' The music
accompanying the procession is named--viz., drum and fife.
_Merchant_ II, v, 22.
_Lancelot._ 'You shall see a _masque_' ...
_Shylock._ What! are there _masques_?
Hear you me, Jessica.
Lock up my doors; and _when you hear the drum_,
And the _vile squeaking of the wryneck'd fife_,
Clamber not you up to the casements then,
Nor thrust your head into the public street
To gaze on _Christian fools with varnish'd faces_.
The 'vile squeaking of the wryneck'd fife' is of some musical
interest. The adjective 'wryneck'd' refers, not to the instrument
itself, which was straight, but to the player, whose head has to be
slightly twisted round to get at the mouthpiece. Mersennus (b. 1588)
says that the Fife is the same as the Tibia Helvetica, which was
simply a small edition of the Flauto Traverso, or German Flute. That
is, the Fife of those days was much the same as the modern Fife of the
cheaper kind, with the usual six holes, and a big hole near the
stopped end, where the breath was applied. The instrument was
therefore held _across_ [traverso] the face of the player, whose head
would be turned sideways, and hence comes Shylock's description of it
as the 'wryneck'd' fife.
In _Much Ado_, Benedick draws a distinction between the Drum and Fife
and the Tabor and Pipe.
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