Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre

"Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre" or "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre" ("Marlborough Has Left for the War" also known as "Mort et convoi de l'invincible Malbrough", "The Death and Burial of the Invincible Marlbrough") is a popular folk song in French.

History

The burlesque lament on the death of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722) was written on a false rumour of that event after the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709, the bloodiest battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. It tells how Marlborough's wife, awaiting his return from battle, is given the news of her husband's death. It also tells that he was buried and that a nightingale sang over his grave.

For years it was only known traditionally, and does not appear among the many anecdotic songs printed in France during the middle of the 18th century. Beaumarchais used the tune in his 1778 play The Marriage of Figaro for a despairing love song for Cherubino.[1][2] In 1780 it became very popular. For instance, the tune concludes a sonata (in D-major) for viola d'amore and viola composed by Carl Stamitz in 1780 while in Paris. And it happened that when Louis XVII of France was born in 1785 (son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and heir to the French throne) he was wet-nursed by a peasant named Geneviève Poitrine. The nurse, whilst rocking the royal cradle, sang "Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre" and the dauphin, it is said, opened his eyes at the name of the great general. The name, the simplicity of the words, and the melodiousness of the tune, interested the queen, and she frequently sang it. Everybody repeated it after her, including the king. The song was sung in the state apartments of Versailles, in the kitchens and in the stables – it became immensely popular.[3][4].

From the court it was adopted by the tradespeople of Paris, and it passed from town to town, and country to country. It became as popular in England as in France. Johann von Goethe came to hate Marlborough simply on account of the prevalence of the tune he encountered during travels in France.[5] It also became popular in Spain due to the Bourbon dynasty's influence on Spanish nobility. The name of Marlborough was modified to an easier to pronounce Mambrú. It was sung by children while playing Hopscotch (Rayuela). The Spanish guitarist and composer Fernando Sor (1778–1839) created a series of variations for guitar on the theme. It then spread to Latin America.

The rage endured for many years, slowly fading after the French Revolution, although, it is said that Napoleon liked to hum the tune, for instance when crossing the Memel (June 1812) at the beginning of his fatal Russian campaign.

Ludwig van Beethoven used the tune in his musical work Wellington's Victory, which, like Tchaikovsky's later 1812 Overture, features real cannon shots.

Goethe references the song in his Zweite Elegie[6].

In Zweiter Brief aus Berlin [7] (1822) Heinrich Heine uses the song as prime example of a catchy tune which one cannot excape. His story describes the ubiquity of the tune Der Jungfern-Kranz from Weber's Der Freischütz. In present-day Germany the allusion needs explanation.

The song is referenced in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, where Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova tries to make her children sing the popular Russian version in public shortly before her death.

The song is referenced in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, where Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky sings the first verse of the song to his son Prince Andrei after hearing Russia's military strategy (Part One, chapter XXIII).

The song is referenced in Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls, when Major Nozdryov's playing of the mazurka devolves into the common tune in Chapter 4.

The song is referenced in Patrick O'Brian's novel The Fortune of War in chapter 8 when Captain Jack Aubrey hears it being sung by French soldiers in a bar in a hotel from which Aubrey helps Stephen Maturin and Diana Villiers escape.

The song is referenced in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, in chapter 40; Blanche hums it while Lucette and Ada, observed by Van, practice drawing flowers in one of the “nursery parlors.”

Argentinan poet and author María Elena Walsh makes Marlborough, or Mambrú in the Spanish version, the main character in her 1962 song "Canción del estornudo" (Sneeze's song).

An operetta produced in Paris in December 1867 with Suzanne Lagier borrowed the title of the song. One act each was written by Georges Bizet, Léo Delibes, Émile Jonas and isidore Legouix (see Classical music written in collaboration).

In pop culture it is sung by Rasputine in Hugo Pratt's comic The Golden House of Samarkand, part of the Corto Maltese series, first issued in 1980 (French and Italian version).

The melody also became widely popular in the United Kingdom.[8] By the mid-19th century[9] it was being sung with the words "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", often at all-male social gatherings.[10] By 1862, it was already familiar in America.[11]

The song has been translated into several languages. The English version shown below was written by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the 19th century.

The Swedish version, "Mellbom", is in certain academic circumstances (mainly at Östgöta Nation) traditionally combined with a humoristic pantomime describing the plot. Traditionally the fourth officer in the funeral parade, the one who was "left nothing to carry", performs in the nude. The Mellbom pantomime was invented by Måns Hultin, a member of Östgöta Nation, 1856. Due to the large number of female students at the present day Nation, Mellbom shows have grown rare during the last 20 years.

Melody

Verses

Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre,
Ne sait quand reviendra.


Il reviendra-z-à Pâques,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
Il reviendra-z-à Pâques,
ou à la Trinité.


La Trinité se passe,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
la Trinité se passe,
Marlbrough ne revient pas.

Madame à sa tour monte,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
Madame à sa tour monte
si haut qu'elle peut monter.

