By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the Temple-bells they say:
“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Man- dalay?
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat - jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot, An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot: Bloomin' idol made o' mud -
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd - Plucky lot she cared for idols
When I kissed 'er where she stud! On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China
'crost the Bay!
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was drop- pin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo and she'd sing “Kulla-lo-lo!" With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin my cheek We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. Elephants a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
But that's all above be'ind me - long ago an' fur away, An' there ain't no buses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay; An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
“If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else.”
No! You won't 'eed nothin' else But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly Temple- bells;
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones, An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones; Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but what do they understand? Beefy face an' grubby 'and -
Law! Wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land! On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
Ship me somewhere's east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the Temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be ---
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea; On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Man- dalay!
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin' fishes play,
'crost the Bay!
7.3 In popular culture
The poem is quoted in the 1992 movie The Last of His Tribe. During a campfire, Dr. Saxton Pope, played by
David Ogden Stiers, gives expression to most of the poem in dramatic fashion.*[1]
InThe Wizard of Oz, theCowardly Lionquotes Mandalay during his famous “Courage”speech. “What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER?! – Courage.”*[2]
In Noël Coward's 1950 musical Ace of Clubs, Harry, a sailor knowing every world's port, confesses in his song, I like America, that he'd "exploded the myth__Of those Flying Fith__On the Road to Mandalay.”*[3]
A sung rendition of the poem is performed in an episode ofRumpole of the Bailey, “Rumpole and the Show Folk” .*[4]
Twoparodicquotes (“takes a heap of loving”and “on the road to where the flying fishes play”) appear in a non- sense poem, “A Few Lines”, written byGroucho Marx
forAnimal Crackers.*[5]
7.4 Songs
Kipling's text was adapted for the song "On the Road to Mandalay" byOley Speaks(among others). The song was popularised byPeter Dawson. It appears in the albumCome Fly with MebyFrank Sinatra.
The song is published with only first, second and last verse of the poem, with the chorus; although singers sometimes omit the second verse. The Kipling family objected to Sina- tra's version of the song. When the album was initially re- leased in the UK, the song “French Foreign Legion”re- placed“Mandalay”, whilst apparently the song“Chicago” (and“It Happened in Monterey”on some pressings) were used in other parts of the British Commonwealth. Sinatra sang the song in Australia, in 1959, and relayed the story of the Kipling family objection to the song. In 2008, in the
Family GuyepisodeTales of a Third Grade Nothing,Frank Sinatra Jr.andSeth MacFarlanespoofed the song. There is also a song of Russian singer Vera Matveeva“On the road to Mandalay”translated by E. Polonskaya. A Danish translation by Karl Friis Møller became popular in Denmark in 1961 where it was performed by the quartet Four Jacks.
Bertolt Brecht referred to Kipling′s poem in his“Mandalay Song”, which was set to music by Kurt Weill for “Happy
End”and “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny”. “Blackmore's Night”has a song called“Way to Mandalay”
.
7.5
See also
• 1892 in poetry
• 1892 in literature
• The Gods of the Copybook Headings
7.6
References
[1] The Last of His Tribe - 1992, The poem is given dra- matic representation for 1 minute 10 seconds from 51:10 to 52:20 into the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=IqVArigvh_Q.
[2] American Rhetoric: Movie Speech “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), The Cowardly Lion On Courage.
[3] According to the Noël Coward Society, this song originated in 1949, and went into Ace Of Clubs the following year. ( 'Songfacts' webpage contains published lyrics.)
[4] > under ALLUSIONS tab > Rumpole quotes from Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay.
[5] “A Few Lines”, by Groucho Marx; within full page of information on “Animal Crackers”.
7.7
External links
Gunga Din
This article is about the poem by Rudyard Kipling. For the film based on the poem, seeGunga Din (film). For The Libertines' song, seeAnthems for Doomed Youth. "Gunga Din" (1892) is a poem byRudyard Kipling, set in
British India. It was the inspiration fora 1939 film of the same title.
8.1 Background
“Tho' I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!” “
”
from “Gunga Din”.
View thefull poemonWikisource.
The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view ofan English soldier in India, about an Indian water-bearer (abhishti) who saves the soldier's life but is soon shot and killed. In the final three lines, the soldier regrets the abuse he dealt to Din and admits that Din is the better man of the two for sacrificing his own life to save another. The poem was published as one of the set of martial poems called the Barrack-Room Ballads.
In contrast to Kipling's later poem "The White Man's Bur- den", “Gunga Din”(/ˌɡʌŋɡə ˈdɪn/) is named after the In- dian, portraying him as a heroic character who is not afraid to face danger on the battlefield as he tends to wounded men. The English soldiers who order Din around and beat him for not bringing them water fast enough are presented as being callous and shallow, and ultimately inferior to him. Although “Din”is frequently pronounced to rhyme with “bin”, the rhymes within the poem make it clear that it
should be pronounced/ˈdin/to rhyme with “green”.
