"Mary Hamilton" and the Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form
"Mary Hamilton" and the Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form
by Tristram P. Coffin
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 70, No. 277 (Jul. - Sep., 1957), pp. 208-214
"MARY HAMILTON" AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN BALLAD AS AN ART FORM [1]
BY TRISTRAM P. COFFIN
ANGLO-AMERICAN ballad poems are the texts of ballads, printed without music and judged by the literary standards of Anglo-American culture. These texts, comprising the greatest single art formn that oral tradition has produced, are seldom discussed as art by the amateurs and anthropologically-trained researchers who work with them. As a result, most teachers and many scholars think of Anglo-American ballad poetry as something a bit unusual in the realm of human endeavor, something a breed apart from "conscious" arts like drama, concert music, poetry in print. Today, it is frequently assumed that such ballad poetry "just happens" or that the folk, working in communion, have mystically borne what we recognize as great literature. Yet we know better. We know things don't "just happen"; and we know the old "communal theory of ballad composition" to be almost completely wrong. It seems long past high time that the whole subject of the Anglo-American ballad text as art was brought up for review.
MacEdward Leach has characterized all ballads as follows:
A ballad is story. Of the four elements common to all narrative-action, character, setting, and theme-the ballad emphasizes the first. Setting is casual; theme is often implied; characters are usually types and even when more individual are undeveloped, but action carries the interest. The action is usually highly dramatic, often startling and all the more impressive because it is unrelieved. The ballad practices rigid economy in relating the action; incidents antecedent to the climax are often omitted, as are explanatory and motivating details. The action is usually of a plot sort and the plot often reduced to the moment of climax; that is, of the unstable situation and the resolution which constitutes plot, the ballad often concentrates on the resolution leaving the listener to supply details and antecedent material.
Almost without exception ballads were sung; often they were accompanied by instrumental music. The tunes are traditional and probably as old as the words, but of the two-story and melody-story is basic.[2]
Leach's definition would be disputed by few folklorists. Add to his points the idea that ballads are individually composed, and are most often fed down to the folk from a somewhat more highly educated stratum of society, and one has a good picture of the ballad as modern scholarship sees it. Ballads, thus, are widely considered to be plotted narratives, rising from relatively trained minds, taken over and fostered by the folk until they become the verses and masterpieces that our collectors uncover. The word "plotted" is of particular significance. It shall be a main purpose of this paper to suggest that plotting is vestigial, rather than vital, in the make-up of Anglo-American ballads. Unified action is a sign of the trained artist from the time of Homer through the Renaissance to the twentieth century.[3] Such organization of narrative tends to distinguish a man with training in the traditions of Western European literature from the ignorant or primitive. Plotting is honored by the tradition in which Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form the Anglo-American ballad is born, but there is little evidence to support a contention that the folk, in whose oral heritage the ballad lives, care very much at all for unified action. Their myths and their tales lack unified action, except as a vestige. Generally, the folk tend to discard plotting in favor of something one might call "impact" or "emotional core."
Leach, as other writers on the ballad, stresses action as the most essential ingredient. I feel, however, that Anglo-American ballads stress impact over action and retain, in the long run, only enough of the original action or plot unity to hold this core of emotion in some sort of focus. In our ballad, details are kept and discarded to fit the core, and little real attention is paid to plot consistency or structure. Plot is present, but in the background. The emotional core, a part of the musical as well as the textual meaning of the song, is emphasized and cherished.
To understand the process by which an Anglo-American ballad becomes a poem, one must go into the problem of "emotional core" in some detail. It is essential t hat we understand what our folk consider a ballad to be and how it should be sung. Two things are certain: to our folk a ballad is song, not poetry; for us ballads become poems because certain variants (often by sheer chance) measure up to Western European aesthetic standards.
