The regularity of John Dowland's songbook prints suggests a well-planned trilogy. The First Booke of Songes or Ayres came out in 1597; its simple and versatile arrangements of already popular songs and tunes achieved smashing commercial success. He issued the Second Booke three years later, in 1600, concurrently with a reprinting of the First. In it, he chose fewer strophic songs, preferring the freedom of a through-composed version; he also included some examples of courtly dramatic dialogue music, or Masks. After three more years, yet another printing of the First Booke coincided with the release of Dowland's Third and last (or Latest) collection of songs. Ongoing lawsuits with the printer over the Second Booke and the outbreak of the plague in London both hampered its commercial promise. Also, despite the presence of several of Dowland's songs in the Third Booke specifically paying homage to Queen Elizabeth I, the elusive position of Court Lutenist still escaped him.

These troubling circumstances notwithstanding, the Third Booke includes some of Dowland's highest accomplishments in the genre of English song, among them Weep you no more, sad fountains. In this piece, Dowland's predilection to grant text rhythms mastery over musical rhythms reaches its zenith. The entire text presents the conceit of a man speaking to his eyes, two sad fountains, telling them how useless it is to weep when their Beloved is asleep and does not notice their tears. Already in the first phrase, Dowland allows the singer's rhythm to wander freely within each measure, as if his very vision were blurred by tears. Yet the effect intensifies. At the close of each stanza, as the text fixates upon the uncaring woman asleep, the composer completely breaks down the musical meter. Seven sequential times the melody sings a descending fourth motive, each time utterly isolated in its rhythm from the similarly disjunct rhythms of the accompanimental lines. Once again, the virtual tears in the text create in Dowland's hands a palpable blurring of the musical reality. Weep you no more, sad fountains has been acclaimed the gem of all Dowland's songwriting.

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