User:GKBucy/A Most Sweet Song of an English Merchant Born in Chichester

A Most Sweet Song of an English Merchant Born in Chichester is an English broadside ballad dating back to the mid-17th Century. It is about a rich merchant who has been condemned to death by hanging after killing a German man in a quarrel. He is a good man, and many people try to beg for his life, but he continues to refuse pardon until a woman says she will die with him out of love. Finding true love, he agrees to let her beg his life, and at the end of the ballad they are married. Copies of the broadside can be found at the University of Glasgow Library, the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and Magdalene College. Online facsmilies of the text are also available.

Synopsis

The ballad is broken up into two parts. The first part begins by introducing the merchant, who is both "rich and wise." He kills a German in Embden-Town "through quarrels that did rise." The details of the quarrel are never specified. In the second stanza, a scaffold is built in the market-place, and people fill the square. The merchant is dressed very nicely and everybody agrees he is a good man. In the following stanzas, various people come to his aid but he refuses their help. First, all the women cry that it is a "pity" that such a good man should die. Then his fellow merchants offer a thousand pounds to spare his life. The prisoner says he deserves death, and that he repents. He gives the widow of the German man and her children a hundred pounds each and asks that they speak well of Englishmen, even though he has "done wrong." The first part of the ballad ends with four maidens offering themselves to him as brides. It is their law, they say, that if he gives one of them his love, he will be pardoned.

In the second part of the ballad, he once again refuses to be saved. He tells the four maidens that he is unworthy of them, and instead gives each of them a thousand pounds. Finally, he says his goodbyes and readies himself for death. Just as he is about to die, another woman speaks up. She asks him to love her, and tells him that she loves him so much that if he will not allow her to spare his life, she will die with him. The prisoner questions her love, but she replies that love does not come from long acquaintance. He sees that this is true love, and allows her to beg his life. Everybody rejoices, and on the same day the happy couple are married.

Historical and Cultural Significance

The ballad borrows both its narrative and its tune from "A most sweete songe of an English merchant that killed a man in Guidine and was for the same judged to lose his head and howe in thende a mayden saved his life" (1594) by Thomas Deloney. The basic storyline later appeared in an 1814 ballad, Love Song About Murder, and the Irish Folk Song, The Dens of Ireland. The tune, though a popular tune used by many ballads of the time, does not survive.

External links

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