The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #62934   Message #1078223
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
23-Dec-03 - 12:54 AM
Thread Name: Songs for white slaves?
Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
I rather expected an eventual re-surfacing of inherited resentments in a discussion of this kind, and will not join in with it on this occasion. I can, however, provide a tune for the Algier Slave's Releasement.

The tune, Awake, Oh My Cloris (or, Ah! Chloris Awake) appears in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719-20, IV 313); this seems to be the only surviving example, though it was named as tune for quite a few broadside ballads in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It is the only one identified by Claude M. Simpson in The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music (1966; 2-4), though he does not absolutely guarantee its identity. Here is the tune as it appears in Pills:

X:1
T:Ah! Chloris Awake
B:Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1719-20, IV 313
L:1/8
Q:1/4=100
M:3/4
K:Bb
d2|g2 g2 f2|d2 (cB) (AG)|^F2 G2 (A/B/c)|B4 AA|
g2 g2 f2|d2 B2 e2|c2 A2 (G=F)|G4 d2|
g2 g2 f2|f3 g (ag)|f2 d2 d2|d3 d cB|
f2 A2 A2|(Ac) (dc) (ed)|^F2 (ED) D2|D4 d2|
A3 B (A/B/c)|=B2 B2 f2|d2 (de) (fd)|e4 d2|
c2 (fg) (fd)|c3 B A2|(Bc) A3 G|G4|]

It would require some modification to fit the text given earlier; but nothing much beyond what is normally needed in such circumstances.

I fear that I shall have to forego the prize of a holiday in Baghdad for now. I have a nasty cold and my passport has expired.