King Orfeo

Intro: Em

Am

It fell about a May morning

G Am

Early greens the grove

G D

When gone a-hunting was the King

C Em

The hart he goes there yearly

Out a-maying went the Queen

She's lain beneath the hawthorn green

She woke and screamed and tore her gown

And in her bower they've laid her down

The King said, "Tell me what you've seen

Out beneath the hawthorn green."

"A strange voice calling in my sleep

Said, 'You'll soon be mine to keep'

The King of Faerie comes for me

Tomorrow noon by that same tree."

King Orfeo said, "This I'll do

One hundred knights will ride with you

And if your fears are proven real

The fairy King shall meet our steel."

But it was as the lady feared

Despite her guard, she disappeared

In grief, the King took off his crown

In beggar's clothes he left the town

He played his harp to ease his pain

And ten years thus he did remain

Some ladies came a-hunting by

His Queen among them caught his eye

He chased and spared not stub nor stem

To castle's gate he followed them

He played his harp for castle's guard

And so gained entry as a bard

And passing he did see his Queen

Asleep beneath a hawthorn green

Now he's gone on into the hall

And played his harp among them all

He's harped the bird down from the sky

He's harped a tear from every eye

The fairy King said, "Name thy fee,

"Ask anything, I'll give it thee!"

"Sir, grant me only that lady

That sleeps beneath the hawthorn tree."

The King said, "You are rough and mean

And she is fair as any Queen

And what a foul thing it would be

To see her in thy company."

"A fouler thing, so I have heard

Is a King who breaks his given word."

The King, who knew the words were true,

Said, "Take her then away with you."

Then Orfeo he glad arose

And he's cast off his beggar's clothes

He's brought his Queen back to the town

And taken up again his crown

He ruled in faith his fellow men

And ne'er saw fairy folk again.

Ken and Lisa Theriot

© 2000 Raven Boy Music

King Orfeo

Documentation:

The lyrics are original, based on Child Ballad #19, King Orfeo, taken down from tradition in the Shetland Isles in 1880.

Story

The story is the classic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, though the version that entered British balladry has a more positive outcome. The story is recorded in several versions including the Auchinleck MS., dating from the early 14th c., and the Bodleain Library’s MS. Ashmole MS. 61 from the early 15th c. Professor Child relates that the Auchinleck manuscript notes, “harpers in Britain heard this marvel and made a lay thereof which they called, after the king, “Lay Orfeo”.

The earliest published version is a fragment of the story as given in the manuscript, so we preserved the meter and style of the fragment but included all the story elements as given in the manuscript version.

Meter/Structure

The meter is iambic tetrameter, one of the oldest recorded ballad meters. Several 15th century ballads including “Inter Diabolus et Virgo” feature this meter, as does the “Agincourt Carol”.

The structure of the ballad is that of pairs of rhymed couplets with a repeated refrain. The earliest ballads were written in rhyming couplets, usually of eight syllables or so. (Over the course of the centuries from which these songs arose, modern English was developing from Middle English, and many pronunciations were changing radically, often affecting the number of syllables in a word.)

What is sharper than is the thorn?

What is louder than is the horn?

--“Inter Diabolus et Virgo” (Child #1)

from Rawlinson MS D.328, Bodleian Library, Oxford (dated to 15th c., spelling modernized for clarity)

In order to update old ballads, a “burden” (also called a “chorus”) was often added in later. Burdens were lines that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the song (and in fact were used interchangeably between songs) but filled out the stanza:

Or what is louder than a horn?

Lay the bent to the bonny broom

Or what is sharper than a thorn?

Fa-la-la-la, fa-la-la-la-ra-re

--“Riddles Wisely Expounded” (Child #1) from a 17th c. broadside sheet

The 1880 fragment of King Orfeo had the following burden lines:

Scowan ürla grün

Whar giorten han grün oarlac

These burden lines appear to be written in Norn, a form of Old Norse which persisted in the far northern Isles through the 16th c. (They were probably mangled slightly in transmission by people who no longer spoke the language.) They translate as “the grove early greens” and “where goes the hart (green) yearly”. We’ve changed them to English and adjusted them to make sense to the listener.

Melody

The melody is traditional; it was taken down in the Shetlands in 1947. It is written in the Dorian mode. The Greek mode names came into common application for medieval music around the 10th century. The principal music theorist of the day, Guido d’Arezzo, described the practical application of four modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian. Dorian mode was the most common and popular mode for medieval church compositions, and is sometimes referred to as “Church Mode I”.

By 1600, British popular music was dominated by the four modes nearest to our modern ideas of “major” and “minor”: Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian and Aeolian. Though accidentals, or variations from the pure mode, had started to creep in to composed music, traditional music remained almost purely modal. Though this tune was collected in the 20th century, it is almost certainly much older, and is perfectly compatible with melodic structure at the time of the Auchinleck manuscript.

