Part 8

In this connection see the following passage:--

Shrew I, ii, 16.

Petr. 'Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll wring it: I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.'

Here is a pun on 'wring' and 'ring'; and 'sol-fa' is used as an equivalent for 'sing.'

More important still is 'the gamut of Hortensio,' Shrew III, i, 72. [Gam-ut was the name of the Ut of lowest pitch, corresponding to the low G on the first line of our present bass staff, and was marked specially with a Greek Gamma, hence Gam-ut. The word became a synonym for 'the Scale.']

In this passage the names of the notes are simply those to be found in all instruction books of the 16th and 17th centuries.

'Gam-ut I am, the ground of all accord, A-re, to plead Hortensio's passion; B-mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord, C-fa-ut, that loves with all affection: D sol, re, one cliff, two notes have I: E la, mi, show pity or I die.'

Here Hortensio puts in his love-verses under the guise of a musicmaster's Gamut.

The lines may be taken separately as fantastic commentaries on the syllables themselves, as well as having their ulterior meaning for Bianca.

For instance, Gam-ut the lowest note then recognised in the scale, is called 'the ground of all accord.' A-re, I suppose, represents the lover's sigh 'to plead his passion.' B-mi, may be twisted into 'Be mine,' by the light of the remaining words in the line; while 'D sol re, one cliff, two notes have I' obviously refers to Hortensio's disguise. The 'cliff' is what is now called a 'clef,' or 'key,' because its position on the staff gave the 'key' to the position of the semitones and tones on the various lines and spaces. The six notes here mentioned are the G, A, B, C, D, E, in the bass staff. They could only be written (as they are yet) in one clef--namely, the F clef. The expression 'two notes have I,' as applied to the D, means that, in the key of G, D is called Sol; while in the key of C it would have the name Re; just as Hortensio is Hortensio, and at the same time masquerades as a singing-master.

It has been mentioned that the art of adding an extempore counterpoint to a written melody was called 'descant.' The written melody itself was called the 'Plain-song,' and hence the whole performance, plainsong and descant together, came to be known by the term 'Plain-song,' as opposed to the performance of plainsong with a written descant; which was known as 'Prick-song.'

Morley gives us a clear idea that the extempore descant was often a very unsatisfactory performance, at any rate when it was attempted to add more than one extempore part at a time to the plainsong. As he says--'For though they should all be moste excellent men ... it is unpossible for them to be true one to another.' The following passage will be more clear on this light.

H. 5. III, ii, 3. Fight at Harfleur.

Nym. Pray thee, corporal, stay: ... the humour of it is too hot, that is the very plain-song of it.

Pistol. The plain-song is most just, for humours do abound.

* * * * *

L. 41.

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.

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.

By an easy transition we pass to the following:--

Pericles I, i, 81. Pericles addresses the daughter of King Antiochus.