_Rich. II._ V, v, 41. King R. in prison.
_K. Rich._ _Music_ do I hear?
Ha, ha! _keep time_.--How sour sweet music is,
When _time is broke_, and no _proportion kept_!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the _daintiness of ear_,
To check _time broke_ in a _disorder'd string_;
But, for the _concord_ of _my_ state and _time_,
Had not an _ear_ to hear my true _time broke_.
* * * * *
_This music mads me_: let it sound no more:
For though _it hath holp madmen_ to their wits,
In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad.
The simile is perfect, and the play upon 'time broke' admirable. In l.
45 Richard reflects on the sad contrast between his quick 'ear' for
'broken time' in music, and his slowness to hear the 'breaking' of his
_own_ 'state and time.' The 'disorder'd string' is himself, who has
been playing his part 'out of time' ('Disorder'd' simply means 'out of
its place'--_i.e._, as we now say, 'a bar wrong'), and this has
resulted in breaking the 'concord'--_i.e._, the harmony of the various
parts which compose the state.
A few words are necessary about 'Proportion.' This term was used in
Elizabethan times exactly as we now use 'Time.' The 'times' used in
modern music can practically be reduced to two--viz.
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