Say, Love, If Ever Thou Didst Find

Album: Lute Songs (1594)
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Songfacts®:

  • Or in Olde English: Say loue if euer thou didst finde...

    With couplets like

    And what should that rare mirror be?
    Some goddess or some queen is she...


    This could be mistaken for a love song, but it is actually an ode to Elizabeth I by John Dowland, whose better-known works include "Come Again." We can be sure it is not a love song because the Virgin Queen was thirty years his senior. It is possible he composed such a sycophantic ode because he was angling for the position of royal lutenist, which came up at Elizabeth's court in 1594. If that was the case, his ploy didn't work, although he did enjoy royal patronage in Denmark, and eventually in England in 1612, by which time Elizabeth had been dead for the best part of a decade. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England

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