Come Again, Dowland
“COME AGAIN”
John Dowland, 1597
Introduction
“Come Again” was written by John Dowland (1563-1626), and published in his “First Booke of Songs or Ayres of foure partes, with Tableture for the Lute.” in 1597, 1600, 1606, 1608, and 1613.
At first glance, the poem follows closely to Francesco Petrarca’s, 1304-1374, conventions of love poetry and verse (1, pg 5), however, the second half of each verse varies slightly from Petrarchan’s original sestet form . It instead suggests a deeper relationship to the lady it addresses, and a level of political and even religious undertone is masked in its inviting verse.
The music, written by Dowland, is meant to be played on the Lute and accompanied by voice. It is presented in four parts, the melody and alto, bass and tenor.
Come Again XVII, 1597
Come againe;
sweet loue doth now inuite,
Thy graces that refraine,
To do me due delight,
To see, to heare, to touch, to kisse, to die,
With thee againe in sweetest
sympathie.
Come againe
that I may cease to mourne,
Through thy vnkind disdaine:
For now left and forlorne,
I sit, I sigh, I weepe, I faint, I die,
In deadly paine and endlesse
miserie.
All the day
the sun that lends me shine,
By frownes doth cause me pine,
And feeds me with delay:
Her smiles, my springs, that makes my ioyes to grow,
Her frownes the winters of my woe:
All the night
my sleeps are full of dreames,
My eyes are full of streames.
My heart takes no delight,
To see the fruits and ioyes that some do find,
And marke the stormes are mee
assigned,
Out alas,
my faith is ever true,
Yet will she neuer rue,
Nor yield mee any grace:
Her eyes of fire, her heart of flint is made,
Whom teares, nor truth may once
inuade.
Gentle loue
draw forth thy wounding dart,
Thou canst not pierce her heart,
For I that doe approue,
By sighs and teares more hot then are thy shafts.
Did tempt while she for triumph laughs.
John Dowland, 1563-1626
John Dowland was born in 1563, England. In 1580, at the age of 17, he traveled to the Continent, to France, in service to Sir Henry Cobham. Sir Henry was an ambassador to the French Court, and took Dowland with him on his travels (2). While England held a Protestant Court, and Dowland was born and raised Protestant himself, his years in France lead him to convert to Catholicism.
If Dowland, as early as 17, knew passion for the Lute, he could not have chosen a better place to refine his talents. “A briefe and easye Instruction” printed in Paris in 1567, was made available to England in 68’ and widely became known as the teaching basis for the English Lute at the time (2, pg 190).
Between 1582 and 1584, Dowland is relieved of his service and returned to England.
In 1592, Dowland is afforded an opportunity to play for the Queen. In this he performs “My Heart and Tongue were Twinnes” and expresses in some regard his later further developed notion that the Queen has been ignoring him. Since his return to England, he has been acclaimed a great lutist – even being afforded recognition in Apologia Musices by Dr. John Case. Dowland fears that the Queen has perhaps not afforded him recognition until this time because of his religion. He writes often that he will not be granted a court position because of his Catholicism, but does not note William Byrd or others who have received positions despite also being Catholic. His fears on Elizabeth’s questionable religious prejudice are further solidified when he applies for a court position in 94’ and is turned away. To Cecil, he writes that because he has failed in his ambitions, he has decided to travel the continent. Specifically to travel to Rome (2, Pg 37-40).
If religion was not the cause of Dowlands rejection, it could be any number of other reasons. Dowland was beset by “Melancholy”, and is noted by some contemporaries to be childish and to not take well to criticism or change. “That Dowland suffered from periods of intense melancholy is shown throughout his life” is noted upon in both Poulton’s ‘John Dowland’ and Dr. Eckstein’s ‘John Dowland, “Come Again”’. Melancholy, as described by Poulton, was “a justified pessimism” and in some cases “the genuine cases of psychological disturbance”. It was a common enough complaint of the day, and induced a “general mood of depression”.
When he meets with Luca Marenzio in Rome, an Italian composer of masses, motets and madigali spirituali (3), Marenzio recommends that he progress to the Duke of Brunswick’s court. Dowland takes up the idea and sets off for the court of Henry Julius. Not much is spoken of his journey, but no sooner does he arrive in Wolfenbuttel, but he is then accompanied by Gregorio Gowet, the Dukes personal lutist, to the court of the Duke of Landgrave. Howet returns to Brunswick later then anticipated in 1595, and present Brunswick with a letter from Landgrave. This letter indicates that Howet and Dowland quarreled. This would explain why Dowland did not return to Wolfenbuttel with Howet, but instead continued on to a hoped for meeting with Marenzio back to Italy.
