jaques: I do not desire you to please me: I desire you to sing. Will you sing?
amiens: More at your request than to please myself.
In the dialogue between Peter and the musicians in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene IV, he contrasts the lives and motives of ill-paid musicians with that of their rich patrons. The musicians have been hired by the Capulets to play at Juliet's marriage to Paris. Their lives mean nothing to the Capulets; they are things which make music: the lives of the Capulets mean nothing to the musicians; they are things which pay money. The musicians arrive only to learn that Juliet is believed to be dead and the wedding is off. Juliet's life means nothing to them, but her death means a lot; they will not get paid. Whether either the Capulets or the musicians actually like music is left in doubt. Music is something you have to have at a wedding; music is something you have to play if that is your job. With a felicitous irony Shakespeare introduces a quotation from Richard Edwardes' poem, "In Commendation of Musick"
peter: When gripping grief the heart doth wound And doleful dumps the mind oppress Then music with her silver sound— Why "silver sound"1? Why "music with her
silver sound"? What say you, Simon Catling?
ist mus: Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
peter: Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
2nd mus: I say, "silver sound," because musicians sound for silver.
CRomeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene 5.)
The powers the poet attributes to music are exaggerated. It cannot remove the grief of losing a daughter or the pangs of an empty belly.
Since action must cease while a called-for song is heard, such a song, if it is not to be an irrelevant interlude, must be placed at a point where the characters have both a motive for wanting one and leisure to hear it. Consequendy we find few called-for songs in the tragedies, where the steady advance of the hero to his doom must not be interrupted, or in the historical plays in which the characters are men of action with no leisure.
Further, it is rare that a character listens to a song for its own sake since, when someone listens to music properly, he forgets himself and others which, on the stage, means that he forgets all about the play. Indeed, I can only think of one case where it seems certain that a character listens to a song as a song should be listened to, instead of as a stimulus to a petit roman of his own, and that is in Henry VIII, Act III, Scene 1, when Katharine listens to Orpheus with his lute. The
Queen knows that the King wants to divorce her and that pressure will be brought upon her to acquiesce. But she believes that it is her religious duty to refuse, whatever the consequences. For the moment there is nothing she can do but wait. And her circumstances are too serious and painful to allow her to pass the time daydreaming:
Take thy lute, wench; my soul grows sad with troubles;
Sing and disperse them, if thou canst; leave working.
The words of the song which follows are not about any human feelings, pleasant or unpleasant, which might have some bearing on her situation. The song, like Edwardes' poem, is an encomium musicae. Music cannot, of course, cure grief, as the song claims, but in so far that she is able to attend to it and nothing else, she can forget her situation while the music lasts.
An interesting contrast to this is provided by a scene which at first seems very similar, Act IV, Scene I of Measure for Measure. Here, too, we have an unhappy woman listening to a song. But Mariana, unlike Katharine, is not trying to forget her unhappiness; she is indulging it. Being the deserted lady has become a role. The words of the song, Take, O take, those lips away, mirrors her situation exactly, and her apology to the Duke when he surprises her gives her away.
I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish
You had not found me here so musicaclass="underline"
Let me excuse me, and believe me so—
My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe.
In his reply, the Duke, as is fitting in this, the most puritanical of Shakespeare's plays, states the puritanical case against the heard music of this world.
5Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
Were the Duke to extend this reply, one can be sure that he would speak of the unheard music of Justice.
On two occasions Shakespeare shows us music being used with conscious evil intent. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus, who has been false to his friend, forsworn his vows to his girl and is cheating Thurio, serenades Silvia while his forsaken Julia listens. On his side, there is no question here of self-deception through music. Proteus knows exactly what he is doing. Through music which is itself beautiful and good, he hopes to do evil, to seduce Silvia.
Proteus is a weak character, not a wicked one. He is ashamed of what he is doing and, just as he knows the difference between good and evil in conduct, he knows the difference between music well and badly played.
host: How do you, man? the music likes you not?
julia: You mistake; the musician likes me not.
host: Why, my pretty youth?
julia: He plays false, father.
host: How? Out of tune on the strings?
julia: Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very
heart-strings . . . host: I perceive you delight not in music. julia: Not a whit, when it jars so. host: Hark, what a fine change is in the music! julia: Ay, that change is the spite. host: You would have them always play but one thing?
julia: I would always have one play but one thing.
(Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Scene
The second occasion is in Cymheline, when Cloten serenades Imogen. Cloten is a lost soul without conscience or shame. He is shown, therefore, as someone who does not know one note from another. He has been told that music acts on women as an erotic stimulus, and wishes for the most erotic music that money can buy:
First a very excellent, good, conceited thing; after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it, and then let her consider.
For, except as an erotic stimulus, music is, for him, worthless:
If this penetrate, I will consider your music the better; if it do not, it is a vice in her ears which horse-hairs and calves' guts, nor the voice of the unpaved eunuch to boot can never amend.
(Cymbeline, Act II, Scene 3.) v
The called-for songs in Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night illustrate Shakespeare's skill in making what might have been beautiful irrelevancies contribute to the dramatic structure.
Much Ado About Nothing Act II, Scene 3.
Song. Sigh no more, ladies. Audience. Don Petro, Claudio, and Benedick (in hiding).
In the two preceding scenes we have learned of two plots, Don Pedro's plot to make Benedick fall in love with Beatrice, and Don John's plot to make Claudio believe that Hero, his wife- to-be, is unchaste. Since this is a comedy, we, the audience, know that all will come right in the end, that Beatrice and Benedick, Don Pedro and Hero will get happily married.
The two plots of which we have just learned, therefore, arouse two different kinds of suspense. If the plot against Benedick succeeds, we are one step nearer the goal; if the plot against Claudio succeeds, we are one step back.
At this point, between their planning and their execution, action is suspended, and we and the characters are made to listen to a song.