8.2
Adaptations
The poem inspired a 1939 adventure film of the same namefromRKO Radio PicturesstarringCary Grant,Victor McLaglen,Douglas Fairbanks Jr.,Joan Fontaine, andSam Jaffein the title role. The movie was remade in 1961 as Sergeants 3, starring theRat Pack. The locale was moved from British-colonial India to the old West. The Gunga Din character was played in this film bySammy Davis, Jr.. Many elements of the 1939 film were also incorporated into Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.*[1]
A much shorter animated version of the poem and film was made as an episode ofThe Famous Adventures of Mr. Ma- goo, with the ultra-myopicMister Magooin the title role. He was voiced byJim Backus.
In 1958, Bobby Darin wrote and recorded the song“That's the Way Love Is”in which, referring to the unsolved riddle of love, he sings“And if ya come up with the answer, You're a better man, sir, than I …Gunga Din”.*[2]
In 1962, Sonny Gianotta recorded a novelty song“The Last Blast of the Blasted Bugler”based on Gunga Din. In 1963, Flanders and Swann recorded “At the Drop of Another Hat”,which in the song“Sounding Brass”includes the line,“The object is to Gunga-din your neighbor”. This means to one up your neighbour in the context of the song. In 1966,Jim Croceadapted the poem into a song for his albumFacets.
In 1969,The Byrdsrecorded a song named “Gunga Din” written by Byrds drummer Gene Parsons for the 1969 Byrds “Ballad of Easy Rider”album.
In 1973, the TV show M.A.S.H. shows Hawkeye Pierce reciting part of this poem in the episode, “Dear Dad... Three”. Also in 1973, Gunga Din was included in the title song of the film "'The Adventures of Barry McKenzie sung by Smacka Fitzgibbon. “Barry McKenzie was a better man than you are, Gunga Din”.
In 1996, the TV showAnimaniacsparodied the poem in the 77
episode “Gunga Dot”narrated byTony Jay.
In 1998,Ian Gillanrecorded a song named “Gunga Din” on the albumDreamcatcher.
In December 2012, in theDownton Abbey's special Christ- mas episode, Isobel Crawley preempts a marriage proposal from a slightly inebriated Dr. Clarkson with the retort: “Are you thinking of getting married Dr. Clarkson? Be- cause if you are, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” In 2015 British rock bandThe Libertinesreleased a song titled Gunga Din, their first in 11 years. The band are big Kipling fans and have referenced his poems in previous songs.
8.3 See also
• No Heaven for Gunga Din, with a similar theme about the treatment of native servants by colonial military officers.
8.4 References
[1] Jaap van Ginnekan, Screening Difference: How Hollywood's Blockbuster Films Imagine Race, Ethnicity, and Culture, p.143.ISBN 978-0-7425-5584-6“Spielberg conceded that Gunga Din was one of the major sources of inspiration for the second Indiana Jones movie, and it does indeed contain many of the same elements.”
[2] Bobby Darin “That's The Way Love Is”
8.5 Sources
• George Robinson: Gunga Din (article on the 1939 Hollywood film). Soldiers of the Queen (journal of the Victorian Military Society). September 1994.
8.6 External links
• The full text of“Gunga Din”at Wikisource • Text of the poem from Bartleby.com
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
A page from a 19th-century copybook, in which the printed head- ings have been copied. The homily is paraphrased from a 17th- century sermon ofIsaac Barrow, Against Detraction —“Good nature like a bee, collects honey from every herb. Ill nature, like a spider, sucks poison from the flowers.”
“The Gods of the Copybook Headings” is apoempub- lished byRudyard Kiplingin 1919, which, editor Andrew Rutherford said, contained “age-old, unfashionable wis- dom”that Kipling saw as having been forgotten by society and replaced by “habits of wishful thinking.”*[1]
The “copybook headings”to which the title refers were
proverbsormaxims, extolling virtues such as honesty or fair dealing that were printed at the top of the pages of 19th- century British students' special notebook pages, called copybooks. The school-children had to write them by hand repeatedly down the page.
The work has been described as“beautifully captur[ing] the thinking ofSchumpeterandKeynes.”*[2]David Gilmour
says that while topics of the work are the “usual subjects” , the commentary “sound better in verse”*[3]while Al-
ice Ramos says that they are “far removed fromHorace's elegant succinctness”but do “make the same point with some force.”*[4]
9.1
Text
The Gods of theCopybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I no- tice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon wasStilton; they de- nied she was even Dutch;
They denied thatWishes were Horses; they de- nied that aPig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till ourwomen had no more childrenand the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:
“The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In theCarboniferousEpoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But,though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don't work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
ThatAll is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progressbegan.
Thatthe Dog returns to his Vomitand the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wab- bling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and thebrave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
9.2
External links
• Full Text at kipling.org.uk
• The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936(includes a reading in MP3 for- mat)