Singing History. Research Assistant Hailey Bachrach looks at then importance of songs in the He
Singing History. Research Assistant Hailey Bachrach looks at then importance of songs in the Henriad. If you’ve seen our production of Hotspur (aka Henry IV Part One), you’ll have noticed—or soon will notice, if you haven’t made it yet—that it begins with a song. This song was arranged by our fantastic ensemble composer Tayo Akinbode, and adapted by director Federay Holmes from several famous ballads of Shakespeare’s time. Two in particular had an influence on the opening song: a Scottish ballad called “The Battle of Otterburn,” and an English ballad known by various titles, including “The Ballad of Chevy Chase” or “The Hunt of the Cheviot.”This second ballad was one of the most popular songs of Shakespeare’s day. Supposedly, playwright Ben Jonson said that he would rather have written it than the entirety of his works. It tells the story of a fictional encounter between the Scottish Earl of Douglas and the English Percy, Earl of Northumberland that ends in both of their deaths.Word is come to Edinburgh,To Jamie the Scottish King,Earl Douglas, lieutenant of the Marches, Lay slain Cheviot within. His hands the King did weal and wring,Said, ‘Alas! and woe is me!Such another captain Scotland withinI’ faith shall never be!’ Word is come to lovely London To the fourth Harry, our King,Lord Percy, lieutenant of the Marches,Lay slain Cheviot within. ‘God have mercy on his soul,’ said King Harry,‘Good Lord, if thy will it be! I’ve a hundred captains in England,’ he said,‘As good as ever was he: But Percy, an I brook my life,Thy death well quit shall be.’ And as our King made his avow Like a noble prince of renown,For Percy he did it well performAfter, on Homble-down; Where six-and-thirty Scottish knights On a day were beaten down; Glendale glitter’d on their armour bright Over castle, tower and town. “Otterburn” is the Scottish version of roughly the same story, though it’s much more rooted in actual facts—probably because, historically, the Scots won and Percy was captured, much to the family’s disgrace.It fell about the Lammastide,When moor-men win their hay,The doughty Douglas bound him to rideInto England, to drive a prey.And he has burned the dales of Tyne,And part of Bamburghshire,And three good towers on Reidswire Fells,He left them all on fire.Then he’s marched on down to Newcastle,“Whose house is this so fine?”It’s up spoke proud Lord Percy, “I tell you this castle is mine!”“If you’re the lord of this fine castle,Well it pleases me.For, ere I crossed the Border fells,The one of us shall die.”It’s hard to think of an exact modern equivalent to Renaissance ballads. The obvious comparison is hit pop songs, the ones that play constantly on the radio in every shop and that everyone seems to know, but even that doesn’t quite capture the communal, oral culture that ballads were part of. They were designed not just to be listened to, but to for everyone to sing. New lyrics were produced to recycled tunes to make it easy for anyone to learn them, and the lyrics conveyed not only historical or legendary or fictional material, but current events and recent news. We see this in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, when the thief Autolycus disguises himself as a peddler and sells the Bohemian shepherdesses ballads. ‘I love a ballad in print,’ the shepherdess Mopsa gushes, ‘for then we are sure they are true’ (4.4.296).The Percys and the Douglas are prominent families in Hotspur, and the play begins with the very battle that “Chevy Chase” references in its final stanzas: the Battle of Homble-down, or Holmedon, where Harry ‘Hotspur’ Percy decimated a Scottish force led by Douglas. Neither song should be seen as a direct prequel to Henry IV Part One—especially “Chevy Chase,” where Percy and Douglas wind up dead. But Shakespeare’s evocation of these familiar names and battles right in the first scene could help audience members who may not know much about history understand the relationships between the two border families, and the political stakes and legacies of the battles being discussed. Ballads were an important way for people who couldn’t access formal histories to learn about their nation’s past, and playwrights knew it.We wanted to try and let our audiences experience the same kind of familiarity that Renaissance audiences would have had with some of the leading figures of the play they’re about to watch. Watching Hotspur with the military adventures of the daring Percy and the bold Douglas fresh in your mind is a very different experience than just reading a summary of the reign of Henry IV, or even having watched Richard II. It redirects your focus and sets up a series of expectations about plot and character, some of which the play meets, and some of which it intentionally subverts. While it’s not quite the kind of pre-show background information that we’re used to getting for one of Shakespeare’s history plays, it’s the experience that many of his original audience members would have had.Further Reading:“The Heyday of the English Broadside Ballad,” by Erik Nebecker for the Early English Broadside Ballad Archive.Broadside Ballads Online from the Bodelian Libraries. Find out more about Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. Photography by Tristram Kenton -- source link