Annotation:Canst Thou Not Hit It?

|Tune properties and standard notation

 CANST THOU NOT HIT IT. English, Air (6/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The air appears in William Ballet's Lute Book. Chappell (1859) records that this tune is alluded to in the old ballad of "Arthur a Bradley," and is mentioned as a dance tune in the Elizabethan play Wily Beguiled. Shakespeare alludes to the song in his Love's Labour Lost (act iv., sc. I) when Rosaline and Boyet sing: Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it; Thou canst not hit it, my good man. An I cannot, cannot, cannot;  An I cannot, another can.  Source for notated version:  Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 1, 1859; p. 249.  Recorded sources:

|Tune properties and standard notation