The simile is perfect, and the play upon 'time broke ' admirable. In l. 45 Richard reflects on the sad contrast between his quick 'ear' for 'broken time' in music, and his slowness to hear the 'breaking' of his own 'state and time.' The 'disorder'd string' is himself, who has been playing his part 'out of time' ('Disorder'd' simply means 'out of its place'—i.e., as we now say, 'a bar wrong'), and this has resulted in breaking the 'concord'—i.e., the harmony of the various parts which compose the state.
A few words are necessary about 'Proportion.' This term was used in Elizabethan times exactly as we now use 'Time.' The 'times' used in modern music can practically be reduced to two—viz., Duple (two beats to the bar) and Triple (three beats to the bar). But in Elizabeth's day the table of various Proportions was a terribly elaborate thing. Of course many of these 'Proportions' never really came into practical use—but there was plenty of mystery left even after all deductions.
Morley (Introduction, 1597) gives Five kinds of proportions 'in most common use'—viz., Dupla, Tripla, Quadrupla, Sesquialtera, and Sesquitertia. The first three correspond to what we still call
