Annotation:Of all the birds

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OF ALL THE BIRDS. AKA - "Owl (The)." English, Air (6/8 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. In Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Act 1, scene i), Merrythought sings three snatches of song from Pammelia and this "Freeman's" song (for three voices), from Thomas Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia [1] (1609). The latter volume was the successor to Pammelia. The lyric goes:

Of all the birds that ever I see,
The Owl is the fairest in her degree,
For all the day long she sits in a tree,
And when the night comes, away flies she,
Te whit, te who, to whom drinks thou?
Sir knave to thou,
This song is well sung, I make you a vow,
And he is a knave that drinketh now.
Nose, nose, no-o-o-nose,
And who gave thee that jolly red nose?
Cinamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, and cloves,
And that gave thee thy jolly red nose.

The song was used for children's plays.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kines (Songs from Shakespeare's Plays and Popular Songs of Shakespeare's Time), 1964; pp. 88-89.

Recorded sources:

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