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Description: | This is the manuscript Burns wrote to give to Stewart & Meikle, the publishers of its first twopenny edition. The Cantata is a series of tales influenced by John Gay's Beggars Opera and other works. Burns relates the life stories of eight local vagabonds assembled in a Mauchline Inn in a loquacious and jolly mood. (poem no 84)
When at Mossgeil in 1785 Burns and friend John Richmond visited an Inn in Mauchline where they experienced the inebriated setting and vagabond characters which inspired this work. It was his only attempt at a longer work capable of being staged.
Page 3 has the soldier saying he is as happy as ever, even though he is in rags and has to beg for a living and sleep out of doors, but he would still answer the sound of the drum. His song was loud enough to frighten the rats in the rafters. An encore was called for but instead his girl got up and began her tale. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | Burns Monument Trust | Temporal: | 1785-01-01 - 1785-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | Poem by Robert Burns: 'The Jolly Beggars | Go to resource |
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