[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

acres of our Fens lye drowned, our Cities thin, and those vile, poore, and
ugly to behold in respect of theirs, our trades decayed, our still running
rivers stopped, and that bene ciall use of transportation, wholly
50
The seven  Passionate Pavans
neglected, so many Havens void of Ships and Townes, so many Parkes and
Forests for pleasure, barren Heaths, so many villages depopulated,
&c. . . .42
On the personal level, the Elizabethans used the word  melancholy or
 black bile to describe one of the four liquids or humours thought to be
naturally present in the body, as well as the physical and psychological
conditions that resulted from an excess of it.43 The four humours were
the bodily equivalents of the four elements of inanimate matter. Black
bile was thick, heavy and sluggish, so the melancholy humour was heavy,
dull, cold and dry, and was connected with the element earth, the season
of winter, old age and, in astrology, the planet Saturn. Thus the melan-
choly man was lanky, swarthy, taciturn, obstinate, suspicious, jealous and
greedy. He naturally preferred solitude and darkness, and was continu-
ally tormented by morbid fears and sorrows.
Why the obsession with such an unattractive humour? One reason is
simply that melancholy was the fashionable ailment of the age. Dowland
certainly cultivated a melancholy public persona. He signed himself  Jo:
dolandi de Lachrimae ,44 gave his pieces titles such as  Semper Dowland
semper Dolens ,  Melancholy Galliard and  Forlorn Hope Fancy , and
peppered his publicationswith Latin mottoes such as  Thearts which help
all mankind cannot help their master (the title-page of The First Booke)
and  whom Fortune has not blessed, he either rages or weeps (the title-
page of Lachrimae).45 In the emblem book Parthenia sacra ([Rouen], 1633;
repr.1971), HenryHawkins madeexplicit connectionsbetweenDowland,
Lachrimae, and melancholy when he wrote that a singing bird was more
melancholy than  Dowland himself  in  al his Plaints and Lachrymies .46
Writers, philosophers and scholars were thought to be particularly sus-
ceptible to melancholy because they led solitary, sedentary lives, and
because concentrated thinking supposedly dried up the body, inducing
melancholy. They were also concerned with melancholy because they
were able to analyse the malady in all its complexity, and to suggest cures.
Music is important in this respect because it was thought to be one of
the most powerful antidotes to melancholy.  In my judgement , Burton
wrote,  none so present, none so powerfull, none so apposite as a cup of
strong drinke, mirth, musicke, and merry company , and went on to
explain that music is:
51
Dowland: Lachrimae (1604)
so powerfull a thing, that it ravisheth the soul, regina sensuum, the Queene
of the sences, by sweet pleasure, (which is an happy cure), and corporall
tunes paci e our incorporeall soule, sine ore loquens, dominatum in animam
exercet [speaking without a mouth, it exercises domination over the soul],
and carries it beyond itselfe, helpes, elevates, extends it.
He also suggested that  Many men are melancholy by hearing Musicke,
but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth, and therefore to such as are
discontent, in woe, feare, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most present remedy,
it expells cares, alters their grieved mindes, and easeth in an instant .47
Dowland made a similar point in the Lachrimae dedication:  though the
title doth promise teares, un t guests in these joyfull times, yet no doubt
pleasant are the teares which Musicke weepes, neither are teares shed
alwayes in sorrowe, but sometime in joy and gladnesse . One of the func-
tions of his seven pavans, presumably, was to cure the melancholy they so
powerfully evoke.
 Lachrimae Antiquae Novae
If we assume, as I think we can, that  Antiquae was written long before
Dowland had the idea of expanding its material into a cycle of seven
pavans, then it follows that it is an exploration of melancholy in general
rather than a single aspect. When it became the rst pavan in a cycle of
seven it assumed the role of a general introduction to the subject, a point
of departure. What then, of  Antiquae Novae , the  old-new tears? I
suspect that Dowland also intended this pavan to represent melancholy
in general, though the title suggests that the anguish is new or has been
renewed in some way.
This is certainly suggested by the music, which is essentially a
straightforward revision and elaboration of  Antiquae . Some of the
ideas, such as the pedal passage at the beginning of the second strain, are
simple decorations of the equivalent places in  Antiquae , but the most
striking rhetorical ideas have been moved around, and have been
changed in the process. Condensed versions of the gures (c), (d) and (e)
are now in the third strain, and have been swapped with the  Sacred End
motif, which is ingeniously combined in the second strain with a rising
gure derived from (a) and, in b. 13 of the Quintus, an inverted version of
52
The seven  Passionate Pavans
Ex. 4.7  Gementes , bb. 17 20 (lute part omitted)
20
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
(b). The harmonic outline of the pavan is essentially the same as  Anti-
quae , though the A cadence at the end of the rst strain is extended and
therefore reinforced, and the turn into C at the beginning of the second
strain is strengthened by replacing the 2 1 motion of the Bassus with a
5 1 motion, and by adding subdominant F major harmony on the rst
beat of b. 10; it is also prolonged by secondary C cadences in bb. 12 13
and 14 15. This, together with the transfer of the D minor modulation
to the third strain (made necessary by moving (c) and (d)), has the e ect
of greatly lessening the phrygian colour. The result is a more varied, bal-
anced and modern harmonic scheme, an apt illustration of the pavan s
title. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]