Part 23

Sim. To you as much, sir! I am beholding to you For your sweet music this last night: I do Protest, my ears were never better fed With such delightful pleasing harmony.

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 passage 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.

Othello III, i. Cassio brings musicians to salute Othello.

Cass. Masters, play here; I will content your pains: Something that's brief; and bid "Good morrow, general."

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?