Gilbert & Sullivan & Death

Gilbert and Sullivan and Death (additional Friday lyrics):

I had some good (if spooky) responses to my request for contemporary songs about death - Cassandra's reference to "old favorites" turned my mind back to my longtime love for Gilbert & Sullivan. I hadn't thought about this before, but death is a theme in many of their jokes and almost all of their musical comedies (Patience and Trial By Jury are the exceptions that come to mind). So, much of The Mikado's plot is driven by the Emperor's crazy law that imposes the death penalty for flirting (leading to my favorite pun in the series: "Flirting is capital!...It is capital!") - and Ruddigore is, I'm convinced, the funniest ghost story ever written (the name led to one of Gilbert's wittier exchanges - partway through the run, an acquaintance asked:

Acq: How's Bloodygore going?
Gilbert: Ruddigore.
Acq: Well, it's all the same, you know.
Gilbert: Is it? Then I suppose if I say I admire your ruddy complexion, it's the same as saying I like your bloody cheek! Well, it isn't - and I don't!

I read it here.) I don't know whether this is part of the plays' staying power or not, but so it is. Many of their songs are on this general theme. There's everything from this bit of bravado in The Yeomen of the Guard -- (sung by Colonel Fairfax, falsely accused of sorcery and expecting to be executed):

Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
Though fourscore years he give,
Yet one would pray to live
Another moon.
What kind of plaint have I
Who perish in July?
I might have had to die
Perchance in June.

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit -
Nay, count it not a whit,
Man is well done with it!
Soon as he's born
He should all means essay
To put the plague away.
And I, war-worn,
Poor captured fugitive
My life most gladly give --
I might have had to live
Another morn.

(the four-beat lines and rhyme-sceme make it seem "cutesy" when you read it - but Sullivan gave it a slow, martial tune that gives it dignity and fits the character) - to some really hilarious pieces, some of the best in the two plays they wrote after their infamous break-up. In The Grand Duke, Ernest Dummkopf lost a "Statutory Duel" - he and his opponent drew cards; he drew the low card and lost; so under the laws of the duchy he was legally dead. Which leads to this exchange between him and his fiancee (who's been shunning him):

Ernest: If the light of love’s lingering ember has faded in gloom,
You cannot neglect, O remember, a voice from the tomb!
That stern supernatural diction
Should act as a solemn restriction,
Although by a mere legal fiction
A voice from the tomb!

Julia: I own that that utterance chills me – it withers my bloom!
With awful emotion it thrills me – that voice from the tomb!
Oh, spectre, won’t anything lay thee?
Though pained to deny or gainsay thee,
In this case I cannot obey thee,
Thou voice from the tomb!
So, spectre, appalling, I bid you good day –
Perhaps you’ll be calling when passing this way?
Your bogeydom scorning, and all your love-lorning,
I bid you good morning, I bid you good day.
Good morning, good morning, good morning, good day!

...the tempo is upbeat and prevents the joke from going stale; the last five lines are like a fast waltz. If the Ultimate Reality is going to catch us, whatever we do, why not have a little fun with it? It's perfectly healthy, seems to me.