In Italy, Dowland travels through Venise, Padua, Genoa, and Ferrara. When he came next to Florence, he was invited to perform for Ferdinando I, Great Duck of Tuscany. He spent some months in Florence until warned by some that the political and religious tensions were becoming too dangerous to handle. He was warned of the political ambitions to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the Thrown. He, in this time, was offered a position by the Pope, to become the personal lutist to the Vatican – and turned this down because of his love for Queen and Country, or so he writes to Cecil. In his letter to Cecil he goes so far as to say that he “wept for loss of such a post” (2, 37-40). From there he returned to Landgraves court in 1596. He stayed there until receiving a letter from an old friend Noel stating that Noel would put forth his wish to become court lutist to the Queen. In haste, Dowland returned to England. However, Noel passed away before he could return to petition the Queen, and Dowland was left without a sponsor again. With no court position he decided to print his first manuscript.
In 1598, Landgrave offered him a position again. However, at this point, Dowland is offered a position in the Court of Christian IV of Denmark.
From Denmark, Dowland published his second manuscript. The King greatly favoured music, and until February 24th of 1606, kept Dowland employed. When Dowland was eventually let go, he was still kept on and paid for the tutelage of Hans Borcratz – a choir boy given over to Dowland to train on the lute. It is not certain what, 4 months later, caused him to loose care of Hans. At the time, King Christian had paid for a full years worth of lute training. When Dowland was let go, according to Hammerich-Elling, the King was visiting the Duke of Brunswick, and couldn’t possibly have been on hand to personally create the edict.
When Dowland returns to England, he is only found in other peoples letters and published notation. His life was not easy, and he was noted to have a habit of living beyond his means. He died in 1626.
POETRY
The first two stanza’s follow ABABCC with 12 syllables and follow a Petrarchan style of lyrical “innocent lovers complaint” (1) where by lines 1-3 express a connection of longing for a lover. However, alight from the standard poetic delicacy of Petrarchan poetry, lines 4-5 are steeped in sexual double meaning.
The first two stanza’s portray a make up quarrel or a lascivious invitation, the author waits and pleas for lovers return. However, after the first two stanza’s, the second set acts as a contrafact. The second set has 10 syllables instead of 12, and changes from ABABCC to ABBACC. It distances itself from the sexual nature of the first two stanza’s and reverts back to standard Petrarchan poetic styles.
While many of Dowland’s works can be attributed to other musicians, “Come Again” is considered written by Dowland for a few important reasons. According to Christian Kelnberger, an avid scholar of Dowland’s works, “the perfect symbiosis of text and music…indeed suggests that poet and composer may have been the same person.”. The text and music flow so well together, that they are “flawless” and “ideal” in their execution. Also, the conventional Petrarch system of verse shifts in the 3 verse to a more melancholy, and less sensually inviting poem.”
POETIC MEANING
If one can assume that the intended recipient of this poem is the Queen of England, Elizabeth, then the inherent attitude that Dowland portrays in regards to the continual rejection since his first performance can be easy picked out in the verses. The most pivotal verse that I admire for it’s anger, melancholy and even somewhat piteousness, is:
Out alas,
my faith is ever true,
Yet will she neuer rue,
Nor yield mee any grace:
Her eyes of fire, her heart of flint is made,
Whom teares, nor truth may once
inuade.
One can understand that Dowland has been desperately trying to become the Queen’s lutist, so much so that he has turned down position at the Vatican. Whether this is the “Faith” of which he speaks, or whether it is his “Faith” that she will change her mind, we cannot discern, however, the context is notable for the sheer amount of weight in religion that Dowland focuses on throughout his life.
A noteworthy stanze:
All the day
the sun that lends me shine,
By frownes doth cause me pine,
And feeds me with delay:
Her smiles, my springs, that makes my ioyes to grow,
Her frownes the winters of my woe:
Because Elizabeth was referred to as the “Sun” (4, pg 81), for her association with the Petrarchan mistress – filled with radiance and a woman to inspire many. The “Sun”, according to Hackett in ‘Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen’, establishes that Elizabeth is associated with the Christ-like figure of the sun, for her dedication to the restoration of religious faith, faith to her father and her duty, and the supposed ‘saviour’ of the nation in regards to faith.
In:
Gentle loue
draw forth thy wounding dart,
Thou canst not pierce her heart,
For I that doe approue,
By sighs and teares more hot then are thy shafts.
Did tempt while she for triumph laughs.
His verse turns from pleading and passive to antagonistic and aggressive in the end. Beginning with her gentleness and ending with her rejection. Not simple rejection, but a cruel rejection whereby she is receiving ‘triumph’ for hurting him, for rejecting his pursuit.
LUTE
Dowland’s books are written for the 7 string course lute. The strings, in period, would have been made of sheeps gut. Dowland’s son, Robert Dowland, writes the teaching of his father, and in the essay “Varieties of Lute Lessons” he explains the technicalities of owning, maintaining, tuning, fretting, and properly upkeeping a lute.
