D'oyly Carte Opera Company Oh Men Of Dark And Dismal Fate
FINALE OF ACT I: Oh, men of dark and dismal fate
GENERAL: Oh, men of dark and dismal fate,
Forgo your cruel employ,
Have pity on my lonely state,
I am an orphan boy!
KING/SAMUEL: An orphan boy?
GENERAL: An orphan boy!
PIRATES: How sad, an orphan boy.
GENERAL: These children whom you see
Are all that I can call my own!
PIRATES: Poor fellow!
GENERAL: Take them away from me,
And I shall be indeed alone.
PIRATES: Poor fellow!
GENERAL: If pity you can feel,
Leave me my sole remaining joy--
See, at your feet they kneel;
Your hearts you cannot steel
Against the sad, sad tale of the lonely orphan boy!
PIRATES: (sobbing) Poor fellow!
See at our feet they kneel;
Our hearts we cannot steel
Against the sad, sad tale of the lonely orphan boy!
SAMUEL: The orphan boy!
add KING: The orphan boy!
See at our feet they kneel;
Our hearts we cannot steel
Against the tale of the lonely orphan boy!
PIRATES: Poor fellow!
GENERAL: (aside) I'm telling a terrible story
But it doesn't diminish my glory;
For they would have taken my daughters
Over the billowy waters,
If I hadn't, in elegant diction,
Indulged in an innocent fiction,
Which is not in the same category
As a regular terrible story.
GIRLS (aside)
He is telling a terrible story,
Which will tend to diminish his glory;
Though they would have taken his daughters
Over the billowy waters,
It is easy, in elegant diction.
To call it an innocent fiction,
But it comes in the same category
As telling a regular terrible story.
It's easy, in elegant diction.
To call it an innocent fiction,
But it comes in the same category
As telling a regular story.
PIRATES (aside)
If he's telling a terrible story
He shall die by a death that is gory
Yes, one of the cruellest slaughters
That ever were known in these waters;
It is easy, in elegant diction,
To call it an innocent fiction
But it comes in the same category
As telling a regular terrible story.
It's easy, in elegant diction.
To call it an innocent fiction,
But it comes in the same category
As telling a regular story.
KING: Although our dark career
Sometimes involves the crime of stealing,
We rather think that we're
Not altogether void of feeling.
Although we live by strife,
We're always sorry to begin it,
For what, we ask, is life
Without a touch of Poetry in it? (all kneel)
