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)