Gut strings, though difficult to keep in tune and exhibiting a tendency to wear quickly when plucked, created a soft and sweet tone. While the actual craft of creating period gut strings has been lost to us, you can still buy them using modern maintenance practices.
When tuning the gut strings, the true pitch that would have been desired in period is under speculation, however, modern lutists use A=440. Period lutists could have used much lower tones. Dowland gives a drawing on how his lute is tuned:
The lute frets are gut strings that tie around the neck of the lute. Some lutist might shift the frets during performance to change the notes, however this was incredibly difficult. Tuning to ones ear was often used, though not thought to be for the best. (5)
On strumming and plucking the lute:
The downstroke is strong, using the thumb, would strike the plectrum, while the upstroke, usually using the index finger, is weak and results in a resounding beat. The plucking can be used with any finger, though strumming is done by the thumb.
When learning the lute, Robert Dowlands “Varieties of Lute Lessons” was published in 1610. The book would have been used as a great resource on learning, teaching, and discussing lute practices in the renaissance.
VOCAL
According to Hagis in “The Solo Voice in the Renaissance, the best voice to serve renaissance music is a ‘light, controlled vibrato’. She writes that embellishment is a poor choice and detracts from the important emphasis already established in the music.
LADY JULIANA BADELLE
I chose this piece because a dear friend of mine is learning to play the Lute. He has expounded on the beauty of John Dowland’s works. Also, I had the great pleasure to hear Sir Martin the Harper perform a Dowland piece in full on his glute, and was inspired at the time. For this competition I hoped to challenge myself with new material from both my time period and from out of my time period.
Because I was not well known to all of his works, I asked my lutist friend which song he thought I would like – and would sound pleasant singing. He said “Come Again”. After hearing the song I liked it for it’s uplifting and contrasting stanza’s that portrayed a variety of emotions in so many as simply 5 stanza’s. After I chose the piece, I researched it, and to my pleasure found a wealth of hidden meaning and context in the song that went beyond it’s simple portrayal. By this point I had fallen in love with it and spend a great deal of time pouring over manuscripts in anticipation for more intricacies in relation to Dowland’s life.
I hope you enjoy John Dowland and his “Come Again” as much as I do.
Your’s Truly
Lady Juliana Badelle
Barony of Seagirt.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
VL: Song, Media and (Trans)Culture. Sessions 8 and 9: John Dowland, “Come Again” (1597) by Dr. Lars Eckstein, Tubingen, WS 08/09
“John Dowland’, by Diana Poulton, University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles (1972).
Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954
Hackett, Helen (1995). Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Hargis Ellen. “The Solo Voice in the Renaissance.” A Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2007. 3-13. Print.
Attached: Letter to Cecil
Right honourable: as I have been bound unto your honour so I most humbly desire your honour to pardon my boldness and make my choice of your honour to let you understand my bounden duty and desire of God’s preservation of my more dear sovereign Queen and Country: whom I beseech God ever to bless & to confound all their enemies what & whom soever. Fifteen years since I was in France servant to Sir Henry Cobham who was Ambassador for the Queen’s Majesty, and lay in Paris, where I fell acquainted with one Smith a priest, and one Morgan someone of her Majesty’s Chapel, one Verstigan who brake out of England being apprehended & one Morris a Welshman that was our porter, who is at Rome; these men thrust many idle toys into my head of religion, saying that the papists’ was the truth & ours in England all false, and I being but young their fair words overreached me & I believed with them. Within two years after I came into England where I saw men of that faction condemned & executed which I thought was great injustice taking religion for the only cause, and when my best friends would persuade me I would not believe them. Then in time passing one Mr Johnson died & I became an humble suitor for his place (thinking myself most worthiest) wherein I found many good and honourable friends that spake for me, but I saw that I was like to go without it, and that any may have preferment but I, whereby I began to sound the cause, and guessed that my religion was my hindrance. Where upon my mind being troubled I desired to get beyond the seas which I durst not attempt without licence from some of the Privy Council, for fear of being taken and so have extreme punishment. And according as I desired there came a letter to me out of Germany from the Duke of Brunswick, whereupon I spake to your honour & to my Lord of Essexwho willingly gave me both your hands (for which I would be glad if there were any service in me that your honours could command). When I came to the Duke of Brunswick he used me kindly & gave me a rich chain of gold, £23 in money with velvet and satin and gold lace to make me apparel, with promise that if I would serve him he would give me as much as any prince in the world. From thence I went to the Landgrave of Hessen, who gave me the greatest welcome that might be for one of my quality who sent a ring into England to my wife valued at £20 sterling, and gave me a great standing cup with a cover gilt, full of dollars with many great offers for my service. From thence I had great desire to see Italy & came to Venice & from thence to Florence where I played before the Duke & got great favours, & one evening I was walking upon the piazzo in Florence a gentleman told me that he espied an English priest & that his name was Skidmore & son and heir to Sir John Skidmore of the Court. So I being intended to go to Rome to study with a famous musician named Luca Marenzio:
