Talk:Tom o' Bedlam

Untitled

The stanzas are more usually arranged in 5 lines. Njál 15:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Please also take notice of the essay Robert Graves published in his CROWNING PRIVILEGE, in 1955. (isbn 0-8369-1751-0) with the title "Loving Mad Tom". Googling a bit, the reader will discover that R. Graves wrote interestingly about this very interesting Tom. BTW: The poem was also translated / adapted into Dutch and into the Groninger dialect by H. Arkstede in the fifties. (for more info: anne.staal@wxs.nl) [12 August 2007].

Regarding Mad Maudlin ("It was apparently first published in 1720 by Thomas D'Urfey in his Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy."), the date is inccorect; the 1700 edition of Wit and Mirth contains "Mad Maudlin to find out Tom of Bedlam" on page 192, with lyrics only slightly different from those provided in the article:

To find my Tom of Bedlam, Ten thousand Years I'll Travel;

Mad Maudlin goes with dirty Toes to save her Shooes from Gravel.

Yet will I sing Bonny Boys, bonny Mad Boys, Bedlam Boys are Bonny;

They still go bare and live by the Air, and want no Drink, nor Money.

I don't know if it has relevance to this article, but page 56 of the 1682 edition of Wit and Mirth contains a work named "The Song of Tom a Bedlam" (though no musical notation is provided). It is, however, entirely different from the poem provided in the article:

Forth from my sad and darksome Cell

From the deep abyss of Hell

Mad Tom is come to view the world again,

To see if he can ease his distemper'd brain.

Fear and Despair possess my Soul;

Hark how the angry Furies howl!

Pluto laughs, and Prosperine is glad

To see poor naked Tom of Bedlam mad.

Through the World I wander Night and Day

To find my troubled Senses,

At last I found old Time

With his Pentateuch of Tenses.

When he me spies, away he flyes,

For Time will stay for no man;

In vain with cryes I rend the Skies,

For pitty is not common.

Cold and comfortless I lye,

Oh help, o help or else I dye!

Hark I hear Apollo's Team,

The Carman 'gins to whistle;

Chast Diana bends her bow,

And the Bore begins to bristle.

This version consists of four stanzas of four lines each, a stanza of six lines, five more stanzas of four lines, another stanza of six lines, and a final four-line stanza. There is no repeated chorus.

19:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)