The Song of the Western Men
The Song of the Western Men is a poem by Robert Stephen Hawker from 1825. It became known in musical form under the title And shall Trelawny die? or Trelawny for short. The melody is by Luisa T. Clare and was written in 1861. The song is considered the unofficial anthem of the county of Cornwall , it is sung today, for example, at rugby games.
The text and its historical background
The starting point for the text is the imprisonment of Sir Jonathan Trelawny (1650–1721) , born in Pelynt , Cornwall, in the Tower of London in 1688 . Trelawny was involved with his brother Charles Trelawny in the suppression of the Monmouth Rebellion . In gratitude, James II knighted him in 1685 and appointed him Bishop of Bristol . In 1688 Trelawny - himself a member of the Anglican Church - fell out of favor because he and six other bishops spoke out against Jacob's Declaration of Indulgence from 1687, which assured Catholics of religious tolerance. After three weeks in detention, Trelawny was acquitted.
According to the three stanzas of the lyrics, 20,000 cornish men set out to free Trelawny from dungeon:
A good sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James's men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do.
And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
From the west they crossed the country via Tamar and Severn towards London. The saying "one and all" refers to the Cornwall motto:
Out spake their Captain brave and bold:
A merry wight was he:
“If London Tower were Michael's hold,
We'll set Trelawney free!
We'll cross the Tamar, land to land,
The Severn is no stay:
With 'one and all', and hand in hand,
And who shall bid us nay? "
Before the walls of London they challenged the men of Jacob:
And when we come to London Wall,
A pleasant sight to view,
Come forth! Come forth, ye cowards all,
Here's men as good as you.
Trelawney he's in keep and hold:
Trelawney he may die:
But twenty thousand Cornish bold
Will know the reason why! "
The main difference between the song and the poem is the addition of the refrain :
And shall Trelawny live?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
Hawkers publication
Hawker published the text anonymously in The Royal Devonport Telegraph and Plymouth Chronicle , a newspaper from Plymouth , on September 2, 1826. a. Thomas Babington Macaulay , Walter Scott and Charles Dickens , assume that the poem is a historical text. It was only in the November 20, 1852 edition of his Household Words that Dickens attributed the text to Hawker. Historically, only the refrain lines “ And shall Trelawny die? Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why! “They are a traditional Cornish saying. Hawker expressed himself bitterly in a letter dated February 2, 1862 about the history of his song:
"But the history of that Ballad is suggestive of my whole life. I published it first anonymously in a Plymouth Paper. Everybody liked it. It, not myself, became popular. I was unnoted and unknown. It was seen by Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Society of Antiquaries, and by him reprinted at his own Private Press at Eastbourne. Then it attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who praised it, not me, unconscious of the author. Afterwards Macaulay (Lord) extolled it in his 'History of England', and again Dickens in Household Words. All these years the song has been bought and sold, set to music and applauded, while I have lived on among these far away rocks unprofited, unpraised and unknown. This is an epitome of my whole life. Others have drawn profit from my brain while I have been coolly relinquished to obscurity and unrequital and neglect. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Robert Stephen Hawker, Charles Edward Byles: " Cornish Ballads and other poems ". London 1908.
- ↑ Sir Jonathan Trelawny - Anglican bishop. In: cornwalls.co.uk. Retrieved July 14, 2009 .
- ^ Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875) - The Song of the Western Men. In: tspace.library.utoronto.ca. Retrieved January 13, 2014 .
- ^ Charles Edward Byles: " The life and letters of RS Hawker (sometime Vicar of Morwenstow) ". London 1906.