The first part.

Phi. Now have you fully declared the Ligatures, all which I persuade myself I understand well enough: but because you speak of a pricked Ligature, I do not understand that yet perfectly: therefore I pray you say what Pricks or points signify in singing.
Ma. For the better instruction here is an example of the notes with a prick following every one of them.

A musical staff with several notes, some of which are followed by a prick (dot), demonstrates musical notation.

Pricks and their signification And as your rests signified the whole length of the notes in silence, so doth the prick the half of the note going before to be holden out in voice not doubled, as (mark me) ut, re e, mi i, fa a, so-ol, la-a, and this prick is called a prick of augmentation.
Phi. What, be there any other pricks?
Ma. Yes, there be other pricks whereof we will speak in their own place.
Phi. Having learned the forms and value of the notes, rests and pricks by themselves, it followeth to speak of the Moods, and therefore I pray you to proceed to the declaration of them.
Ma. Those who within these three hundred years have written the Art of Music, have set down the Moods otherwise than they either have been or are taught now in England.
Phi. What have been the occasion of that?
Ma. Although it be hard to assign the cause, yet may we conjecture that although the great music masters who excelled in fore time, no doubt were wonderfully seen in the knowledge thereof, as well in speculation as practice, yet since their death the knowledge of the art is decayed and a more slight or superficial knowledge come in stead thereof, so that it is come nowadays to that, that if they know the common Mood and some Triples, they seek no further.
Phi. Seeing that it is always commendable to know all, I pray you first to declare them as they were set down by others, and then as they are used nowadays.
Ma. I will, and therefore be attentive.
Phi. I shall be so attentive, that except I find some great doubt, I will not dismember your discourse till the end.
Ma. Those which we now call Moods, they termed degrees of Music: the definition they gave thus: a degree is a certain mean whereby the value of the principal notes is perceived by some sign set before them, degrees of music they made three, Time and Prolation. Mood: Time and Prolation.
Phi. What did they term a Mood?
Ma. The due measuring of Longs and Larges, and was either greater or lesser.
Phi. What did they term the great mood?
Ma. The due measuring of Larges by Longs, and was either perfect or unperfect.
Phi. What did they term the Great mood perfect?