Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
CHORUS
Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.

— Handel, Alexander’s Feast (1736; the libretto of this choral work is based on an ode by Dryden)

 

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DRUNKEN POET:
Fill up the Bowl, then, &c.

1ST FAIRY, CHORUS :
Trip it, trip it in a Ring;
Around this Mortal Dance, and Sing.

POET:
Enough, enough,
We must play at Blind Man’s Bluff.
Turn me round, and stand away,
I’ll catch whom I may.

1ST FAIRY, CHORUS:
About him go, so, so, so,
Pinch the Wretch, from Top to Toe;
Pinch him forty, forty times,
Pinch till he confess his Crimes.

POET:
Hold you damn’d tormenting Punk,
I do confess ?

BOTH FAIRIES:
What, what, &c.

POET:
I’m Drunk, as I live Boys, Drunk.

BOTH FAIRIES:
What art thou, speak?

POET:
If you will know it,
I am a scurvy Poet.

CHORUS:
Pinch him, pinch him for his Crimes,
His Nonsense, and his Dogrel Rhymes.

POET:
Hold! Oh! Oh! Oh!

BOTH FAIRIES:
Confess more, more.

POET:
I confess, I’m very poor.
Nay prithee do not pinch me so,
Good dear Devil, let me go;
And as I hope to wear the Bays,
I’ll write a Sonnet in thy Praise.

CHORUS:
Drive ‘em hence, away, away
Let ‘em sleep till break of Day.

 

— Purcell, “The Fairy-Queen” (1692; this masque — aka semi-opera — is a musical setting of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   February 2019