Annotation:When Phoebus Addrest

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WHEN PHOEBUS ADDREST. English, Ballad Air (6/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The original air appears in Friesche Lust Hof (1634) {appears as "O doe not, doe not kil me yet"}. The melody for the song was later supplanted by the air printed by Playford and well known today in country dance circles as "Drive the Cold Winter Away." The first stanza of the erotic song, which is contained in The Percy Folio Manuscript, 1620–50 (p. 96 of MS) begins:

When Phœbus addrest himself to the west, And set up his rest below, Cynthia agreed in her glittering weed Her beauty on me to bestow; And walking alone, attended by none, 5 By chance I heard one cry “O do not, do not, kill me yet, For I am not prepared to die!”

Rather than a murder, the song tells of tryst, with the woman at fist unwilling, then afterward willing.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times, vol. 1), 1859; p. 172.

Recorded sources:

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