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The Songs in Lyly's Plays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John Robert Moore
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Extract

Lyly's authorship of the songs in his plays was challenged two decades ago by Dr. Greg, who presented apparently decisive evidence that they are post-Lylian. Since then, however, the question has been re-opened by Mr. Lawrence's interesting discussion—recently accepted as convincing by Dr. Reed—which casts doubt on Dr. Greg's implied attribution of some or all of the songs to Dekker, and re-affirms Lyly's claims.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 1927 , pp. 623 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 W. W. Greg, “The Authorship of the Songs in Lyly's Plays,” Mod. Lang. Review, I, 1905.

2 W. J. Lawrence, “The Problem of Lyly's Songs,” London Times Lit. Suppl., Dec. 20, 1923.

3 E. B. Reed, Songs from the British Drama, New Haven, 1925. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, in his lecture on John Lyly (Manchester 1924, pp. 18, 20-22, reprinted from The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, VIII, 2), makes some interesting ramarks on the literary style of the songs; but he does not discuss the mooted question of their authorship, which he attributes to Lyly without comment.

4 He calls the Sun “Lord and Father,” and speaks of riding “in my Fathers Chariot”; but he says explicitly that he is “grand child to the Sun.”

5 The text followed throughout is that of the first quarto of The Sun's-Darling, London, 1656.

6 Dr. Greg urges the confusion of the nightingale with the skylark here as evidence in favor of his contention that this is the original song, and that the version in Campaspe is a careful revision. Most of the arguments which he advances seem to me cogent; but the error here is hardly surprising, like Milton's confusion of the skylark with the robin. The habits of the nightingale are almost never presented with accuracy by English poets, even such close observers as Shakespeare and Tennyson making the singer a female, as here and in the classic legend. Dr. Greg has raised a more serious question by pointing out that, as the song appears in Blount, “prick-song” is erroneously applied to the solitary song of the nightingale rather than to the supposed harmony of the cuckoos. This would count heavily against Lyly's claim to the song; but the term is to be explained as a favorite pun of the age, with its three-fold allusion (to music, the thorn against which the bird was supposed to lean, and the classic legend). Cf. Middleton's Father Hubburd's Tales, “The Ant's Tale when he was a soldier” (Works, Bullen ed., VIII, 88): “most musical and prickle-singing madam (for, if I err not, your ladyship was the first that brought up prick-song, being nothing else but the fatal notes of your pitiful ravishment. . . .”

7 Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., VI, 54.

8 F. G. Fleay, A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, London, 1891, I, 232; W. W. Greg, Henslowe's Diary, London, 1904-8, II, 190; Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., VI, 54. E. K. Chambers rejects the attempt to identify it with Phaeton, a lost play by Dekker (The Elizabethan Stage, Oxford, 1923, III, 300). However, it is curious to observe similarities of manner in The Sun's Darling and Old Fortunatus (contemporary with the lost Phaeton), both in the management of the plots and in the use and character of the songs.

9 The word “heard” is inadvertently omitted in Blount. It appears in the quartos.

10 R. W. Bond, The Complete Works of John Lyly, Oxford, 1902, II, 300, 305.

11 Mr. Bond's reckoning, counting as two the stanzas sung by Accius and Silena (Mother Bombie, III, iii). In the total of six stage directions in The Woman in the Moone and Love's Metamorphosis I counted the two directions for the siren's song (L.M., IV, ii) which Mr. Bond counts as one.

12 Mother Bombie (II, i); Gallathea (I, iv). In the quarto of Gallathea, the word “sing” not only occurs in the last speech, but it even falls at the end of the line.

13 Unless otherwise specified, the text cited is that of Mr. Bond, op. cit.

14 The apparent reason for this oversight is that in Q3 and Q4 (1584, 1591) the first speech on the page, just before the song, is assigned to Granichus:

Grani. An other commoditie of emptines. Song.

15 Sapho and Phao (II, iii; III, ii); Gallathea (I, iv); Mother Bombie (II, i); Endimion (IV, ii); Midas (III, ii; V, iii). The songs at the end of scenes in Campaspe (I, ii; III, v) have no directions for exit in the quartos or in Blount, nor does one song in Sapho and Phao (III, iv).

16 Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., VI, 215.

17 W. J. Lawrence, op. cit.

18 Cf. A. H. Fox Strangways, “Words and Music in Song” (Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, Vol VII, 1921).

19 Pammelia. Musicks Miscellanie. Or, Mixed Varietie of Pleasant Roundelayes, and delightful Catches, of 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Parts in one, London, 1609.

20 Deuteromelia: or The Second Part of Musicks melodie, or melodius Musicke. Of Pleasant Roundelaies, K. H. mirth, or Freemens Songs. And such delightfull Catches, London, 1609.

21 See above, note 19.

22 The Complete Works of John Lyly, II, 563.

23 Ibid., II, 572.

24 Old Ballads, Historical and Narrative, etc., Collected . . . . by Thomas Evans . . . . New Edition . . . . by his son, R. H. Evans, London, 1810, I, 145.

25 A Briefe Discovrse of the true (but neglected) use of Charact'ring the Degrees by their Perfection, Imperfection, and Diminution in Measurable Musicke . . . . Examples whereof are exprest in the Harmony of 4. Voyces, concerning the Pleasure of 5. vsuall Recreations. 1 Hunting, 2 Hawking, 3 Dauncing, 4 Drinking, 5 Enamouring, London, 1614.

W. J. Lawrence (“Thomas Ravenscroft's Theatrical Association,” Mod. Lang. Rev., XIX) has independently made the same discovery, in connection with which he offers a number of deductions and surmises: that Endimion was revived at some time in 1600; that Ravenscroft was then twelve years old—and not eight, as has been previously supposed; that Ravenscroft's “Fayries Daunce” was written for a play, and for Endimion and no other; that, because the Children of Paul's had lost and almost forgotten Lyly's song, Ravenscroft provided this substitute; and that Lyly's original song was not recovered until it appeared in Blount's Sixe Court Comedies in 1632. None of these suppositions has been definitely proved; some seem probable, other seem to be quite unlikely. In Ravenscroft's song, melodious but somewhat meaningless, the one line upon which Mr. Lawrence rests his whole argument, “that seeks to steale a louer true,” expresses a commonplace of the ballads and folk-lore of fairies (e.g., Tam Lin). Even if it were established that Ravenscroft's song was actually written for the hypothetical performance of Endimion in 1600, there is no evidence that the 1632 version is a restored original, rather than a later imitation of Ravenscroft's song. The 1632 version is inferior in form, and yet explicit in its allusion to the play. It seems more likely that Ravenscroft's song was afterwards imitated for the purpose than that an inferior original by Lyly was somehow recovered, and was piously restored to its place thirty-two years after the revived Children of Paul's, Lyly's old company, had given it up for lost.

26 Nos. 8, 20, 61.

27 The Dramatic Works of Thomas Decker, London, 1873, I, 5.

28 Op. cit., III.

29 Cf. Mother Bombie, II, i, near the end.

30 The Woman in the Moone (V, i), one of the two plays not included in Blount's edition.

31 Endimion, IV, iii.