A ballad survives among our folk because it embodies a basic human reaction to a dramatic situation. This reaction is reinterpreted by each person who renders the ballad. As an emotional core it dominates the artistic act, and melody, setting, character, and plot are used only as means by which to get it across. This core is more important to the singer and the listeners than the details of the action themselves. For while a singer is often scrupulous not to change the version of a song as he sings it, he shows little interest in the consistency or meaning of the details he is not changing. Ballads resemble gossip. They are transmitted like gossip, and their variation comes about in much the way gossip variation occurs.
The thesis presented above accounts for a number of the unique qualities of folk art and, through these qualities, designates the pattern of development that our ballads take over a stretch of time.
1. That many singers actually miss the point of the ballad action may well be because they focus attention on the emotional core of the song rather than on the plot detail. For example, about six years ago I published a paper dealing with an Arkansas version of "The Drowsy Sleeper."[4] My informant considered "The Drowsy Sleeper" to be an incest tale, but the woman who had taught the song to him had considered it a suicide-love story. Although the factual detail was the same (actually all the words were the same) in both texts, my informant had changed the emotional core that these details went to make up.
2. Such focus on the emotional core of a song may also account for the fact that the folk tolerate contradictions and preposterous images in their songs. So lines like "he mounted a roan, she a milk-white steed, whilst himself upon a dapple gray" and "up spoke a pretty little parrot exceeding on a willow tree"[5] survive even from generation to generation.
3. Finally, if we accept the thesis of the "emotional core, "the difficulties encountered by all scholars who attempt to define the Anglo-American ballad are accounted for. Every text of every ballad is in a different stage of development and derives from a different artistic environment. The details of the action are never precisely conceived. As a result, there is nothing exact enough about a ballad to define.
As an Anglo-American ballad survives in oral tradition, the details become conventionalized so that songs of the same general type (love songs, ghost songs, etc.) tend to grow more and more alike, to use more and more of the same cliches. As Moore said, "In a way the ballad resembles the proverb: there is nothing left in it which is not acceptable to all who preserve it by repetition. The simple ballads, which have served a general public are non-technical in diction, whereas the modern songs of special classes. . . are highly technical. The same levelling process destroys whatever individual character the original poem may have."[6] And (p. 400), "After a painstaking study of the subject, I have yet to find a clear case where a ballad can be shown to have improved as a result of oral transmission, except in the way of becoming more lyrical." Moore's words, along with other things, have led me to believe that the life of an Anglo-American ballad can be charted somewhat like this: Stage 1. A poem, created by an individual, enters or is retained in oral tradition. This poem has three major parts: an emotional core, details of action, frills of a poetic style that are too "sophisticated" for the folk. At this stage the poem is frequently not for singing and may well be closer to literature than to musical expression. The Frazer broadside of "Sally and Billy" or "The Rich Lady from London" (the song so often cited erroneously as Child 295) offers a relatively modern example:
'Tis of a young sailor, from Dover he came,
He courted pretty Sally, pretty Sally was her name,
But she w as so lofty, and her portion was so high,
That she on a sailor would scarce cast an eye.
"So a dieu to my daddy, my mammy, and friends,
And adieu to the young sailor for he will make no amends.
Likewise this young sailor he will not pity me,
Ten thousand times now my folly I see."[7]
So, of course, do any number of other newspaper, almanac, and broadside texts.
Stage 2. This is the "ballad" stage. The frills of sub-literary style have been worn away by oral tradition; some of the action details have been lost. Any so-called" traditional" ballad can serve as an illustration of Stage 2, although in the cases of both "Sally and Billy" and "Geordie" the American texts are close enough to print so that the transition from Stage 1 to Stage 2 is not complete. In fact, a majority of American songs lie in the area between the first two stages and were in the process of evolving toward traditional balladry when hindered by print and the urbanization of the folk. Some songs are born at this mid-point, to be sure. Individuals like Booth Campbell or Sir Walter Scott, who are used to singing or working within the conventions of folk tradition, may compose songs that never pass through Stage 1, that are traditional in language and detail at their birth.[8]
Stage 3. In this final stage the ballad develops in one of two ways. Either unessential details drop off until lyric emerges, or essential details drop off until only a meaningless jumble, centered about a dramatic core, is left. The so-called "degenerate" ballad (and that is a poor term) is either a lyric or a nonsense song. The Scarborough text of "Geordie" beginning,
Come bridle me up my milk-white steed.
