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The text to ‘The Knotting Song’ is by Sir Charles Sedley and was published in The Gentleman’s Journal of August and September 1694. Sedley was a notorious wit and something of a reprobate, and his poem was prefaced by Motteux with: ‘Happy the lover who with all his art can warm one of these cold beauties into pity, principally now the fit of Knotting (to speak in a lover’s phrase) possesses the best part of the finer half of human kind, and leaves them unconcerned for sighs and vows as the fair subject of this song.’

Purcell’s lighthearted setting probably dates from late 1694 and was published in the third book of Thesaurus Musicus (1695). Phillis, the subject of Sedley’s irritated attentions, was clearly an enthusiastic participant in London’s latest craze, knotting fringes.

from notes by Robert King © 2003