Dramatic References
(iii. v.). The dramatists seldom mention the "flute." It occurs in the morality play Mankind (c. 1475) and in the "Banns" prefixed to the Chester miracle plays for 1600. In the fifteen volumes of Dodsley's Old Plays, I only find it named once (The True Trojans, 1633, where it is rhymed with "lute"). It is mentioned once in Beaumont and Fletcher (Monsieur Thomas). Jonson never mentions it in any regular play, but it occurs in several of his masques, in one of which (World in the Moon) he also speaks of a flute-case. Nor can I find it in any play by Randolph, Massinger, Marlowe, Chapman, T. Heywood, Middleton, Kyd, or Greene (who all mention the fife), Dekker, Ford, Peele, Webster, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Congreve, or Farquhar. Lyly naturally has it in his Midas (1592). Gaiscoyne's Jocasta (1566) mentions fifes and drums, and has a stage direction that the flutes should play a very doleful noise during the dumb shows. There is a similar direction in Marston's Sophonisha (1606), and in that author's Antonio and Mellida (1602) we have a stage direction, "The still flutes sound a mournful cynet"—probably low-pitched flutes are intended. He also speaks of "a noise (i.e. small band) of flutes" in his Dutch Courtesan (1605). The amorous Don Antonio in Dryden's Don Sebastian (ii. 2) plays the flute, and in Thomas Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia. (ii. 1) a song is accompanied by "two flutes and a thro' bass."
In the poets a flute is very frequently introduced when shepherds are mentioned, and as a rustic or pastoral instrument:—
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