The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #64451   Message #1054117
Posted By: Nigel Parsons
15-Nov-03 - 10:09 AM
Thread Name: Looking for a few good drinking songs...
Subject: ADD: SIMON THE CELLARER
Simon the cellarer; but it doesn't appear to be in the DT, nor online elsewhere: So..

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SIMON THE CELLARER
W.H.Bellamy

Old Simon the Cellarer keeps a large store
Of Malmsey and Malvoisie,
And Cyprus, and who can say how many more!
For a chary old soul is he:
For a chary old soul is he:
Of Sack and Canary he never doth fail,
And all the year round there is brewing of ale;
Yet he never aileth, he quaintly doth say,
While he keeps to his sober six flagons a day.
But ho! ho! ho! His nose doth show
How oft the black-jack to his lips doth go


Dame Margery sits in her own still room, And a matron sage is she;
From thence oft at curfew is wafted a fume –
She says it is Rosemarie!
She says it is Rosemarie!
But there's a small cupboard behind the back stair,
And the maid say they often see Margery there;-
Now Margery says that she grows very old,
And must take a something to keep out the cold.
But ho! ho! ho! Old Simon doth know
Where many a flask of his best doth go!


Old Simon reclines in his high-back'd chair,
And talks about taking a wife;
And Margery often is heard to declare
She ought to be settled in life:
She ought to be settled in life:
But Margery has (so the maids say) a tongue
And she's not very handsome, and not very young;
So somehow it ends with the shake of a head,
And Simon he brews him a tankard instead.
While ho! ho! ho! he will chuckle and crow,
"What! Marry old Margery? Oh! No! no!"


NP
Copied from "The Oxford Song Book" Percy C Buck, 1916
Also available Broadside @ the Bodleian
The broadside has a few small differences from the version shown above, including;
V1 line 1 "Rare store", not "large store"
V3 L2 "Talks of taking" not "talks about taking"
V3 L3 "Oft has been heard" not "Often is heard"
V3 L8 "brews her a tankard" not "brews him a tankard"