Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/199

Heart's ease": O, an[C 1] you will have me live, play "Heart's ease."

First Mus.[C 2]

Why "Heart's ease"?

Peter.

O, musicians, because my heart itself plays "My heart is full of woe."[C 3][E 1] O, play me some105 merry dump,[E 2] to comfort me.[C 4]

First Mus.[C 5]

Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.

Peter.

You will not then?

First Mus.[E 3]

No.

Peter.

I will then give it you soundly.110

First Mus.

What will you give us?

Peter.

No money, on my faith, but the gleek;[E 4] I will give you the minstrel.

First Mus.

Then will I give you the serving-creature.[E 5]

1. 101. an] Pope; and Q, F.
2. 103. First Mus.] Capell, Fidler Q, Mu. F.
3. 105. of woe] Qq 4, 5; omitted Q, F.
4. 105, 106. O … comfort me.] Q omitted F.
5. 107. First Mus.] Capell, Minstrels Q, Mu. F.

as early as 1560; the music is given in Naylor's Shakespeare and Music (1896), p. 193.

1. 105. "My heart is full of woe"] The burden of the first stanza of A Pleasant New Ballad of Two Lovers, printed in Sh. Soc. Papers, I. p. 12: "Hey ho! my heart is full of woe."
2. 106. dump] New Eng. Dict.: "A mournful or plaintive melody or song; also, by extension, a tune in general; sometimes apparently used for a kind of dance." The adjective merry is a comic incongruity. So in Two Gentlemen of Verona, III. ii. 85: "to their instruments Tune a deploring dump."
3. 109. First Mus.] Here and in later speeches the speaker is Minst. or Min. (Minstrel) in Qq and Mu. in F.
4. 112, 113. the gleek … minstrel] "To give the gleek" meant to flout or scoff. "Where's the Bastard's braves and Charles his gleeks?" (scoffs), 1 Henry VI. III. ii. 123; "gleeking and galling at this gentleman," Henry V. V. i. 78. Turbervile's Ovid's Epistles, X. vi.: "To him alone she closely clinges, and gives the rest the gleake." There may be a quibble in "give the minstrel" on gleeman or gligman. Minstrel may have been a scoffing name, because of the inclusion of wandering "minstrels" in 39 Elizabeth 3 and 4 with bearwards, fencers, etc., as "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars." For to give meaning to represent or describe, compare Coriolanus, I. ix. 55: "to us that give you truly."
5. 114. serving-creature] Perhaps a more contemptuous title than serving-man. In The Three Ladies of London (1584), Simplicity says, "Faith I'll … be a serving-creature" Hazlitt's Dodsley's Old Plays, x. 253.