The Penguin Book of English Song

by Richard Stokes

  2. Love.

  1. adapt, copy the bird’s song.

  1. cruel and contrary to nature.

  2. Evergreen holly was venerated and considered to have some connection with the word ‘holy’.

  3. turn to ice.

  1. Refers to the exchanging of wedding rings and the ringing of the wedding bells.

  2. unploughed ridges in an open field.

  3. spring-time at its prime.

  1. i.e. pilgrim’s dress.

  2. decked.

  1. opened.

  2. Jesus.

  3. A common corruption of ‘God’, but also a telling sexual double entendre. Victor Hugo translated: ‘Par Priape! ils sont à blâmer.’

  1. head. The reference is to Ophelia’s father, Polonius.

  1. An allegorical figure in Iconologia (1593), where Patience is shown seated on a stone with a yoke on her shoulders and her feet on thorns.

  1. The song dates from 1942, when Finzi was working in the Ministry of War Transport, a job that he, as a humanist, detested, as this extract from a letter to Toty de Navarro (15 May 1942) makes clear: ‘I have managed to do a pleasant light, troubadorish setting of “O mistress mine” […] But it has taken me more than 3 months to do its four pages. So you’ll know that I’m still baulked, thwarted, fretted, tired, good for nothing and utterly wasting my time in this dismal occupation.’

  1. be gone!

  2. bewail.

  3. corpse.

  1. trifle.

  2. sots.

  1. wickedness, evil.

  2. supernatural.

  3. ‘Posset is hot milk poured on ale or sack, having sugar, grated bisket, eggs, with other ingredients boiled in it, which goes all to a curd’ (Randle Holmes, Academy of Armourie, 1688).

  4. Lady Macbeth hears the clock striking.

  1. small, winking, half-shut eyes – the result of over-indulgence.

  1. marigolds with closed eyes.

  1. thunder-bolt.

  2. submit.

  3. one who raises spirits.

  4. Let Us Garlands Bring was dedicated to Vaughan Williams on his seventieth birthday, and his wife, Ursula, thought that ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ was ‘one of the most perfect songs ever written’.

  1. female beggar.

  2. thieving.

  3. bawds.

  1. occupy, possess it.

  2. driving mist, fog.

  1. refrain.

  1. Every part of Ferdinand’s father’s body, though destined to decay, will be transformed into something rich and rare, such as coral or pearls.

  1. dull grey.

  2. dappled.

  3. breathes forth.

  4. walk.

  5. ‘she’, in line 14, = ‘woman’. The meaning of the final couplet is: ‘I think my sweetheart is as special as any woman misrepresented by false comparisons.’

  1. sleep, shut my eyes.

  1. Dowland’s song was published in The Third and Last Booke of Songs or Aires. Most of the lovely poems set by Dowland are anonymous and therefore not included here.

  1. That kindles the jealousy of new lovers.

  1. the name of a countrywoman in Virgil’s Eclogues.

  2. Campion intends an obscene pun (cf. Hamlet, Act III, sc. ii, 123), which is reinforced in the penultimate line of each verse with the alliterative cluster of ‘c’s and the assonance of ‘come’ and ‘comfort’. The rustic nature of the poem is mirrored in the music, which resembles a country dance.

  1. a thin material like crepe, often dyed black and used for mourning.

  2. seize.

  3. crazed.

  4. prey upon, like a falcon tearing a victim with its beak.

  1. Cf. Petrarch, Rime Sparse, 151: ‘Non d’atra et tempestosa onda marina/Fuggio in porto giamai stanco nocchiero […]’ (‘Never weary pilot fled to port from the cruel storm of the ocean as I flee …’)

  2. longed for.

  3. spirit.

  1. The song is sung in Act IV, sc. ii, by Janicola, a basket-maker and father to Grissil.

  1. In the comedy the song is sung by Patient Grissil’s father.

  1. From The Shoemaker’s Holiday. There is no indication at which point in the play the song should be sung, and it was perhaps a later addition.

  2. joyous.

  3. The name suggests cuckoldry. ‘O word of feare,/Vnpleasing to a married eare’ (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, sc. ii, 888–9).

  1. From The Shoemaker’s Holiday. The song is prefaced by the instruction: This is to be sung at the latter end – perhaps at the very end of the play.

  2. patron saint of shoemakers.

  3. pass round.

  4. the traditional colour of beer.

  5. sing in unison with the boy who has been singing solo tenor.

  6. let joy reach its fullest range.

  1. This lovely song forms part of Ferrabosco’s Ayres, published in 1609, which contains commendatory verses by Campion and Jonson, who was a close friend. Though of Italian extraction, Ferrabosco was born in England and became Composer-in-ordinary to Charles I.

  2. evaporates.

  3. darken.

  4. unless.

