Annotation:Why is your faithful slave disdained?

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WHY IS YOUR FAITHFUL SLAVE DISDAINED (Bononcini). English, Air (3/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The air was published by John Gay in his Beggar's Opera (1729. Air 14), where it appears under the title "If love the virgin's heart invade." It also appears ("in an indifferent form," says Kidson {1922}) in Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. III, 1719. Pulver (1923) indicates this popular melody found its way, under different titles, into many ballad operas of the early 18th century. The first couple of stanzas to the amatory song in Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. 1 (1707, p. 220) go:

Why is your faithful Slave disdain'd?
By gentle Arts my Heart you gain'd
Oh, keep it by the same!
For ever shall my Passion last,
If you will make me one possest,
Of what I dare not name.

Tho' charming are your Wit and Face,
'Tis not alone to hear and gaze,
That will suffice my Flame;
Love's Infancy on Hopes may live,
But you to mine full grown must give,
O what I dare not name.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 51.

Recorded sources:

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