English & Other Versions 53A. The Turkish Lady
CONTENTS:
From Logan's "A pedlar's pack of ballads and songs" 1869
THE TURKISH LADY.
The copy from which this has been transcribed was printed as one of
" Four Excellent New Songs : I. The Turkish Lady; 2. Get Married
Betimes; 3. The Lady in the Wood; 4. The Female Press-gang.
Entered according to order, 1782."
"The Turkish Lady" does not appear to have been printed in any
other collection. Its date is conjectured to be about the middle of the
seventeenth century. The main incident of the story occurs in several other
ballads. In Deloney's "Garland of Goodwill" (edition 1678), there is
"The Spanish Lady's Love to an Englishman," which has frequently
been reprinted, and which formed the subject of a musical entertainment
by Thomas Hull, produced at Covent Garden Theatre in 1765.
"This beautiful old ballad," says Percy, "most probably took its rise
from one of those descents made on the Spanish coast in the time of
Elizabeth," and in all likelihood during the investment of Cadiz by the
Earl of Essex. It has apparently been "founded on fact," but who the
gallant was has been a matter of doubt. That question has been dis-
cussed in Percy's Reliques, vol. i., part 2; in Rimbault's Musical Illus-
trations of Percy's Reliques; and in Omerod's Cheshire, vol. iii. p. 333.
See also Notes and Queries, vol. ix. p. 305-573, and vol. x. p. 273.
" The Spanish Lady," and the man she "wooed," are just in the reverse
position of the " Turkish Lady " and her love, inasmuch as the "Spanish
Lady " had, with others of her sex, become captives to the English, and
the Englishman in question was her jailor :
" Garments gay and rich as may be,
Decked with jewels had she on.
Of a comely countenance and grace was she,
And by birth and parentage of high degree. "
An order comes to release the lady prisoners, "with their jewels still
adorned, none to do them injury." Our heroine, however, is loath to go:
"O! gallant captain, show some pity,
To a lady in distress;
Leave me not within this city,
For to die of heaviness :
Thou hast set this present day my body free,
But my heart in prison strong remains with thee."
The Englishman, although he was well aware that
" In his courteous company was all her joy,
To favour him in anything she was not coy,"
questions the sincerity of her love by reason of his being her country's foe. This she overrules. He tells her to "weep no more," as there are plenty of " fair lovers " in Spain. To this she replies:
" Spaniards fraught with jealousie we often find ;
But Englishmen throughout the world are counted kind. "
She implores him not to leave her to a Spaniard, "for you alone enjoy
my heart. " He says that English soldiers cannot ' ' without offence "
carry ladies about with them. She then offers to accompany him as
his page. He declines that proposition on the score of economy :
' ' I have neither gold nor silver,
To maintain thee in this ease,
And to travel is great charges,
As you know, in every place."
Her answer is,
"My chains and jewels, every one shall be thine own;
And eke ten thousand pounds in gold, that lies unknown. "
To this he pictures the many storms and dangers of the seas. She replies:
"Well in troth, I could endure extremity;
For I could find in heart to lose my life for thee."
All the lady's deep devotion, proposals of self-sacrifice, offer of gold and jewels prove of no avail; for the Englishman has forcible reasons for refusing her request, and he sees that the only course left for him is to disclose them:
"Courteous lady, be contented;
Here comes all that breeds the strife:
I, in England, have already
A sweet woman to my wife. "
Thus baffled, the lady signifies it to be her intention to retire to a nunnery, to spend her days in prayer, and "to defie love and all her laws," courteously adding:
" Commend me to thy loving lady;
Bear to her this chain of gold,
And these bracelets for a token;
Grieving that I was so bold:
All my jewels, in like sort, bear thou with thee;
For these are fitting for thy wife, and not for me. "
The tune of "The Spanish Lady" is to be found in the "Quaker's Opera," 1728 — in the "Jovial Crew," 1731, &c.
There is an old ballad [Young Beichan/Lord Bateman], of which there are many different versions, and which has from time to time appeared under different titles, more closely resembling "The Turkish Lady. " In the argument, all the versions agree that a lord or squire "of high degree " went to Turkey to observe the manners and customs of the natives. That not conforming with their forms of worship, he was made to "draw carts and wains." He was then cast into a dungeon, and chained to a tree which grew in the middle
of this prison. The Moor who had condemned him had a daughter, who, in her walks, in passing the prison, had heard him lamenting his fate.