The brownie ain't so able, O.
While I ride down to Charlottetown
To plead for the life of my Georgie, O.[9]
shows the start of a development toward something like the lyrical "Rantin' Laddie" that is given in toto below:
Aft hae I played at the cards an' dice
For the love o' a rantin' laddie, 0,
But noo I maun sit in the ingle neuk
An' by-lo a bastard babbie 0.
Sing hush-a-by, an' hush-a-by,
An' hush-a-by-lob abbie, 0,
O hush-a-by, an' hush-a-by,
An' hush-a-by, wee babbie, 0.
Sing hush-a-bya, n' hush-a-by,
An' hush-a-by-lo babbie,0 ,
O had your tongue, ma ain wee wean,
An A gae a sook o' the pappie, 0.[10]
In much the same way the nonsensical Wisconsin "Sally and Billy" that begins with the meaningless lines,
There was a ship captain
That sailed on the sea.
He called on Miss Betsy;
Pretty Polly did say
You go to that sea captain
And grant me love or ruined I'll be.[11]
has its counterparts in "Bessy Bell" nursery rhymes and the amazing Texas version of Child 84, "Boberick Allen."[12] Both lyric and nonsense stages develop, of course, from forgetting. Yet it is significant to note that it is the detail, not the emotional core, that is forgotten. The emotional core may be varied or modified, but it is the essential ingredient of any one song as long as that song exists.[13]
Ballads in Stage 3 and ballads in the process of moving from Stage 2 to Stage 3 are the only Anglo-American ballads that can meet the requirements of Western European poetry.l4 While it is certainly true that collectors are always finding Anglo- American ballads with complete or nearly complete plot unity, the variants that subordinate plot detail and focus on the emotional impact are the variants that are accepted as art. To become great poetry, our ballads must lose so much of their original style, atmosphere, and detail that they must become lyrics as well.
Which of our ballads will meet the requirements of Western European poetry as they move toward lyric is governed by chance. A balance attained in oral tradition between stress on plot unification and stress on emotional impact gives some texts a magnificent half-lyric, half-narrative effect. Individuals, coming in series, often generations apart, change lines, phrases, and situations to fit their personal fancies and to render what they consider to be the song's emotional core before giving the ballad back to oral tradition. Some of these individuals are untrained geniuses, a few may be trained geniuses like Burns or Scott, most are without artistic talent. The geniuses give us the texts, or parts of texts, that measured by Western European standards are art. Their efforts are communal in the sense that there are usually many "authors" working on the tradition of any one song or version of a song. But it must be remembered that often these geniuses live decades apart, handle the song separately, and store it in an ineffectual oral tradition in between. Oral tradition is an aimless thing. It will stumble into art- but not with any sort of consistency.
The widely anthologized Child A version of "Mary Hamilton"[15] is an example of an Anglo-American ballad p oem that has gained artistic acceptance. The plot of the song is quite simple. Mary, Queen of Scots, has four maids-in-waiting, each selected for her virginal name and her beauty. One of the maids, Mary Hamilton as she is called in the ballad, not only flaunts the conventions of society by having an affair with the Queen's husband, but is unfortunate enough to bear a child as fruit of this indiscretion. She attempts to destroy the baby, is caught, tried, and hanged for murder. Characterization and real setting are almost non-existent, but the emotional core of the ballad is given great emphasis. This core, the tragedy of beauty and youth led astray, the lack of sympathy within the law, the girl's resigned indifference to her lot, are driven home with full force.
