|
Date: |
|
Description: | Verse 1: 'Peggy, now the king's come, Peggy, now the king's come, Thou may dance, and I shall sing, Peggy, since the king's come. Nae mair the hawkies shalt thou milk, But change thy plaiding coat for silk, And be a lady of that Ilk, Now Peggy, since the king's come.' In this context 'hawkies' translate as cows, specifically those with white faces.
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
Old words, chorus: 'Carl an the king come, / Carl an the king come; / Thou shalt sance and I will sing, / Carl an the king come.' The melody for this piece featured in Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd', although different versions of it had been previously published by Oswald and McGibbon. This seems to account for the variation of the lyrics. The amount of variations in the melody and lyrics suggests that this song had a interesting history which can now no longer be traced. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | National Library of Scotland | Temporal: | 1787-01-01 - 1803-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | Volume III, song 239, page 248 - 'Tune, | Go to resource |
|
|