Annotation:Parcel of Rogues (1)

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PARCEL OF ROGUES [1]. AKA - "Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation." Scottish, Air. D Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Scottish poet Robert Burns fashioned famous words to the preexisting tune in 1791, and his song is published in Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum. The lyric looks retrospectively to the Act of Union of 1707, in which the Members of Parliament for Scotland voted to join the two countries, a traitorous act in Burns's view, who accuses them of acceding to English bribery. His lyric goes:

Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae fam'd in martial story.
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
An' Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

O would, ere I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak this declaration;
We're bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Samuel Bayard (1981) thought the melody a version of “Boyne Water (1).”

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: McGibbon (Scots Tunes, book II), c. 1746; p. 54.

Recorded sources: Steeleye Span – “Parcel of Rogues.”

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