Annotation:Canst Thou Not Hit It?

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CANST THOU NOT HIT IT. English, Air (6/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The air appears in William Ballet's Lute Book. Chappell (1859) records that this tune is alluded to in the old ballad of "Arthur a Bradley," and is mentioned as a dance tune in the Elizabethan play Wily Beguiled. Shakespeare alludes to the song in his Love's Labour Lost (act iv., sc. I) when Rosaline and Boyet sing:

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it;
Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
An I cannot, cannot, cannot;
An I cannot, another can.

Additional notes

Source for notated version: -

Printed sources : - Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. 1), 1859; p. 249.

Recorded sources: -

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