Only the first five of the eighteen stanzas that make up Child A are devoted to the rumors of Mary Hamilton's pregnancy, the courtship by Darnley, the murder of the child, and the Queen's discovery that she has been deceived. This juicy copy could not be dispatched more decorously had Mary of Scotland written the lines herself. The next five stanzas are devoted to the trial and conviction of Mary Hamilton, although again no effort is made to capitalize upon dramatic potentialities. Mary Hamilton, somewhat ironically, decides to dress in white, laughs and cries conventionally before and after the trial, and has her misfortune symbolized by losing the heel to her shoe. If the folk as a whole really cared about plot it is doubtful that the narrative possibilities of these events would be so ignored.
Stanzas 11-18, almost half the text, show what really interested the folk who preserved the Child A variant. Stanzas 11-18 deal with material that reflects the girl's feelings as she stands on the gallows waiting to die. The first ten stanzas have remained in the song only because they bring into focus the last eight. The folk recognize that the emotional situation brought on by the seduction a nd subsequent murder is the artistically vital part of the ballad. That these stanzas are primarily cliche stanzas is not of importance. They are admirably suited to the emotional situation at hand. Mary tells the sentimentalists that congregate at every hanging not to weep for her, her death is her own doing. She calls for wine in a burst of braggadocio. Her toast mentions her parents, and her mood changes. Mary becomes sentimental herself, and the ballad d raws to its end in four heart-rending stanzas. This is the essence of the story: the beauty and youth of a girl snuffed out by law. It is true that one can turn the page in Child and read the B text to discover that Mary Hamilton would not work "for wantonness and play" and that Darnley came to the gallows to ask Mary Hamilton to "dine with him." But these details, as the ones in Scott's c omposite version,[16] do nothing to increase the impact of the emotional core. Nor does it matter that Mary Hamilton was really a girl in the Russian court of Peter the Great and that, besides Seaton and Beaton, Livingston and Fleming were the names of Mary of Scotland's other Maries. A girl is a girl, the law is the law, in any age, in any place.
As an Anglo-American ballad survives in oral tradition more and more of the plot material can be expected to vanish, until only a lyric expressing the emotional core is left. Barry's collection from Maine (see n. 10) includes, page 258, the following
variant of "Mary Hamilton":
Yestre'en the queen had four Maries,
This nicht she'll hae but three;
There was Mary Beaton, an' Mary Seaton,
An' Mary Carmichael an' me.
O little did my mither ken,
The day she cradled me,
The land I was tae travel in,
The death I was tae dee.
Last nicht I dressed Queen Mary
An' pit on her braw silken goon,
An' a' thanks I've gat this nicht
Is tae be hanged in Edinboro toon.
They've tied a hanky roon me een,
An' they'll no let me see tae dee:
An' they've pit on a robe o' black
Tae hang on the gallows tree.
Yestre'en the queen had four Maries,
This nicht she'll hae but three:
There was Mary Beaton, an' Mary Seaton,
An' Mary Carmichael an' me.
Here is a lyric poem with but the merest suggestion of plot. Only the facts that the girl was one of the Queen's favored maidens and is now about to die remain clear. Yet the emotional core, girlhood and its beauty snuffed out by law, is as clear as it was in Child A.
It is certain that the Maine lyric did not evolve from Child A (or some similar text) merely through the miracles of forgetting and fusing alone. A member of the folk, or some learned poet, framed Mary's lament with the "Beaton and Seaton" stanza. Perhaps this poet, or another, purposefully discarded some of the plot detail as well. These points are relatively unimportant. The basic thing is that "Mary Hamilton" as it is found today is almost always a lyric and that the tendency to preserve the core and not the plot of the song is typical. The tendency is also typical of the American song "Charles Guiteau" - an example of mediocre poetry. Here the murderer of James A. Garfield waits for his death with the "little did my mither ken" cliche on his lips. The lines are just as adequate for a nineteenth century assassin as they are for a medieval flirt, and the folk have sloughed nearly all the plot detail included in the original sub-literary text; but "Charles Guiteau," unlike "Mary Hamilton," never passed through the hands of a genius or series of geniuses who could lift it above sentimental verse.
