Ye Sacred Muses is William Byrd's Musical elegy on the death of his colleague and sometime mentor, Thomas Tallis. It is scored for 5 vv (usually four viols and countertenor).
The words are:-
- Ye sacred Muses, race of Jove,
- whom Music's lore delighteth,
- Come down from crystal heav'ns above
- to earth where sorrow dwelleth,
- In mourning weeds, with tears in eyes:
- Tallis is dead, and Music dies.
The concluding lines are particularly effective and are repeated.
Famous quotes containing the words sacred and/or muses:
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “Artist.””
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“here I ame in Kent and Christendome
Emong the muses where I rede and ryme;”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)