  1. Izaak Walton, in The Life of Dr. John Donne, tells us that Donne set this poem (it is called ‘To Christ’ in the manuscript and ‘A hymne to God the Father’ in the printed version) to a solemn tune that used to be sung by the choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral. Donne confided to a friend that the hymn ‘restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possest my Soul in my sickness when I composed it. And, O the power of Church-musick! that Harmony, added to this Hymn has raised the Affections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe, that I always return from paying this publick duty of Prayer and Praise to God, with an inexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the world.’

  2. original sin, into which mankind was born as a consequence of the fall.

  3. Each refrain contains two puns: one on his name (Donne/done) and one on his wife’s maiden name Ann (More/more).

  4. Cf. the three Fates who spun out the thread of human life.

  1. become acquainted with.

  2. such affected fashions.

  3. cancel, break.

  4. that will have none of you.

  1. death sentence.

  2. but condemned and dragged to execution. Five syllables.

  1. the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

  2. A metaphor that suggests the fortress of the heart, possessed by Satan, which God must open with a battering-ram.

  3. Reason should defend me against Satan, who has usurped my heart.

  4. long to be loved.

  5. enslave.

  6. The poem, chosen by the director Peter Sellars, is introduced – to devastating effect – into the final scene of Doctor Atomic, the opera by John Adams.

  1. suffering and tolerance of ‘Idolatry’.

  2. insatiably thirsty.

  3. prowling at night.

  1. Pronounce as four syllables.

  2. changeable.

  3. Pronounce as four syllables.

  4. inexplicably disordered.

  5. fever accompanied by sporadic shaking.

  1. crucifix.

  2. overwhelming, terrifying.

  3. to his soul.

  1. Donne’s wife, Ann, died on 15 August 1617, aged thirty-three.

  2. source.

  3. unquenchable thirst.

  4. fear.

  1. carry.

  2. Satan.

  3. a magnet.

  1. Donne’s own attitude to death is clearly documented. He wrote a treatise on suicide called Biathanatos, in which he claimed that Jesus committed suicide. As for his own feelings, he wrote to a friend: ‘I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him merely seize me, and only declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me.’ As death approached, Donne got dressed in his shroud to have his portrait taken. Izaak Walton, his first biographe
r, describes his last moments: ‘[…] he was so happy to have nothing to do but to dye […] As […] his last breath departed from him, he closed his own eyes; and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required not the least alteration by those that came to shroud him.’

  1. Written for Peter Pears, who comments in the sleeve note that accompanies his Argo recording: ‘Whereas the medievals for the most part dispensed with any harmonic implications, here the composer has suggested a strong harmonic skeleton behind the solo voice, to fine effect: in the last section the use of different registers of the voice vividly underlines Donne’s wonderful text.’ Priaulx Rainier’s Cycle for Declamation was sung at her memorial service.

  1. ‘Now with slow sound (tolling) they say, you will die.’

  1. Though Jonson’s poem is based on the Epistles of Philostratus, it is not so much a translation as a synthesis of scattered passages. The similarities are startling, as these extracts from Philostratus show: ‘So set the cups down and leave them alone, especially for fear of their fragility; and drink to me only with your eyes; it was such a draught that Zeus too drank – and took to himself a lovely boy to bear his cup. And, if it please you, do not squander the wine, but pour in water only, and, bringing it to your lips, fill the cup with kisses and so pass it to the thirsty’ (33); ‘I first and foremost, when I see you, feel thirst, and against my will stand still, and hold the cup back; and I do not bring it to my lips, but I know that I am drinking of you’ (32); ‘And if ever you sip from the cup all that is left becomes warmer with your breath and sweeter than nectar. At all events it slips by a clear passage down to the throat, as if it were mingled not with wine but with kisses’ (60); ‘I have sent you a garland of roses, not to honour you (though I would like to do that as well), but to do a favour to the roses themselves, so that they may not wither’ (2). The beautiful melody of ‘Drinke to me, onely, with thine eyes’ is traditional; the first known copy was published in London around 1790 as ‘A favourite glee for three voices’.

  2. Jonson’s views on literary borrowings can be found in Discoveries: ‘The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, to be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use […] Not to imitate servilely (as Horace saith) and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey […]’

  1. Sung to Celia by Volpone in Act III of Volpone. The poem is actually a version of Catullus’s famous poem ‘Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus’, which Jonson later included in The Forrest.

  2. try, taste.

  3. trifles.

  1. Salomon was a thirteen-year-old boy chorister-actor who, according to Jonson’s conceit, acted the roles of old men with such conviction that the Fates took pity on him. He acted in Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels and The Poetaster.

  2. The Fates.

  1. From Cynthia’s Revels, Act I, sc. ii. The play was premiered at the Blackfriars Theatre in January 1600 by the Children of the Chapel, a theatre company that consisted solely of boy actors, who were chosen for their looks and voices, before being trained.

