References to audible sound in Shakespeare

Tragedies

Timon of Athens

... they
were the most needless creatures living, should we
ne'er have use for 'em, and would most resemble
sweet instruments hung up in cases that keep their
sounds to themselves.

... Gentlemen, our dinner will not
recompense this long stay: feast your ears with the
music awhile, if they will fare so harshly o' the
trumpet's sound; we shall to 't presently.

... Crack the lawyer's voice,
That he may never more false title plead,
Nor sound his quillets shrilly: hoar the flamen,
That scolds against the quality of flesh,

Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach.

Othello

What an eye she has! methinks it sounds a parley of
provocation.

Hamlet

... Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:
[Cock crows]
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it: stay, and speak!

... I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day;

But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight.

That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please.

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
cannot play upon me.

Coriolanus

... with thy grim looks and
The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,
Thou madst thine enemies shake

Go, sound thy trumpet in the market-place;
Call thither all the officers o' the town,

The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour
More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue
From every meaner man.

May these same instruments, which you profane,
Never sound more! when drums and trumpets shall
I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
Made all of false-faced soothing!

I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.

... make them of no more voice
Than dogs that are as often beat for barking
As therefore kept to do so.

... do not take
His rougher accents for malicious sounds

A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
And harsh in sound to thine.

Romeo and Juliet

My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!

Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!

In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.

` ... Then music with her silver sound'--
why 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver
sound'? What say you, Simon Catling?

Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

I say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.

Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?

Faith, I know not what to say.

O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say
for you. It is 'music with her silver sound,'
because musicians have no gold for sounding:
'Then music with her silver sound
With speedy help doth lend redress.'

Julius Caesar

I must be laugh'd at,
If, or for nothing or a little, I
Should say myself offended, and with you
Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should
Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
It not concern'd me.

These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
To these great fellows: sound and be hang'd, sound out!

Trumpeters,
With brazen din blast you the city's ear;
Make mingle with rattling tabourines;
That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together,
Applauding our approach.

Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well

Is there no voice more worthy than my own
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear
For the repealing of my banish'd brother?

Not stingless too.

O, yes, and soundless too;
For you have stol'n their buzzing

King Lear

Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness.

Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?

Most sure and vulgar: every one hears that,
Which can distinguish sound.

If you have victory, let the trumpet sound

Thou art arm'd, Gloucester: let the trumpet sound

Come hither, herald,--Let the trumpet sound,
And read out this.

Sound, trumpet!

'If any man of quality or degree within
the lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund,
supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold
traitor, let him appear by the third sound of the
trumpet: he is bold in his defence.'

Sound!

This would have seem'd a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity.
Whilst I was big in clamour came there in a man,
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endured, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellow'd out
As he'ld burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received: which in recounting
His grief grew puissant and the strings of life
Began to crack: twice then the trumpets sounded,
And there I left him tranced.

Macbeth

Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?

I'll charm the air to give a sound,
While you perform your antic round

... each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour.

Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.

... it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Comedies

All's Well That Ends Well

Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
His powerful sound within an organ weak:

[Trumpets sound]
The king's coming; I know by his trumpets.

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Twice have the trumpets sounded;

I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice

... are like to gnats,
Which make a sound, but kill'd are wonder'd at.

And every one with claps can sound

The rough and woeful music that we have,
Cause it to sound, beseech you.

Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear?

The Winter's Tale

My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion

Twelfth Night

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

... thy small pipe
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound

The Merry Wives of Windsor

... Terms! names! Amaimon sounds
well

A Midsummer Night's Dream

... momentary as a sound

What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?

Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound

Sound, music!

Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child
on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.

Love's Labour's Lost

A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound

[Trumpets sound within]
The trumpet sounds: be mask'd; the maskers come.

I tell you, 'twill sound harshly in her ears.

Much Ado About Nothing

Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

As You Like It

... and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

Troilus and Cressida

Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

[A retreat sounded]
Hark! they are coming from the field

... doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage

Trumpet, blow loud,
Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
And every Greek of mettle, let him know,
What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.
[Trumpet sounds]

[A retreat sounded]
They're come from field

When fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing

Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart
With sounding Troilus.

Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
Thou dreadful Ajax; that the appalled air
May pierce the head of the great combatant
And hale him hither.

Thou, trumpet, there's my purse.
Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe:
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Outswell the colic of puff'd Aquilon:
Come, stretch thy chest and let thy eyes spout blood;
Thou blow'st for Hector.
[Trumpet sounds]
No trumpet answers.

... Ho! bid my trumpet sound!

No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.

[A retreat sounded]
Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.

The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.

The Taming of the Shrew

Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;

[Some bear out SLY. A trumpet sounds]
Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds

The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.

Sound, sound, sound, sound!

The Merchant of Venice

Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter
My sober house.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And watery death-bed for him. He may win;
And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And summon him to marriage.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
[Enter Musicians]
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA]
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

It is your music, madam, of the house.

Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended, and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion
And would not be awaked.

[A tucket sounds]
Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet

The Tempest

Hark, hark!
[Burthen [dispersedly, within] Bow-wow]
The watch-dogs bark!
[Burthen Bow-wow]
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?
It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.
[ARIEL sings]
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
[Burthen Ding-Dong]
Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.

The ditty does remember my drown'd father.
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.

O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again

The sound is going away; let's follow it, and
after do our work.

I cannot too much muse
Such shapes, such gesture and such sound, expressing,
Although they want the use of tongue, a kind
Of excellent dumb discourse.

... O, how oddly will it sound that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!

Where but even now with strange and several noises
Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,
And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,
We were awaked

Sonnets

VIII

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

CXXVII

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

CXXX

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

CXLV

Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
To me that languish'd for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away;
'I hate' from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying 'not you.'

Copyright Michael J. O'Donnell <michael_odonnell@acm.org>. Licensed for free use.
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