Elle voit venir son page,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
elle voit venir son page,
tout de noir habillé.

Beau page, mon beau page,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
beau page, mon beau page,
quelles nouvelles apportez?

Aux nouvelles que j'apporte,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
aux nouvelles que j'apporte,
vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!

Quittez vos habits roses,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
quittez vos habits roses,
et vos satins brodés!

Monsieur Marlbrough est mort.
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
Monsieur Marlbrough est mort.
Est mort et enterré.

Je l'ai vu porter en terre,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
Je l'ai vu porter en terre,
par quatre-z-officiers.

L'un portait sa cuirasse
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
l'un portait sa cuirasse
l'autre son bouclier.

L'autre portait son grand sabre,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
L'autre portait son grand sabre,
et l'autre ne portait rien.

On planta sur sa tombe
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
on planta sur sa tombe
un beau rosier fleuri.

La cérémonie faite,
mironton, mironton, mirontaine,
la cérémonie faite
chacun s'en fut coucher.

Alors autour de sa tombe
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine
Alors autour de sa tombe
Romarins l'on planta.

Sur la plus haute branche
Un rossignol chanta
On vit voler son âme,
Au travers des lauriers.

Chacun mit ventre à terre,
 Mironton, mironton, mirontaine
Chacun mit ventre à terre,
Et puis se releva.

Marlbrook the Prince of Commanders
Is gone to war in Flanders,
His fame is like Alexander's,
But when will he ever come home?
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine.

Perhaps at Trinity Feast, or
Perhaps he may come at Easter,
Egad! he had better make haste or
We fear he may never come home.
Mironton etc.

For Trinity Feast is over,
And has brought no news from Dover,
And Easter is pass'd moreover,
And Malbrook still delays.

Milady in her watch-tower
Spends many a pensive hour,
Not knowing why or how her
Dear lord from England stays.

While sitting quite forlorn in
That tower, she spies returning
A page clad in deep mourning,
With fainting steps and slow.

"O page, prithee come faster!
What news do you bring of your master?
I fear there is some disaster,
Your looks are so full of woe."

"The news I bring fair lady,"
With sorrowful accent said he,
"Is one you are not ready
So soon, alas! to hear.

"But since to speak I'm hurried,"
Added this page, quite flurried,
"Malbrook is dead and buried!"
And here he shed a tear.

"He's dead! He's dead as a herring!
For I beheld his berring,
And four officers transferring
His corpse away from the field.

"One officer carried his sabre,
And he carried it not without labour,
Much envying his next neighbour,
Who only bore a shield.

"The third was helmet bearer –
That helmet which in its wearer
Fill'd all who saw it with terror,
And cover'd a hero's brains.

"Now, having got so far, I
Find that – by the Lord Harry!
The fourth is left nothing to carry.
So there the thing remains."
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine.

Footnotes
  1.  French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Le Mariage de Figaro/Acte II
  2. Carlson, Marvin (2003). The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. University of Michigan Press. p. 116. ISBN 9780472089376.
  3. Le Petit-Trianon et Marie-Antoinette, Éditions Télémaque, by Élisabeth Reynaud, April 2010, page 288, ISBN 978-2-7533-0105-4
  4. Antiwar Songs (AWS) - Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre
  5. Wills, William Henry (1860). Poets' Wit and Humour. Ward, Lock and Tyler. p. 288.
  6. https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Elegien_(Goethe)
  7. http://germazope.uni-trier.de:8080/Projekte/HHP/werke/baende/D06/index_html?widthgiven=30, DHA, Bd.6, S.21
  8. The Times (London, England), 28 March 1826, p. 2: "The Power of Music. A visiting foreigner, trying to recall the address of his lodgings in Marlborough Street, hums the tune to a London cabman: he immediately recognises it as 'Malbrook'."
  9. The song may have featured in an "extravaganza" given at the Princess theatre in London at Easter 1846, during which fairies hold a moonlight meeting: "...the meeting closes with a song of thanks to Robin Goodfellow (Miss Marshall), who had occupied the chair,...and who is assured that "he's a jolly good fellow." "Princess's." The Times [London, England] 14 Apr. 1846: 5. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 1 October 2012.
  10. The Times reprinted an article from Punch describing a drunken speech given at a (fictional) public meeting. The speech ends: "Zshenl'men, here's all your vehgood healts! I beggapard'n – here's my honangal'n fren's shjolly goo' health! "For he's a jolly good fellow, &c (Chorus by the whole of the company, amid which the right hon. orator tumbled down.)" "The After Dinner Speech At The Improvement Club." The Times, [London, England] 23 Mar. 1854: 10. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 1 October 2012.
  11. Review of a piano recital: "As a finale he performed for the first time, a burlesque on the French air, 'Marlbrook', better known to the American student of harmony as "He's a jolly good fellow". The New York Times, 4 October 1862

Further reading
  • Kolinski, Mieczyslaw (1978). " 'Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre': Seven Canadian Versions of a French Folksong". Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council. 10: 1–32.
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