Oh all the money that ere I had, I spent it in good company.
And all the harm that ere I’ve done, alas it was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit, to memory now I shant recall.
So fill me to the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.
Oh all the friends that ere I had, they are sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts ere I loved , they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should part and you should not,
I gently rise and softly I call, “Goodnight and joy be with you all!”
On the Nativity of Christ. A poem by William Dunbar
William Dunbar (c 1460 – c 1520) was a Franciscan friar and also a “Makar” ie a Poet. He was court poet to James IV of Scotland. The video features Alan and Camilla Mars performing a selection of verses from this poem. The poem was performed as a part of the Brighton Early Music Consorts Christmas concert 2008. At the concert itself the verses were interspersed with songs and stories -which have been edited out for this video. There is a full text under the video and also a translation of the verses performed.
On the Nativity of Christ
Rorate, celi, desuper!
Hevins distill your balmy schouris,
For now is rissin the brycht day ster
Fro the ros Mary, flour of flouris.
The cleir sone quhome no clud devouris,
Surminting Phebus in the est
Is cumin of His hevinly touris;
Et nobis puer natus est.
Archangellis, angellis, and dompnationis,
Tronis, potestatis, and marteiris seir,
And all ye hevinly operationis,
Ster, planeit, firmament, and speir,
Fyre, erd, air, and watter cleir,
To Him gife loving, most and lest,
That come into so meik maneir;
Et nobis puer natus est.
Synnaris be glaid and pennance do,
And thank your Makar hairtfully,
For He that ye mycht nocht cum to,
To yow is cumin full humly,
Your saulis with His blud to by,
And lous yow of the feindis arrest,
And only of His awin mercy;
Pro nobis puer natus est.
All clergy do to him inclyne,
And bow unto that barne benyng,
And do your observance devyne
To Him that is of kingis King;
Ensence His altar, reid and sing
In haly kirk, with mynd degest,
Him honouring attour all thing,
Qui nobis puer natus est.
Celestiall fowlis in the are,
Sing with your nottis upoun hicht;
In firthis and in forrestis fair
Be myrthfull now at all your mycht,
For passit is your dully nycht.
Aurora hes the cluddis perst,
The son is rissin with glaidsum lycht,
Et nobis puer natus est.
Now spring up, flouris, fra the rute,
Revert yow upwart naturaly,
In honour of the blissit frute
That rais up fro the rose Mary.
Lay out your levis lustely,
Fro deid tak lyfe now at the lest
In wirschip of that Prince wirthy,
Qui nobis puer natus est.
Syng, hevin imperiall, most of hicht,
Regions of air mak armony;
All fische in flud and foull of flicht
Be myrthfull and mak melody.
All Gloria in excelsis cry –
Hevin, erd, se, man, bird, and best –
He that is crownit abone the sky
Pro nobis puer natus est.
On the Nativity of Christ – a translation
Rorate, celi, desuper!
Heavens distill your balmy showers,
For now is risen the bright day star
From the rose Mary, flower of flowers.
The clear Son/sun whom no cloud devours,
Surmounting Phebus in the east
Is coming of His heavenly towers;
Et nobis puer natus est.
Archangels, angels, and dominations,
Thrones, powers, and martyrs many,
And all your heavenly operations,
Star, planet, firmament, and sphere,
Fire, earth, air, and water clear,
To Him give loving, most and least,
That come into so meek manner;
Et nobis puer natus est.
Sinners be glad and pennance do,
And thank your Maker heartfully,
For He that ye might not come to,
To you is coming full humbly,
Your souls with His blood to buy,
And lose you of the feinds arrest,
And only of His own mercy;
Pro nobis puer natus est.
All clergy do to him incline,
And bow unto that bairn bening,
And do your observance divine
To Him that is of kings King;
Ensence His altar, read and sing
In holy church, with sober mind,
Him honouring above all thing,
Qui nobis puer natus est.
Celestiall fowls(birds) in the air,
Sing with your notes upon high;
In firths and in forests fair
Be mirthful now at all your might,
For passed is your dull night.
Aurora has the clouds pierced,
The son is risen with gladsome light,
Et nobis puer natus est.
Now spring up, flowers, from the root,
Revert you upward naturally,
In honour of the blessed fruit
That rose up from the rose Mary.
Lay out your leaves lustily,
From death take life now at the least
In worship of that Prince worthy,
Qui nobis puer natus est.
Sing, heavin imperial, most of high,
Regions of air make harmony;
All fish in flood and fowl of flight
Be mirthful and make melody.
All Gloria in excelsis cry –
Heavin, earth, sea, man, bird, and beast –
He that is crowned above the sky
Pro nobis puer natus est.
