely those epithets to their proceedings that our histories lead us to expect--e.g., 'gabbling like tinkers,' 'alehouse,' squeaking out your 'cozier's catches' ['cozier' is 'cobbler']. Sir Toby's puns on 'keep time' in ll. 94 and 115 ought not to be missed. To 'keep time' is almost the only virtue a catch singer must have.

Tw. II, iii, 18.

Sir To. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.

Sir And. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has.

L. 30.

Sir And. Now, a song.

Sir To. Come on; there is sixpence for you; let's have a song.

Sir And. There's a testril of me too; if one knight give a----

Clown. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?

Sir To. A love-song, a love-song.

Sir And. Ay, ay; I care not for good life.

Sir And. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.