Marenzio's commendation at the beginning of Dowland's First Book of Songs
stepped to this Mr Skidmore the priest & asked him if he were an Englishman, & he told me yea: & whose son he was, & I telling him my name he was very glad to see me, so I told him I would go to Rome & desired his help for my safety, for said I, if they should mistake me there my fortune were hard, for I have been thrust off all good fortune because I am a Catholic at home. For I heard that her Majesty being spoke to for me, said I was a man a man to serve any prince in the world, but I was an obstinate papist. Whereunto he answered Mr Dowlande if it be not so make her words true. So in further talk we spake of priests, & I told him that I did not think it true that any priests (as we said in England) would kill the Queen or once go about to touch her finger, and said I whatsoever my religion be I will neither meddle nor make with any thing there done, so that they do not anything against the Queen. Whereunto he answered that l spake as a good subject to her Majesty, but said he in Rome you shall hear Englishmen your own countrymen speak most hardly of her and wholly seek to overthrow her & all England. And those be the Jesuits said he who are of the Spanish faction. Moreover said he we have many jars with them & withall wished to God the Queen were a Catholic, & said he, to defend my Country against the Spaniards I would come into England & bear a pike on my shoulders. Among our talk he told me that he had orders to attach divers English gentlemen, & that he had been 3 years [out of?] England, so I brought him to his lodging door, where he told me that there was 9 priests come from Rome to go for England. He came but the day before to Florence, do I think they came altogether, he told me that he would stay there in the town and study in an abbey called Sancta Maria Novella, & that he must be in for one month, and that he would write letters of me to Rome, which I should receive very shortly, but I heard not of him in a month after, and then there came two friars to my lodging the one was an Englishman named Bailey, a Yorkshireman. The next day after my speech with Skidmore I dined with my Lord Gray and divers other gentlemen, whom I told of my speech with Skidmore giving them warning. Whereupon my Lord Gray went to Sienna, and the rest dispersed themselves. Moreover I told my Lord Gray howsoever I was for religion, if l did perceive anything in Rome that either touched her Majesty or the state of England I would give notice of it though it were the loss of my life, which he liked well & bade me keep that secret. This friar Bailey before named delivered me a letter which I have here sent your Honour, which letter I brake open before Mr. Josias Bodley, & showed what was written in it to him & divers other, after this, this friar Bailey told me he had received letters from Rome to hasten me forward, & told me that my discontentment was known at Rome, & that I should have a large pension of the Pope, & that his Holiness & all the cardinals would make wonderful much of me, thereupon I told him of my wife and children how to get them to me, whereunto he told me that I should have acquaintance with such as should bring them over to me if she had any willingness or else they would lose their lives for there came those into England for such purposes, for quoth he Mr Skidmore brought out of England at his last being there 17 persons both men and women, for which the Bishop weeps when he sees him for joy. After my departure I called to mind our conference & got me by myself & wept heartily, to see my fortune so hard that I should become servant to the greatest enemy of my prince: country: wife: children: and friends: for want, & to make me like themselves. God he knoweth I never loved treason nor treachery nor never knew any, nor never heard any mass in England, which I find is great abuse of the people for on my soul I understand it not. Wherefore I have reformed myself to live according to her Majesty’s laws as I was born under her Highness, & that most humbly I do crave pardon, protesting if there were any ability in me, I would bed most ready to make amend. At Bologna I met with 2 men the one named Pierce an Irishman, the other named Dracot. They are gone both to Rome. In Venice I heard an Italian say, that he marveled that King Philip had never a good friend in England that with his dagger would dispatch the Queen’s Majesty, but said he, God suffers her, in the end to give her the greater overthrow. Right honourable this have I written that her Majesty may know the villainy of these most wicked priests and Jesuits, & to beware of them. I thank God I have both forsaken them and their religion which tendeth to nothing but destruction. Thus I beseech God night & day to bless and defend the Queen’s Majesty, & to confound all her enemies & to preserve your honour & all the rest of her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council. I think that Skidmore & the other priests are all in England for he stayed not at Florence as he said he would to me, & friar Bailey told me that he was gone into France to study the law. At Venice & all along as I came in Germany say that the King of Spain is making great preparation to come for England this next summer, where if it pleased your Honour to advise me by my poor wife I would most willingly lose my life against them. Most humbly beseeching your Honour to pardon my ill writing & worse inditing, & to think that I desire to serve my country & hope to hear of your good opinion of me. From Nurnberg this 10th of November 1595.
Your Honour’s most bounden
for ever
Jo: Doulande
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