Scarborough Fair

Дата публикации: Jan 25, 2016 2:42:44 PM

"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional English ballad about the Yorkshire town of Scarborough.

The song relates the tale of a young man who instructs the listener to tell his former love to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

As the versions of the ballad known under the title "Scarborough Fair" are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many suggestions concerning the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is about the Great Plague of the late Middle Ages.

Lyrics

As a popular and widely distributed song, there are many versions of the lyrics. The one here, intended as a duet by a male and a female, includes the place after which it is named:

Male part-

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

Remember me to the one who lives there,

For once she was a true love of mine.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

Without any seam or needlework,

Then she shall be a true love of mine.

Tell her to wash it in yonder well,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

Where never sprung water or rain ever fell,

And she shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,

Then she shall be a true lover of mine.

Female part-

Now he has asked me questions three,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

I hope he'll answer as many for me,

Before he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to buy me an acre of land,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

Between the salt water and the sea sand,

Then he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

And sow it all over with one pepper corn,

And he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to sheer't with a sickle of leather,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;

And bind it up with a peacock's feather,

And he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall,

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,

And never let one corn of it fall,

Then he shall be a true lover of mine.

When he has done and finished his work.

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme:

Oh, tell him to come and he'll have his shirt,

And he shall be a true lover of mine.

тут акцент понравился

по моему с Проппом коррелирует, выполнить невыполнимые задачи может только тот, кто побывал в "солнечном царстве".

Поэтому либо это свадебные (трудные) задания,

либо тот кто поет уже находится в "солнечном царстве" и просто зовет туда своего возлюбленного.