She bribed the jailor with gold and "white monie " to admit her to see
the prisoner, whose liberation she effected, and gave him money to carry
him to "his ain countrie." Before he went,
" She took him frae her father's prison,
And gied to him the best o' wine. "
[Albeit the old gentleman was a Mahometan. ]
At the same time expressing a fervent wish, while pledging his health, that "ye were mine!" She proceeded to propose that, if he would not wed with any other woman within seven years, she would wait for him. Ere the ship sailed, he, bowing low and reverentially, said :
" Ere seven long years come to an end,
I 'll take ye to mine ain countrie ! "
Time goes on, and the lady, who "could get no rest; nor day nor night could happy be," proceeds to this country, and immediately on her arrival ascertains the fact that the man she loved was formally betrothed to another that very day. She gains admittance to his house or castle, sends a message to him by the porter, which causes him to rise with such impetuosity, that he "made the table flee." The mother of the bride, when informed who his mysterious visitor is, implores him not to forsake her " ae dochter." To this he replies:
"Tak hame, tak hame your dochter, madam,
For she is ne'er the waur 0' me;
She cam to me on horseback riding,
And she shall gang back in her coach and three."
The result is, that there being no courts in those days for hearing actions for breach of promise, where alleged wounded feelings are nicely weighed against gold, matters were satisfactorily arranged for all parties. The bride, who all the while had loved somebody else, got the man of her heart, and the squire "of high degree" entered seriously into the bonds of holy matrimony with the foreign lady, who had taken care to bring over with her a handsome dowry. All and each lived happily in their respective spheres for many a long day afterwards, and had large families.
In addition to the broadsides, which characterize this ballad as "Lord Bateman, " Jamieson, in his "Popular Ballads and Songs from traditions, manuscripts, and scarce editions," Edin. 1806, 8vo, vol. i., p. 117 and 127, has two versions, one titled, " Young Beichan and Susie Pye," the other, "Young Bekie, " in which the heroine is called "Burd Isbel. " Kinloch, in his "Ancient Scottish Ballads, recovered from tradition, and never before published," London, 1827, 8vo, has another version bearing the title of
"Lord Beichan and Susie Pye," and Mr. J. H. Dixon communicated in 1842 to Richardson's Historians' Table Book, "Lord Beichan, a Border Ballad." This last, Mr. Dixon reprinted in " Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England," which he edited for the Percy Society in 1845. Among these he included "Lord Bateman." He had printed another version, which is called "Young Bondwell," in "Scotish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads," which he had edited the preceding year for the same Society from a manuscript of Mr. Peter Buchan of Peterhead. In this the name of the '"foreign land," where young Bondwell was "cast in prison strong," is not particularized. It is merely designated as "that countrie." On his return from slavery his residence is "in the bonny towers o' Linne," wherever that may be, the lady who follows him with "a maiden in every hand," bears the name of "Dame Lessels," and she obtains her information as to the "weddin" from "a bonny little boy," who was water-
ing his horses at " the Water o' Tay. " Mr. Dixon believes the original locale of the ballad to be Northumberland. In Mr. Kinloch's ballad, Lord Beichan returns to "Glasgow town." The name of the heroine of the "Lord Beichan" in Dixon's Ancient Poems, above referred to, is Saphia[Sophia].
Mr. Dixon in the same collection next proceeds to print "Lord Bateman," prefacing it by these remarks: "This is a ludicrously corrupt abridgement of the preceding ballad, being the same version which was published a few years ago by Tilt, London, and also, according to the title page, by Mustapha Syried, Constantinople, under the title of 'the Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman.' It is, however, the only ancient form in which the ballad has existed in print, and is one of the publications mentioned in Thackeray's Catalogues, preserved in the British Museum." "Thackeray's imprint is found attached to broadsides published between 1672 and 1678." How Mr. Dixon arrives at the conclusion that this is an abridgement at all (setting aside his phrase, "ludicrously corrupt ") is not very clear. His traditional "Lord Beichan," which did not appear in print until 1 842, is by his own acknowledgment "formed from a collation of several broadsheets, with the two ballads in Jamieson's Book," none of which claim to date so far back as this abridgment. The heroine in this "Lord Bateman" is called "Sophia," which has been conjectured to have been suggested by the Mosque of Santa Sophia at Constantinople. On referring to a stall copy of this same version (circa 1817), which, by the way, is titled "Lord Bechin," the lady's name is there given as Susy Pye. All these differences of locality and name only indicate the local feelings of the pro tempore reciter.
