| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
||
|
REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I. 371 |
||
|
|
||
|
sing Queen Dido over a cup, and tell strange news over an ale-jot... you shall be awarded with this punishment, that the rot shall infect your purses, and eat out the bottom before you are aware."—The Penniless Parliament of threadbare Poets, 1608. (Percy Soc. reprint, p. 44.) Prank.—" These are your eyes!
Where were they, Clora, when you fell in love With the old footman for singing Queen Dido ? "
Fletcher's Tlie Captain, act iii., sc. 3. Fletcher again mentions it in act i., sc. 2, of Bonduca, where Petillius says of Junius that he is "in love, indeed in love, most lamentably loving,—to the tune of Queen Dido." At a later date, Sir Robert Howard (speaking of himself) says, " In my younger time I have been delighted with a ballad for its sake; and 'twas ten to one but my muse and I had so set up first: nay, I had almost thought that Queen Dido, sung that way, .was some ornament to the pen of Virgil. I was then a trifler with the lute and fiddle, and perhaps, being musical, might have been willing that words should have their tones, unisons, concords, and diapasons, in order to a poetical gamuth."—Poems and Essays, 8vo., 1673.
A great number of ballads were sung to the tune, either under the name of Queen Dido or of Troy Town. Of these I will only cite the following:—
" The most excellent History of the Duchess of Suffolk's Calamity. To the tune of Queen Dido;" commencing—
" When God had taken for our sin
That prudent prince, King Edward, away." Contained in Strange Histories, or Songes and Sonets, &c, 1607; in the Crown Garland of Golden Roses, 1659; in the Pepys Collection, i. 544; and reprinted in Evans' Old Ballads, iii. 135.
"Of the Inconveniences by Marriage. To the tune of When Troy towne;" beginning— " Fond, wanton youth makes love a god."
Contained in The Golden Garland of Princely Delights, third edit., 1620; also set to music by Robert Jones, and printed in his First Boole of Ayres, fol., 1601.
" The lamentable song of the Lord Wigmore, Governor of Warwick Castle, and the fayre Maid of Dunsmoore," &c.; beginning—
" In Warwickshire there stands a downe, And Dunsmoore-heath it hath to name;" which, in the Crown Garland of Golden Boses, 1612, is to the tune of Diana [and her darlings dear] ; but in the copy in the Bagford Collection is to the tune of Troy Town. (Reprinted by Evans, iii. 226.)
"The Spanish Tragedy: containing the lamentable murder of Horatio and Belimperia; with the pitiful death of old Hieronimo. To the tune of Queen Dido ; beginning— " You that have lost your former joys." Printed at the end of the play of The Spanish Tragedy, in Dodsle/s Old Plays, iii. 203,1825; and by Evans, iii. 288.
" A Looking-glass for Ladies; or a Mirror for Married Women. Tune, Queen Dido, or Troy Town;" commencing—
" When Greeks and Trojans fell at strife." |
||
|
|
||