Accompaniment

The wood cut depicted below is “Orpheus playing the six-course vihuela" from the frontispiece of Luys Milan's "El Maestro", (a vihuela music book) published in Valencia in 1535.

With the exception of friction pegs rather than modern machined pegs, this instrument is indistinguishable on casual inspection from a modern 12-string. It was normally tuned GCFADG, which is modern standard tuning raised to the third fret, except for the third string (which becomes Bb rather than A, off a half step, just as period lute tuning is off a half step on that string from modern).

Guitars were smaller cousins of the vihuela; early on, there was a plucked guitar and a strummed guitar (guitarra morisca 'moorish guitar' and guitarra Latina 'Latin guitar', both depicted in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, 13th c.; guitarra from Latin/Greek <cithara/kithara> 'lyre'), but the plucked guitar eventually died out as it wasn't much different from the lute. Simultaneously in Spain there were two vihuelas ("vihuela" from Latin <fidicula> 'strings', whence vielle, etc.), a vihuela de mano (played by hand, plucked) and a vihuela de arco (bowed). The vihuela had a much larger body, like modern dreadnought guitars, and more strings. The bowed vihuela died out, too. The vihuela was tuned just like a six-course lute (most of the time), GCFADG; the guitar was tuned like the inner four courses of a six-course vihuela/lute. Then as craftsmanship improved and the neck of the guitar could take greater stress, the guitar was tuned up a tone and both single (chanterelle) and double courses were tacked on, and as the guitar body grew to accommodate the extra strings it became difficult to tell the guitar from the vihuela.

By the end of the 16th c., the "standard" Spanish guitar had nine strings, four double-courses and a high chanterelle, tuned Aa/Dd/Gg/Bb/E, basically standard modern tuning minus the low E. A treatise discussing this tuning and the positions for "standard" chords was published in Madrid by Joan Carles y Amat in 1596. The debate between single and double courses raged throughout the 17th c. with treatises featuring diagrams for standard chord finger positions appearing for both. Obviously, the debate was never settled, since we still have 12-stringed guitars, though the single courses became more popular eventually, probably due to the ease ease of tuning.

The guitar became popular throughout Europe; the "Premier Livre de Chansons, Gaillardes, Pavannes, Bransles, Almandes, Fantaisies, reduictz en tabulature de Guiterne" was published in Paris in 1552 for a seven-stringed (three double courses and chanterelle) instrument.

Only the English stood by the lute until post-period, though the Globe Theatre in London records a guitar in its instrument inventory prior to 1600. The European sentiment was eloquently expressed by Luis de Briceno in 1626:

"There are many, my lady, who make fun of the guitar and its sound, but if they would consider carefully they would find that the guitar is the most suitable instrument for our time one could imagine, for nowadays one looks for savings of purse and trouble. The guitar is a veritable theatre of savings. And furthermore it is convenient and appropriate to singing, playing, ballet-dancing, jumping, running, folk-dancing and shoe-dancing. I can serenade with it, singing and expressing with its help a thousand amorous passions... It has none of the inconveniences to which the lute is subject; neither smoke nor heat nor cold nor dampness can incommode it. It is always fresh as a rose. If it gets out of tune easily, it is just as easy to tune it again... In my and many other people's opinion, the guitar has a great advantage over the lute, which requires many attentions to be properly maintained: it has to be a good instrument, well played, well strung, and listened to carefully, in silence. But the guitar, my lady, whether well played or badly played, well strung or badly strung, is pleasant to hear and listen to; being so easy to learn, it attracts the busiest of talented people and makes them put aside loftier occupations so that they may hold a guitar in their hands. They desert the lute, mandora, harp, violin, sinfonia, lyre, theorbo, cittern, and clavichord, all for the guitar. Many things could be said in favor of these instruments, but here one consideration is paramount: two thousand people now entertain themselves and express their thoughts and troubles through the guitar. And as further proof of the value of my guitar ask yourself whether kings, princes and gentlemen lay aside the guitar for the lute as they now leave the lute for the guitar?"

Bibliography

Bodleian Library MSS. Selden, B 26, “The Song of Agincourt”, 15th c.

Bronson, Bertrand Harris. The Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads, paperback, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.

Chappell, William, _Old English Popular Music_ (a new edition, with a preface and notes and the earlier examples entirely revised by H. Ellis Wooldridge), New York, 1961 [originally published 1838].

Child, Francis James, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols., NY: Cooper Square Publications, 1965 [originally published 1882-88].

Guido d’Arezzo, Micrologus, written ca. 1025-1028.

Grunfeld, Frederic V.. The Life and Times of the Guitar, New York, 1969.

Leach, MacEdward. The Ballad Book, NY: A. S. Barnes, 1955.

Perrine, Laurence. Sound and Sense, An Introduction to Poetry, 4th edition, New York, 1973.


Rawlinson MS.D. 328, Bodleian Library, 15th century. The work “Inter Diabolus et Virgo” is the earliest recorded version of the ballad Child numbered his #1 and referred to by the title “Riddles Wisely Expounded”