There was this king nodding
In his garden all alane
When his brither in his ear dropped
A wee tait of henbane
Then he stole his brother's crown
And his money and his widow
But the dead king walked and got his son
And said,"Now listen, kiddo
I've been killed and it's your duty
To take revenge on Claudius
Kill him quick and clean and show
The nation what a fraud he is
The boy says, "Right, I'll do it
But I'll have to play it crafty
So that nobody will suspect me
I'll kid on that I'm a dafty
So wi all except Horatio
(and he trusts him as a friend)
Hamlet - that's the kid
He kids on he's round the bend
And because he's not yet willing
For obligatory killing
He tried to make his uncle think
He's tuppence off the shilling
Took the mickey oot Polonius
Treated poor Ophelia vile
And told Rosencrantz and Gildenstern
that Denmark's blooded bile
Then a troup of traveling actors
Like the 784
Arrived to do a special one night
Gig in Elsinore
Hamlet, Hamlet, acting balmy
Hamlet, Hamlet, loves his mommy
Hamlet, Hamlet, hesitating
Wonders if the ghost's a fake
And that is why he's waiting
Then Hamlet wrote a scene for
The players to enact
While Horatio and him would watch
To see if Claudius cracked
The play was called "the Mousetrap"
(not the one that's running noo)
And sure enough, the King walked out
Before the scene was through.
So Hamlet's got the proof that Claudius
Gived his dad the dose
The only problem being now that
Claudius knows he knows
So while Hamlet tells his ma that her
New husband's not a fit man
Uncle Claud puts out a contract with
The English king as hit man
Then when Hamlet killed Polonius
The concealed corpus delecti
Was the King's excuse to send for
An English hempen necktie
With Rosencrantz and Gildenstern
To make sure he got there
But Hamlet jumped the boat and put
The finger straight on that pair
Meanwhile Laertes heard his dad had been
Stabbed thru the arras
He came racing back to Elsinore
Toute-suite, Hot foot from Paris
And Ophelia with her dad killed by
The man she wished to marry
After saying it with flowers
She commited hari-kari
Hamlet, Hamlet, there's no messin'
Hamlet, Hamlet, Learned his lesson
Hamlet, Hamlet, Yorick's crust
Convinced him that men, good or bad,
At last must come to dust
Then Laertes lost the place and was
Demanding retribution
But the king said, keep the head and
I'll provide you a solution
And he arranged a sword-fight with
The interested parties
With a blunted sword for Hamlet and
A sharp sword for Laertes
And to make things double sure
The old belt and braces line
He fixed up a poison sword tip and
A poisoned cup of wine
And the poisoned sword got Hamlet
But Laertes went and muffed it
Cause he got stabbed himself and he
Confessed before he snuffed it
Then Hamlet's mummy drank the wine and
As her face turned blue
Hamlet says, "I quite believe
The King's a baddy through and through
Incestuous, treacherous, damned Dane
He said, to be precise,
And made up for hesitating by
Killing Claudius twice
He stabbed him with the sword and forced
The wine between his lips
Then he said, the rest is silence
And he cashed in all his chips
They fired a volley over him that
Shook the topmost rafter
And then Fortinbras, knee-deep in Danes
Lived happily ever after
Hamlet, Hamlet, end of story
Hamlet, Hamlet, very gory
Hamlet, Hamlet, I'm away
If you think this is boring
You should read the bloody play
Short humorous autobiography of Adam McNaughton:-
I, Adam McNaughtan, being of sound mind...continued here
Mp3 sampleof Adam McNaughton singing "Oor Hamlet"
http://www.codamusic.co.uk/mp3/1026_000100010033.mp3
From the album:-
The Words I Used to Know
A beautiful song by Adam McNaughton about the Scottish travelling folk called “the Yellow’s on the Broom” .
The narrator in the song recounts the travelling folks miseries when they forced to live a Scaldie’s (settled house-dweller) life during the winter months. The narrator looks forward keenly to the springtime when the “gan aboot folk” can take the road once more and live in the “worlds room”. For the narrator the world’s room is synonymous with liberation, belonging and being in charge of ones fate.
You can download a short mp3 clip of Adam MacNaughton singing the “Yellow on the Broom” from his album “The Words That I Used To Know” by following this link to Coda Music.
And here are the lyrics as I recall them:
YELLOW ON THE BROOM
I ken ye dinna like it lass, tae winter here in toon.
The scaldies (settled/town folk) aye miscry us and try to put us doon
And it’s hard to raise three bairns in a single flea-box room
But I’ll tak ye on the road again, when yellow’s on the broom.
