Further to yesterday's post regarding the aesthetic principles that have guide Stephen Sondheim's approach to the writing of lyrics (which can be found in his 2010 book called Finishing the Hat), here is a telling quote that may shed some light on not only his own work but on some of the distinctive qualities of Shakespeare's songs, as well: "Poetry is an art of concision, lyrics of expansion. Poems depend on packed images, on resonance and juxtaposition, on density. Every reader absorbs a poem at his own pace, inflecting it with his own rhythms, stresses and tone. The tempo is dictated less by what the poet intends than by the reader's comprehension." (Before going further, I should mention that Sondheim includes a note regarding his decision to use the pronouns "his", "him", etc. to include both genders, "rather than hacking through a jungle of convoluted syntax...") The point of interest here is the fact that with a song, and particularly if it was written for the theatre, the music can't allow a listener to review and reconsider the words the way that poetry can, and therefore one of Sondheim's basic tenets is "Less is More."

OK, now have another look at the song from Love's Labour's Lost posted yesterday, and see if you find, as I do, that the simplicity and clarity that Sondheim values so highly were also thoroughly understood by Shakespeare. And here's more evidence, in the form of the song sung by Balthasar in act two, scene three of Much Ado About Nothing:

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,

Of dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.