Giving a Voice to Mariana's Tenor...

I've found a version of Measure for Measure's "Take, O Take Those Lips Away" performed by the Amherst College Concert Choir a few years back. It's different than John Wilson's version (which is the one in the back of my book), but listening to it brings to mind what it might have been like to actually hear these plays performed.

I've tried uploading the sound files as movie files to blogspot, but it appears that I'm unable to do so. However, I thought it was an interesting point simply that Shakespeare could add different shades of melancholy to Mariana's opening scene (4.1). After all, it's in the following dialogue that Mariana and the Duke note, respectively, that "my [Mariana's] mirth it much displeased, but much pleased my woe" and, conversely, that "music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm."

I also thought it was interesting how the lyrics somewhat foreshadowed the action that had was to come, and had already been planned out by Isabella and the Duke/Friar. My favorite part of it is porbably "And those eyes, the break of day,/Lights that do mislead the morn" because, if it refers originally to Mariana's betrayal by the curiously-named Angelo, they also serve well as a depiction of how Mariana deceives Angelo in turn.