Melodies of Solace

Music can be salve for the battered heart and soul. Shakespeare rightly wrote, “When gripping griefs the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind oppress, then music with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.” When I am tempted to melancholy, there is nothing that can more quickly right the balance of my heart quite like music. “The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,” Shakespeare asserted, “is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are as dull as night, and his affections as dark as Erebus: let no such man be trusted.”