The Yankee Doodle Boy

Янки-дудл (Yankee-Doodle) — национальная песня в США, в настоящее время понимаемая в патриотическом ключе (хотя первоначально возникшая в качестве юмористической). Так же является гимном штата Коннектикут.^[1]

В высшей степени тривиальная мелодия этой песни была будто бы известна в Англии во времена Карла I под названием «Nankey-Doodle» и пелась королевскими кавалеристами в насмешку над Кромвелем. Во время колониальной войны с французами в июне 1755 года эта песня была перенесена английскими войсками в Северную Америку, новый текст, как считается, был сочинён полковым врачом Ричардом Шакбергом (Richard Shuckburgh) и выражал насмешливое отношение британских офицеров к североамериканским (местным) новобранцам. В дальнейшем текст песни неоднократно переписывался.

Текст песни

Полный текст песни, в том виде, который известен сейчас:^[2]

Fath’r and I went down to camp,

Along with Cap’n Goodin',

And there we saw the men and boys

As thick as hasty puddin'.

CHORUS:

Yankee Doodle keep it up,

Yankee Doodle dandy,

Mind the music and the step,

And with the girls be handy.

And there we saw a thousand men

As rich as Squire David,

And what they wasted every day,

I wish it could be saved.

CHORUS

The 'lasses they eat it every day,

Would keep a house a winter;

They have so much, that I’ll be bound,

They eat it when they’ve mind ter.

CHORUS

And there I see a swamping gun

Large as a log of maple,

Upon a deuced little cart,

A load for father’s cattle.

CHORUS

And every time they shoot it off,

It takes a horn of powder,

and makes a noise like father’s gun,

Only a nation louder.

CHORUS

I went as nigh to one myself

As 'Siah’s inderpinning;

And father went as nigh again,

I thought the deuce was in him.

CHORUS

Cousin Simon grew so bold,

I thought he would have cocked it;

It scared me so I shrinked it off

And hung by father’s pocket.

CHORUS

And Cap’n Davis had a gun,

He kind of clapt his hand on’t

And stuck a crooked stabbing iron

Upon the little end on’t

CHORUS

And there I see a pumpkin shell

As big as mother’s bason,

And every time they touched it off

They scampered like the nation.

CHORUS

I see a little barrel too,

The heads were made of leather;

They knocked on it with little clubs

And called the folks together.

CHORUS

And there was Cap’n Washington,

And gentle folks about him;

They say he’s grown so 'tarnal proud

He will not ride without em'.

CHORUS

He got him on his meeting clothes,

Upon a slapping stallion;

He sat the world along in rows,

In hundreds and in millions.

CHORUS

The flaming ribbons in his hat,

They looked so tearing fine, ah,

I wanted dreadfully to get

To give to my Jemima.

CHORUS

I see another snarl of men

A digging graves they told me,

So 'tarnal long, so 'tarnal deep,

They 'tended they should hold me.

CHORUS

It scared me so, I hooked it off,

Nor stopped, as I remember,

Nor turned about till I got home,

Locked up in mother’s chamber.

CHORUS

Gen. George P. Morris

Примечания

1. ↑ STATE OF CONNECTICUT, Sites º Seals º Symbols; Connecticut State Register & Manual; retrieved on May 23, 2008
2. ↑ Gen. George P. Morris — «Original Yankee Words», The Patriotic Anthology, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. publishers, 1941. Introduction by Carl Van Doren. Literary Guild of America, Inc., New York N.Y.

Ссылки

• Yankee Doodle