see that it was a three part counterpuntal madrigal. As the second
voice supports alternately either the first or third, the poem is a
dialogue on seduction, all voices mingling in the refrain. When
transposed into modern notation, the music is really very attrac-
tive, with a distinct swing in the refrain. ¹ The peculiar feature is
that to such music should be set a poem dealing so brutally with
such a subject. Again, although the treatises explicitly limit the
number of single rimes to four, the stanza form here consists of
five riming lines and a couplet. As actually, however, medieval
Latin songs of the tavern had five or more lines riming together,
the presumption is strong that then, as now, popular song-writers
overrode academic restraint, and that this, therefore, is a student-
enlied rather than a lyric. Although Cornysshe was a member
of the Chapel Royal, it seems unlikely that such a song could be
sung before a mixed audience, even in the Court of Henry VII.
Rather, it must be regarded as a rare example of the popular song
of the day.

But not only does the music help us to a correct distribution
of the parts in the dialogue, it is of still greater importance as in-
dicating the pronunciation and the scansion. For necessarily the
text must be substantially correct. In that case it can be stated
positively that the final e was in no instance pronounced. So far
as the number of syllables is concerned, the words were read
nearly as they are today. In modern spelling the lines in the
third verse would read

By Chríst, you sháll not, nó hardlý
I wíll not bé japed + ́ bodilý.

They are clearly iambic tetrameter, the last accent falling upon
the y rime. But they illustrate, also, the freedom used by the six-
teenth century author in the number of his syllables, because,
musically, the two short syllables in bodily are equalized with the
one long syllable in hardly. The same condition is illustrated, in
the extreme, by the fifth line of the first stanza,

Túlly valy stráwe, let bé I sáy.

Here the music shows the poet not only begins his line with four
short syllables, but he throws his accent. He substitutes a num-

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