Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 1

226
ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC
SICK, SICK, AND VEEY SICK.
This tune is contained in Anthony Holborne's Cittharn Schoole, 4to., 1697, and
in one of the Lute MSS. in the Public Library, Cambridge. (D. d. iv. 23.) In
Much Ado about Notliing, Hero says, " Why, how now ! do you speak in the sich
tuneP" and Beatrice answers, "I am out of all other tune, methinks." Li
Nashe's Summer's last Will and Testament, Harvest says, " My mates and fellows,
sing no more Merry, merry, but weep out a lamentable Hoohy, lioohj, and let your
sickles cry —
Sick, sick, and very sick,
And sick and for the time ;
For Harvest, your master, is
Abus'd without reason or rhyme."
On 24th March, 1578, Richard Jones had licensed to him ' ' a ballad intituled
Sich, sick, &c., and on the following 19th June, " A new songe, intituled —
Sich., sick, in grave I would I were.
For grief to see this wicked world, that will not mend, I fear."
This was probably a moralization of the former.
In the Harleian Miscellany, 4to, 10. 272, is " A new ballad, declaring the
dangerous shooting of the gun at the court (1578), to the tune of Siclce and siche;
commencing —
" The seventeenth day of July last,
At evening toward night,
Our noble Queen Elizabeth
Took barge for her delight ;
And had the watermen to row,
Her pleasure she might take.
About the river to and fro,
As much as they could make.
Weep, weep, still I weep,
And shall do till I die,
To think upon the gun was shot
At court so dangerously."
The ballad from which the tune derives its name is probably that printed in
Ritson's Ancient Songs, (1793, p. 139) from a manuscript in the Cotton Library
(Vespasian, A 25), and entitled Captain Car. The event which gave rise to it
occurred in the year 1571. The first stanza is here printed to the tune : —
I
m
S
^M
=^
S
-sr
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It be - fell at
Sick, sick, and
Mar
tin-mas, When weather wax - ed cold,
ry sick. And sick and like to die ;
The
^
^
^
^
^P^^-^fej
^
Cap - tain Car said to
sick - est night that I
S
-t
his men, We must go take a hold,
a - bode. Good Lord, have mercy on me.
:^
sir
IT
-^