  2. A ‘division’ is both the dividing of slow notes into quick ones, and separation from a person.

  1. It is sung in Act II, sc. vi, of The Devil is an Ass (1616) by Wittipol, a young Gallant, who with his friend Manly seeks to seduce Mrs Frances Fitzdottrel, the wife of a foolish country squire. For a fuller version of the poem, see ‘Her Triumph’ from Under-woods.

  2. The last ten lines were also set by Delius, as one of his Four Old English Lyrics (1919), and Elizabeth Maconchy (1930).

  1. from Cynthia’s Revels, Act IV, sc. iii.

  1. Sung in Cynthia’s Revels, Act V, sc. vi, by Hesperus. Diana (Cynthia) is the goddess of the moon, chastity and hunting. Hesperus is the name given to the planet Venus when it appears after sunset.

  1. Shakespeare’s first stanza, based on the Latin poem ‘Ad Lydiam’, occurs at the beginning of the fourth act of Measure for Measure? (?1604). Fletcher’s Rollo Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother? (c.1616) prints the second stanza, which most critics now attribute to Fletcher. John Wilson, who composed music for the King’s Men from about 1615 to 1634, was succeeded in that post by William Lawes.

  1. The poem comes from Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy (1610–11), Act II, sc. i., where it is sung by Aspatia. When she has finished, Evadne exclaims: ‘Thats one of your sad songs Madame […] The words are so strange, they are able to make one dreame of hobgoblines.’ Warlock set the poem twice, once for voice and piano or string quartet (1922), and once for orchestra as no. 1 of Two Songs for Soprano and Small Orchestra (1925–8).

  1. The poem comes from Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Woman Hater (1607), where it is sung in Act III, sc. i, by Oriana. She prefaces the song with an aside: ‘I had rather sing at dores for bread, then sing to this fellow [Gondarino], but for hate: if this should be told in the Court, that I begin to woe Lords, what a troop of the untrust nobilitie should I have at my lodging tomorrow morning.’ When she has finished the song, Gondarino says: ‘Have you done your wassayle, tis a handsome drowsie dittie ile assure yee; now I had as leeve here a Catte cry, when her taile is cut off, as heare these lamentations, these lowsie love-layes, these bewaylements; you thinke you have caught me Ladie, you thinke I melt now, like a dish of May butter, and runne, all into brine, and passion; yes, yes, I am taken, looke how I crosse my armes, looke pale, and dwyndle, and woo’d cry, but for spoyling my face; we must part, nay we’l avoyd all Ceremony, no kissing Ladie, I desire to know your Ladiship no more. –’

  1. The song is sung in the play by one of Queen Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting, and is introduced by the Queen, who says: ‘Take thy Lute wench,/My Soule growes sad with troubles/Sing, and disperse ’em if thou canst: leaue working.’

  2. rested.

  3. deadly worry.

  1. ‘To M. Henry Lawes, the excellent Composer of his Lyricks’ Touch but thy Lire (my Harrie) and I heare

  From thee some raptures of the rare Gotire.

  Then if thy voice commingle with the String,

  I hear in thee rare Laniere to sing;

  Or curious Wilson: Tell me, canst thou be

  Less than Apollo, that usurp’st such Three?

  Three, unto whom the whole world give applause;

  Yet their Three praises, praise but One; that’s Lawes.

  1. ‘Upon M. William Lawes, the rare Musitian’ Sho’d I not put on Blacks, when each one here

  Comes with his Cypresse, and devotes a teare?

  Sho’d I not grieve (my Lawes) when every Lute,

  Violl, and Voice, is (by thy losse) struck mute?

  Thy loss, brave man! whose Numbers have been hurl’d,

  And no less prais’d, then spread throughout the world.

  Some have Thee call’d Amphion; some of us,

  Nam’d thee Terpander, or sweet Orpheus:

  Some this, some that, but all in this agree,

  Musique had both her birth and death with Thee.

  1. ‘This most popular of Hatton’s songs owes much stylistically to Schumann, whose songs he had edited for English consumption. Even so, it is still an extremely fresh composition and one that richly deserves space in any collection of the best songs of the nineteenth century from the best composers, although it would be tactful, perhaps, to leave a space between it and Schumann’s “Ich grolle nicht” ’ (Michael R. Turner and Antony Miall from Just a Song at Twilight, 1975).

  2. protesting or declaring his devotion.

  1. The Catherine pear is streaked with red. Cf. Suckling’s ‘Ballad on a Wedding’: ‘streaks of red were mingled there,/Such as are on a Katherine Pear’.

  1. to confiscate property for debt.

  2. Hesperus.

  1. A street-vendor’s cry.

  1. The shape of the poem on the page resembles an hour-glass, underlining the theme of transience.