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These little indications serve to remind the stranger that he is now in the land of the "duello," where each "captain of compliments" is reputed for "the very butcher of a silk button," and "fights as you sing prick-song, rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom."
The vicars choral were, however, not incorporated until 1465; they were assisted by ten or twelve boy choristers, whose chief business it was, I suppose, to sing the Lady-Mass in prick-song. Beside this company of canons, vicars and choristers directly serving the cathedral, a number of chaplains served the various altars and chantries within it, which at the Dissolution numbered fifteen.
Misty on the blue plain lay Padua, a sleeping city, white and violet remote now and in every sense below her and her concerns. The sky was without cloud, very pale still, glowing white at the edge; the sun not yet out of the sea. The freshness of the air fanned her deliciously; larks were climbing the sky singing their prick-song, scores of finches crossed the slopes, dipping from bush to bush.
Music at that time was said to be pricked, not printed, the word being derived from the prick or dot which formed the head of the note. Any song which was printed in various parts was called a prick-song, to distinguish it from one sung extemporaneously or by ear. The word prick-song occurs not only in all the musical books, but in the literature of the time, and in Shakespeare.
"Singing with woful noise Like a crack'd saints bell jarring in the steeple, Tom Sternhold's wretched prick-song for the people." Another poet, a courtier, wrote: "Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms When they translated David's psalms." But I see no signs of qualmishness; they show to me rather a healthy sturdiness as one of their strongest characteristics. Pope at a later day wrote:
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