Tune Req: The master, the swabber...

Subject: RE: Tune Req: The master, the swabber...
From: GUEST,A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 01:42 PM

The song originates in Shakespeare's The Tempest. You'll find it in Act2 scene ii spoken by Stephano. The lines you have given comprise the complete song

As with many Shakesperean songs the actual tune is not recorded although I have heard a sung version at a performance at Cambridge Arts Theatre some years ago, so it may be that there is an extant tune or at least one that fits.

Subject: Tune Req: The master, the swabber...
From: GUEST,Kate at Williams College's Mystic Seaport Se
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 01:31 PM

Help! I'm trying to locate a sea song that has the following verse:

The master, the swabber the boatswain, and I
    the gunner, and his mate
Loved Mall, Meg and Marian, and Margery
   But none of us cared for Kate
   For she had a tongue with a tang,
   Would cry to a sailor "Go Hang"
She loved not the savor of tar nor of pitch;
Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch.
   Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang.