The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #42245   Message #4207012
Posted By: Lighter
14-Aug-24 - 09:41 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Cruising round Yarmouth
Subject: RE: Origins: Cruising round Yarmouth
Between 1680 and 1682 there appeared "The Seaman's Frolick, or A Cooler for the Captain." Despite the raucous choruses This is explicitly advertised as a morally instructive tale for sailors:

                You Seamen bold that plough the Ocean Main
                To read this Song do not at all disdain:
                But rather learn thereby how to avoid,
                The whores increase which many hath destroy’d.
                To a New Tune; Or, Come no more there, etc.

"Increase" means increase in numbers, and a "cooler" is anything that dampens one's ardor.

The elaborate refrains suggest a stage or street performance origin. Stanza 1 in full (all spelling sic):

                Captain Robert is gone to Sea
                         And I lov’d him well, and I lov’d him well,
                With all his merry, merry company
                        Ther’s them can sing and say                  
                Captain Robert is gone to Sea,
                The Girls for his return doth pray :
                And shall we never, never while we live
                        come no more there,
                We’l come no more there brave boys                     
                        we’l come no more there :                          
                And we shall never, never, while we live
                        come no more there.

The most relevant lines are:

                Our Captain did a small pinnace board...
                While we his merry men sung and Roar'd....

                She did abide him many a shot...
                But under deck she proved too hot....

                It prov'd to him a sad mishap...
                For by report he got a clap....

                Therefore brave Seamen all beware...
                All that you meddle with such ware....

                When as as [sic] you desire to range,...
                Cast Anchor in no harbor strange....

To be continued.