CALENO CUSTURE ME

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 132, 2 December 1930, Page 9

CALENO CUSTURE ME

AN ENGLISH AIR AND AN IRISH SONG

(By T. Lindsay Buick, r.K. Hist. S.); On Thursday evening next, at the Concert. Chamber of the Town. Hall, the Apollo Singers will render as one of the items of their programme, an old English melody which has for its presentday title, the somewhat obscure and. doubtful one of "Caleno Custure Me." The theme of the melody is simple, but' beautiful, being a paean in praise of ideal woman, the words of the title following as an ever-recurring refrain upon the old English poetry sung by; the baritone, tenor and bass. When I view your comely grace, Caleno Custure Me. Golden haires, and your angel face, Caleno Custure Me. Azure .veines much like the skies, Caleno Custure Me. Coral lips, your crystal eies, Caleno Custure Me. Soul with silence moving sense, Caleno Custure Me. Wish of God with reverence, Caleno Custure Me. Life and virtue you possess, Caleno Custure Me. Matchless gifts of worthiness, .Caleno Custure Me. There latter words, "Caleno Custure Me," are said to be taken from Shakespeare, because in th,e slightly altered form of "Calmie Custure Me," they are printed in the first folio, and varied in almost every other folio. To tha present-day sense of sound, they are, to say the least, peculiar, but they have a history all their own, associated over long years with both tha drama and with song. By the vagaries of some editors they have been embodied in historic text, and by the inspiration of some poets they have formed the basis of a lover's sonnet. ■ Those who are familiar with Shakespeare's historical play, Henry V., will remember the amusing interlude in; which that papier-mache man-of-war Pistol, plays the chief part, the one occasion on. which his craven spirit becomes brave. On the battlefield, after Agineourt, Pistol captures a Frenchman, and seeing that he himself is armed, and the Frenchman 13 not, he boldly shouts: "Yield, cur." Tha Frenchman having seen the valour of his nation crushed by the yeomen of England, is in no mood to be truculent, and, mistaking Pistol's arrogance for true bravery, thinks it wise to make the best terms he can, f and so proceeds to flatter his belligerent captor. "Je pense que vous etes gentilhomma de bonne qualite," he said, with many; appropriate gesticulations. Pistol,' whose knowledge of French is as weak as his stomach for soldiering, mistakes the intended' compliment to himself as "a gentleman of good quality," for, an assumption of airs by his prisoner. He therefore shouts back at him: "Quality! Cality! Construe" me." This he does in a spirit of both contempt and inquiry: "Quality," he repeats in derision; "Cality," in mimicry of the Frenchman's pronunciation, "Construe me," enlighten' me. "Art thou a gentleman? What is thy name? Discuss." In these brusque words he demands that the Frenchman shall speak up, and "discuss" or explain himself. By the mischievous processes of piracy, misinterpretation, erratic copying, and bad printing, which have resulted in so many changes in the Shakespearian, text since the, baru laid down his pen, these plain words of Pistol's have been strangely mutilated, and the whole teaor of his commands and questions altered by the interpolation of other words which have no possible bearing upon the comedy that was being enaetod, outside Agineourt. Capel, who produced his edition of Shakespeare in the second half of the eighteenth century, and of whom Dr. Johnson said: "He doth gabble monstrously," gives Pistol's line as: "Cality! Calmie! Construe me." George Steevens, . who admittedly took great liberties, renders.it as: "Call you me Calmie? Construe me." Eann and Bitson's senseless, version, is: "Calmly, Calmie, construe me." Edmond Malone, author of the "Variorum" edition, was the first editor definitely to drift off. into the Irish gaelic, and to give the words the musical inclination they retain to-day. Malone makes Pistol say: "Quality? Calen o custure me."' James Boswell, who based his work upon a copy corrected by Malone, with a definite purpose, practically eliminates Shakespeare by putting into Pistol's mouth words which would have been as meaningless to him as they would have been to the terrified Frenchman: "Callino, castore me." These are variations enough from tha original text, and the latter two suggest the connection between Shakespeare and the present-day song. Malona says his words are the burden of an old song, "A Sonnet of a Lover in. Praise of his Lady," which was published as early as 1584.' . ; Boswell declares his are the words of a song not quite so old, but still a song dedicated to some young wild Irish rose. Both these interpretations may be correct so far Us they are applied .to an ancient song, but the words can have no possible relation to Pistol's argument with his prisoner, and to make him. say: "Qualitie! Calmie! Custure me!" as many of the editions of Shakespeare do, is to make him utter nonsense of which the Bard of Avon, never dreamed. While, then, it is proper to say, as the Apollo programme doubtless will say, that the words are taken from Dr. Naylor 's compilation of "Shakespeare Music," it is.incorrect to'say that the words are "from Shakespeare," for they are not Shakespeare > words at all. Boswell's justification for the pre» sence of this variation in his edition—* and much the same idea must have beexf running through the mind of Malone—« is that as the Frenchmanj spoke Pistol was humming ove* the air and words of an old Irish song, which he prints a.4 "Callino, Castore Me,"v and which liberally translated, might mean, •'Little girl for ever mine." This, however, is but a pic.cc of over-reach-ing imagination. There is .nothing about the Situation to suggest that Pistol was animated by any such amorous feelings at the moment. He was much more concerned to extort from his captive an "egregious ransom," or, as an alternative, spitting him on the point of his sword. The words, therefore, as they appear at the head of the song above, have no true relation to Shakespeare, but rightly belong to an old Irish love song, which in the vernacular is.sometimes rendered as '' Cailinog a Stuaire,'' and sometimes as "Callino Casturame," of which "Caleno Custure Me" is clearly an Anglicised version. The song is sung to an air the origin of which has, like that of many another catchy tune, been lost in antiquity. When that origin is discussed the authorities are hopelessly divided, and like the men of Ephesus of old, "some cry one thing and some another." The most we can say to-day is that it belongs to Tudor times; that the words of its refrain are part of a song of Irish gaelic days, the modern sentiment of which would be expressed by that term of endearment now universally used from the green hills of Donegal to the silver lakes of Kerry—"Colleen Asthore."