We have several chap copies of the romance before us, all varying in the text. One is entitled, "Susan Py; or, Young Bichen's Garland Shewing how he went to a far country, and was taken by a savage Moor, and cast into prison, and delivered by the Moor's daughter, on promise of marriage ; and how he came to England, and was going to be wedded to another bride; with the happy arrival of Susan Pye on the wedding day. Falkirk, printed by T. Johnstone, 1815." Another is called "An excellent Song, entitled Young Beighan and Susie Pye," of apparently the same date. And a third is simply called "Lord Bechin." The ballad called "Bateman's Tragedy " bears no affinity to "Lord Bateman." The full title of the old copy is enough to shew this.
It runs thus: — "A Godly Warning to all Maidens by the example of God's Judgment shewed on Jerman's Wife of Clifton, in the county of Nottingham, who, lying in child-bed, was borne away, and never heard of after." The tragedy called "The Vow-breaker," by William Sampson, 1636, is founded on this. See Ritson's "English Songs. London, 1783," vol. ii.
Mr. Jamieson, with the utmost simplicity, conceives that the name of the hero was "Buchan," while Mr. Dixon boldly asserts, that the ballad, being a romance of Northumberland, his name, according to tradition (a tradition of yesterday) was Bertram or Bartram, to which family at one time "half of Northumberland belonged." He goes on in his Notes to his Scotish ballads in sober earnest to say : "To one unacquainted with the peculiarity of Northumbrian accent, it may seem strange how such a word as ' Bartram ' could get corrupted to 'Bateman.' In the word 'Bartram' the letter r occurs twice, a letter
which the Northumbrian peasantry have great difficulty to pronounce in
common conversation, but which they have still greater difficulty to
articulate when singing. Ask a Northumbrian peasant to pronounce
'Bartram,' and he will say 'Bwaatam.' The Editor speaks from ex-
perience." These observations are worthy of the earlier commentators
on Shakespeare. As a counterpart, some have as gravely asserted that
the ballad depicts an episode in the life of the father of Thomas a-Beckett,
the title "Bekie" leading them, without much "stretch of labouring
thought," to this conclusion. We have heard in Scotland a version of
this same ballad, wherein the hero has been called "Lord Bangol."
We are content to accept him under any name, as the story in which he
1 6 THE TURKISH LADY.
figures is a good one, and under the firm conviction that his real name
has not as yet been revealed to his posterity. After all it is not a matter
of much moment. Mr. George Cruickshank has, in his usual clever
style, illustrated the common version of Lord Bateman, and there was a
burlesque drama on the subject, played successfully at the Strand theatre
upwards of twenty years ago, in which were introduced Tableaux Vivans,
embodying Cruickshanks' illustrations. The ballad—" Lord Bateman "
— has been recently revived by Mr. Sothern (Lord Dundreary), and par-
tially sung by him in a sensation drama, played at the Haymarket, called
"The Wild Goose."
Young virgins all I pray draw near,
A pretty story you shall hear ;
It's of a Turkish lady brave,
Who fell in love with an English slave.
A merchant ship at Bristol lay.
As we were sailing over the sea ;
By a Turkish rover took were we,
And all of us made slaves to be.
They bound us down in irons strong,
They whipped and slashed us all along;
No tongue can tell I'm certain sure,
What we poor sailors do endure.
[One of the seamen that were there,
An Englishman both fresh and fair,
Comely in stature, straight, and tall,
He went to Turkey amongst them all.]*
Come sit ye down, and listen a while,
And see how fortune on him did smile.
It was his fortune for to be
A slave unto a rich lady;
* This stanza is from a subsequent edition of the ballad.
THE TURKISH LADY. I 7
She drest herself in rich array,
And went to view her slaves one day ;
Hearing the moan this young man made,
She went to him and thus she said : —
" What countryman, young man, are you?"
" I am an Englishman, that's true."
" I wish you was a Turk," said she,
" I'd ease you of your misery.
" I'd ease you of your slavish work,
If you'll consent to turn a Turk.
I'd own myself to be your wife,
For I do love you as my life."
"O no, no no, no no," said he,
" Your constant slave I choose to be.
I'd sooner be burnt there at a stake,
Before that I'll my God forsake."
This lady to her chamber went,
And spent that night in discontent;
Sly Cupid with his piercing dart,
Did deeply wound this lady's heart.
She was resolved the next day,
To ease him of his slavery,
And own herself to be his wife,
For she did love him as her life.
She drest herself in rich array,
And with this young man sailed away,
Until they came to Bristol shore,
With jewels, diamonds, and gold great store.
Houses and lands she left behind,
And all her slaves are close confined ;
Unto her parents she bade adieu,
By this you see what love can do.
Now she is turned a Christian brave,
And married is to her own slave,
That was in chains and bondage too,
By this you see what love can do.