Tea at Trianon: "Auld Lang Syne"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, January 1, 2015

"Auld Lang Syne"

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
~ "Auld Lang Syne"

The phrase "old lang syne" means "long, long ago" or "days gone by" in the Scots dialect. The Scottish poet Robert Burns composed the poem based upon a traditional song. According to the background notes on the Cantaria site:

Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the British Museum with this comment: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing , is enough to recommend any air." (Gavin Grieg: "Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads") He set it to a traditional Scottish air that is quite different than the popularized version.

Throughout the English-speaking world, Auld Lang Syne is traditionally sung on New Years Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). That tradition does not hearken back to Burns but rather only to Canadian band leader Guy Lombardo who sang at midnight January 1, 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Guy Lombardo's orchestra played the song every New Years Eve, in live broadcast from New York, until 1976. Since then, their recording has been played each year as part of the Times Square "ball drop." (Sheet music for the familiar New Years Eve ve rsion.)

An article in The Scotsman shares the following insight:

As Thomas Crawford wrote in his important critical examination, Burns: A Study of the Poems and Songs: "In Auld Lang Syne, Burns brings together two different types of nostalgia for past shared happiness, and makes of them a single, compound emotion. Thus our feelings develop as we sing it, until by the end of the song we seem to experience a distillation of all the mutual loyalty, all the partnerships between individuals that have existed since the world began."

A very true observation. For more on Scottish Hogmanay customs, click HERE. Happy New Year!