Annotation:Sick Sick
X:1 T:Sick, Sick L:1/8 M:C B:Chappell – Popular Music of the Olden Times S:Anthony Holborne’s Cittharn Schoole (1597) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:F C4 F2F2|E3F G2E2|A2c2A2B2|A4 d4| c3B A2 GA|B2G2E2C2|F2C2A,2D2|C4 D4:|
SICK, SICK. AKA and see "Sick Tune (The).” English, Ballad Air (4/4 time). Chappell (1859) prints two versions of this air, in F Major and G Dorian, from two different lute MSS of the late sixteenth century. The second tune, from Dorothy Welde's Lute Book, is similar to Raven's (1984) "Sick Tune.” The original ballad was based on an historical event that occurred in 1571; a massacre of a lady and her children and household, 37 people in all, by the Captain Care or Ker, who is named in the first stanza of the song. Shakespeare mentions the ballad in Much Ado About Nothing when Hero says:
Why, how now! Do you speak in the sick tune?
(Beatrice responds) I am out of all other tune, methinks.