In the hands of A. E. Housman, the "Mary Hamilton" situation was touched by a great poet. "The Culprit," the poem that opens with the lines "The night my father got me / His mind was not on me,"[17] tells of the musings of a man about to be hung.
It is in reality a re-statement of the emotions Mary Hamilton expressed in stanzas II-18 in the Child A text. Why the youth is on the gallows, how he got there, are too clinical for Housman's poetic purpose. Like the folk singer who shaped "Mary Hamilton" and even "Charles Guiteau," Housman did not clutter his lyric with action detail.
Beyond the observations made on the Child A "Mary Hamilton" lie similar observations that can be made on the Scott "Twa Corbies," the Percy "Sir Patrick Spens," the Percy "Edward," the Mackie-Macmath "Lord Randal," and the other most widely anthologized of our ballads.[18] All of them are basically lyrics. In each case there is a full plot, now lost forever, that the folk have seen fit to discard. A realization of the importance of the "emotional core" to the folk is essential to a sensitive evaluation of Anglo-American ballad poems. The teacher, the critic, the poet, even the researcher, must know that in certain ballad variants there is to be found a fine blend of plot residue and universal emotion that produces priceless offspring from mediocre stock. An Anglo-American ballad may look like narrative. At its birth it may be narrative. But its whole life proceeds as a denial of its origin.
NOTES
1. This paper, an extensive development of a study read at the meeting of the AFS in Bloomington, Ind., 28 July I950, was read at the AFS meeting in Washington, D. C., 28 December I955. Throughout, the word "ballad" should be read as meaning the "Anglo-American ballad," although the remarks are pertinent to the ballads of Western Europe in general.
2. The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, ed. Maria Leach (New York, 1949-1950), I, 106.
3. Even the revolt against plotting that has taken place in much 20th century literature shows a definite consciousness of plotting.
4 "The Problem of Ballad Story Variation and Eugene Haun's Drowsy Sleeper,'" Southern Folklore Quarterly, XIV (I950), 87-96.
5. See, respectively, Arthur K. Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), p. I88, and J. Harrington Cox, Folk Songs of the South (Cambridge, Mass., I925), p. I8.
6 Modern Language Review, XI (1916), 404-405.
7 Broadside in the Yale University Library. See the Claude L. Frazer Collection, 2:5.
8 Narrative accretion may occur during Stage 2 also. But the addition of narrative detail in Stage 2, even when two whole ballads fuse, offers only a temporary setback to the steady movement toward Stage 3-lyric or nonsense.
9. Dorothy Scarborough, A Songcatcher in the Southern Mountains (New York, 1937), p. 213.
10Phillips Barry (with Fannie H. Eckstorm and Mary W. Smyth), British Ballads from Maine (New Haven, 1929), pp. 303-304.
11 JAF, XLV (1932), p. 54.
12 Publications of the Texas Folklore Society, VII, p. III, or X, p. 149.
13 It should be noted that a composition can move back up these stages at any time that an individual inserts morals, sentiment, and other poetic frills. Parodists,b roadside-writersa, nd the like, frequently made such changes, particularly in the i8th century. The Civil War parodies of "Lord Lovel" as printed in many Southern collections, and the moral version of 'The Three Ravens" printed in JAF, XX (1907), 154, serve as examples. It is also true that a song may be composed at any one of the three stages, even at the lyric or nonsense stage; (see many of the minstrel tunes).
14 American ballads, which, as stated above, are usually in the process of moving from Stage 1 to Stage 2, are generally thought of as inferior to Child ballads when measured by Western European poetic standards.
15 See Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, III, 384. The text is not printed here,
to conserve space.
16 Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1833), II, 294 (Child I).
17 A. E. Housman, Collected Poems (New York, 1940), p. 114.
18 See Child for the texts of 'The Twa Corbies," "Sir Patrick Spens," "Edward," and "Lord
Randal" mentioned.
Denison University
Granville, Ohio