Music of the Spheres Music of the Spheres Author Marley Chamberlain Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Marley Chamberlain, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Science Astrology Astronomy Cosmology Literature and the Arts Music Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Marley Chamberlain Marley Chamberlain

Marley Chamberlain was a student at Utah Valley University.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
Overview

The music of the spheres, also known as musica universalis (universal music), is an idea that originates as far back as 600 BC. The concept of this music is usually connected to celestial beings. This celestial music could mean audible music or the nonliteral music of heavenly beings; mortals were usually believed unable to hear the celestial song. In the early modern period, several mentions of music, specifically the celestial music of the spheres (or orbs), can be found in the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Musical orbs, and the mortal inability to hear them, are specifically mentioned in Act 5 of The Merchant of Venice: There’s not the smallest orb which though behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still choiring 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. (5.1.69–74)

The Spheres

In the early modern era, music of the spheres was viewed as a connection between the celestial and the mundane. The spheres are spherical shapes that can be seen in the sky, such as the sun, moon, and stars, believed to originate with the imagined physics of the universe, in which crystalline spheres held the celestial bodies as they circled the earth. Thinkers of the age believed the music of the spheres would have felt more significant when art was being performed in an outdoor or open theater.

Due to early modern performance practices, especially the prevalence of outdoor theaters which operated only in daylight hours, there were no external lights on stage apart from torches or candles carried by actors, so any mention of light from the sun, stars, or moon would have either been the literal daylight coming into the theater or the imagination of the actor and audience involved. In The Merchant of Venice, Lorenzo considers, 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 (5.1.60–64).

The spheres were also a reference to the mathematical and scientific aspects of the sky. Fascination with the stars (their movement, distance, etc.) was very common in the period, and the mystical connection of the stars with other aspects of life would have been of great interest in the arts. Astrology was a very popular system of thinking, so many people ascribed events in their lives to the movement of the planets and stars. The music of the spheres was considered a phenomenon that brought together the spiritual, artistic, and scientific aspects of life.

The Music

Although the music of the spheres was usually a figurative concept rather than audible voices and instruments, music remained an important element in early modern plays. Music was thought to have celestial power and could be used for good and evil. Music of the spheres would usually symbolize harmony and balance in the universe.

King Henry VIII features a gentlewoman singing a song about the powers of music: Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountaintops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing. To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung, as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die. (3.1.5–15)

This song in the play shows the beliefs held about music’s power in the period. Music is described as having the power to control the billowing sea as well as human emotions. It is also notable that the stage directions instruct this verse to be sung by one of Queen Katherine’s gentlewomen. The queen confesses her sadness and asks for a song to help alleviate her suffering.

Key Print Sources James, Jamie. The Music of the Spheres : Music, Science, and the Natural Order of the Universe. Grove Press, 1993. Rogers, George L. The Music of the Spheres. Music Educators Journal, vol. 103, no. 1, 2016, p. 41. Sasson, Sarah. Music of the Spheres. Indiana University Press, 2012. Sulka, Emily. Shakespeare’s Philosophy of Music. Musical Offerings, vol. 8, no. 2, 2017, pp. 41–50. Ungureanu, Cristian. The Music of Spheres <supplied>God as A Geometer</supplied>. Anastasis: Research in Medieval Culture and Art, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 52–68.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. The Music of the Spheres. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/order/scale.html. Accessed 14 Sep. 2018. Samuel, Dana. The Music of the Spheres. Sensory Studies. https://www.sensorystudies.org/picture-gallery/spheres_image/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2025.