Examples of the use of the term in the text are numerous, and are found in most of the plays. They are not generally of very special interest.
Music, Music plays, Music within.
This direction is found 41 times in twenty-two plays, half of which are comedies.
In 8 cases we have Music during a speech or dream of one of the characters; 7 times as the symphony or the accompaniment to a Song; 7 times in Wedding processions or Pageants; 6 times for Dancing; and 5 times during a banquet.
To give a just idea of the amount of Stage Music considered necessary in or near Shakespeare's time, there must be added to the above, all the stage directions in other terms—e.g., Hautboys, which is found about 14 times.
Here are a few relics of Stage Music before Shakespeare's day.
The playing of the minstrels is frequently mentioned in the old Miracle Plays, and the instruments used were the horn, pipe, tabret, and flute. In the Prologue to the Miracle Play, Childermas Day, 1512, the minstrels are requested to 'do their diligence,' and at the end of the Play to 'geve us a daunce.'
In Richard Edwards's Damon and Pythias, acted