CHORUS: When yellow’s on the broom x 2
I’ll tak ye on the road again (last line of verse)
When yellow’s on the broom.
The scaldies cry us “tinker dirt” and sconce oor bairns in school
But who cares what a scaldy thinks, for a scaldy’s but a fool.
They never heard the yorlin’s lark nor see the flax in bloom
For they’re aye cooped up in hooses, when yellow’s on the broom.
Nae sales for pegs or baskets noo, so just tae stay alive
We’ve had tae tak on scaldy jobs from eight o’clock til five.
But we call nae man oor master for we own the worlds room
And we’ll bid farewell tae Brechin when yellow’s on the broom.
I’m weary for the springtime when we tak the road ance mair
Tae the plantin’ and the pearlin’ and the berry fields o’ Blair
We’ll meet up wi’ oor kinfolk frae a’ the country roon
When the gan aboot folks tak the road, when yellow’s on the broom.
Tell my ma when I go home,
The boys won’t leave the girls alone,
They pulled my hair and stole my comb,
But that’s all right ’till I go home.
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city,
She is courting, one two three
Please won’t you tell me who is she?
Albert Mooney says he loves her,
All the boys are fighting for her,
Knock on the door and they ring the bell
Oh my true love, are you well?
Here she comes, as white as snow,
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
Old Johnny Mary she says she’ll die
If she doesn’t get the boy with the roving eye.
Tell my ma when I go home,
The boys won’t leave the girls alone,
They pulled my hair and stole my comb,
But that’s all right ’till I go home.
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city,
She is courting, one two three
Please won’t you tell me who is she?
Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high
And the snow come tumbling from the sky
She’s as nice as apple pie
She’ll get her own boy, by and by
When she gets a lad of her own,
She won’t tell her ma ’till she comes home,
Let the boys stay as they will,
For it’s Albert Mooney she loves still.
Tell my ma when I go home,
The boys won’t leave the girls alone,
They pulled my hair and stole my comb,
But that’s all right ’till I go home.
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city,
She is courting, one two three
Please won’t you tell me who is she?
Tell my ma when I go home,
The boys won’t leave the girls alone,
They pulled my hair and stole my comb,
But that’s all right ’till I go home.
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city,
She is courting, one two three
Please won’t you tell me who is she?
Tell my ma when I go home,
The boys won’t leave the girls alone,
They pulled my hair and stole my comb,
But that’s all right ’till I go home.
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city,
She is courting, one two three
Please won’t you tell me who is she?
1. In Dublin’s fair city,
Where girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh”!
2. Now she was a fishmonger,
And sure twas no wonder,
For so were her mother and father before,
And they each wheeled their barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh”! Chorus:
3. She died of a fever,
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh”! Chorus:
Richard Brennan kindly invited me to teach Alexander Technique & singing at his training course in Galway last week. I had a truly wonderful time.
Here are the students and I singing that beautiful and haunting Irish ballad She Moved Through the Fair.
I’m really hoping to hear a few more songs from that direction.
Here is the downloadable version She Moved Through the Fair – wav
She Moved Through the Fair
My young love said to me,
“My mother won’t mind
And my father won’t slight you
For your lack of kind”
And she stepped away from me
And this she did say:
“It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day”
She stepped away from me
And she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there
And then she went homeward
With one star awake
Like the swan in the evening
Moves over the lake
The people were saying,
“No two e’er were wed
But one had a sorrow
That seldom was said”
And I smiled as she passed by
With her goods and her gear,
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear.
I dreamed it last night,
That my young love came in
So softly she stepped that
Her feet made no din
And she laid her hand on me
And this she did say
“It will not be long, love,
‘Til our wedding day”
How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
In an English country garden?
I’ll tell you now of some that I know
Those I miss you’ll surely pardon
Daffodils , heart’s ease and flox
Meadowsweet and lady smocks
Gentian, lupin and tall hollyhocks
Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, blue forget-me-nots
In an English country garden How many insects come here and go
In an English country garden?
I’ll tell you now of some that I know
Those I miss you’ll surely pardon
Fireflies, moths, gnats and bees
Spiders climbing in the trees
Butterflies drift in the gentle breeze
There are snakes, ants that sting
And other creeping things
In an English country garden
How many songbirds fly to and fro
In an English country garden?
I’ll tell you now of some that I know
Those I miss you’ll surely pardon
Bobolink, cuckoo and quail
Tanager and cardinal
Bluebird, thrush and nightingale
There is joy in the spring
When the birds begin to sing
In an English country garden.
Celtic Cadences 