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Greensleeves

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"My Lady Greensleeves" as depicted in an 1864 painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

"Greensleeves" is a traditional English folk song and tune, a ground of the form called a romanesca.

A broadside ballad by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in 1580 as "A New Northern Dittye of the Lady Greene Sleeves". It then appears in the surviving A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) as "A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green sleeves."

The tune is found in several late 16th century and early 17th century sources, such as Ballet's MS Lute Book and Het Luitboek van Thysius, as well as various manuscripts preserved in the Cambridge University libraries.

Greensleeves and Henry VIII

There is a persistent belief that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Anne rejected Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection is apparently referred to in the song, when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously." However, Henry did not compose "Greensleeves", which is probably Elizabethan in origin and is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.

Lyrical interpretation

One possible interpretation of the lyrics is that Lady Green Sleeves was a promiscuous young woman and perhaps a prostitute. At the time, the word "green" had sexual connotations, most notably in the phrase "a green gown", a reference to the way that grass stains might be seen on a lady's dress if she had made love outside.

An alternative explanation is that Lady Green Sleeves was, as a result of her attire, incorrectly assumed to be immoral. Her "discourteous" rejection of the singer's advances supports the contention that she is not.

In Nevill Coghill's translation of The Canterbury Tales, he explains that "green was the colour of lightness in love. This is echoed in 'Greensleeves is my delight' and elsewhere."

Alternative lyrics

The hymn What Child Is This? by William Chatterton Dix, set to the Greensleeves tune, is used across the Western Christian church.

A variation was used extensively in the 1962 movie How the West Was Won as the song "Home in the Meadow", lyrics by Sammy Cahn, performed by Debbie Reynolds.

Early literary references

In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, written around 1602, the character Mistress Ford refers twice without any explanation to the tune of "Greensleeves," and Falstaff later exclaims:

Let the sky rain potatoes! Let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'!

These allusions suggest that the song was already well known at that time.

In popular culture

Recordings

Television

  • The Simpsons episode "A Star Is Torn": Cameron performed "Greensleeves" in Krusty's Li'l Star Maker singing competition.
  • Blackadder II episode "Bells": as the backing track to a medieval style 'hits compilation' parody.
  • The Office (US) episode "Take Your Daughter to Work Day": Dwight Schrute plays "Greensleeves" on his recorder to a group of children. He says: "That was 'Greensleeves,' the English ballad dedicated to the beheaded Anne Boleyn."
  • An episode of Pepper Ann has P.A. pretending to know how to play piano by purchasing a keyboard piano that is programmed to play "Greensleeves" while lighting up the notes that are played.
  • Lassie, as the theme song beginning with the fifteenth season.
  • Robot Chicken episode "Day at the Circus": a skit entitled "The Memory Game" involves a woman playing it on a giant keyboard.
  • In Jane and the Dragon, the song is frequently hummed by Jane or Pepper the kitchen wench. (However, this is an anachronism, as the show is supposedly set in the ninth century.)
  • The Tudors episode "Look to God First": King Henry VIII (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is seen playing a guitar and humming the song softly, as if composing it. It is played again in the next scene.
  • The Secret World of Alex Mack episode "The Solo": Alex performed the song in an imaginary dream sequence at the beginning of the episode.

Film


Media

"Greensleeves" is in Dorian mode, though modern musicians sometimes play it in the natural minor scale instead, as in this realization:

Greensleeves
Problems playing this file? See media help.

See also

  • "Turandot (Busoni)" Act 2 Scene 1 opens with the tune, which Busoni thought sounded Chinese.

References

  1. Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: The King and His Court, page 131, Ballantine Books, 2002, ISBN 0-34543-708-X
  2. Brown, Meg Lota & Kari Boyd McBride. Women's Roles in the Renaissance, page 101, Greenwood Press, 2005, ISBN 0-31332-210-4
  3. ^ Vance Randolph "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore, Volume I, Folksongs and Music, page 47, University of Arkansas Press, 1992, ISBN 1-55728-231-5
  4. Chaucer, Geoffrey (2003-02-04). The Canterbury Tales (in Middle English). trans. Nevill Coghill. The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection. ISBN 0-140-42438-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |origdate= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

External links

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