ALL.
By a doctor of divinity,
Who resides in this vicinity,
By a doctor, a doctor, a doctor,
Of divinity, of divinity.
MABEL (coming forward).
RECITATIVE.
Hold, monsters! Ere your pirate caravanseri
Proceed, against our will, to wed us all,
Just bear in mind that we are Wards in Chancery,
And father is a Major-General.
Sam. (cowed). We'd better pause, or danger may befall,
Their father is a Major-General.
Girls. Yes, yes; he is a Major-General!
(The Major-General has entered unnoticed, on rock.)
Gen. Yes, I am a Major-General!
...
Song -- Major-General.*
note 452-96: _I am the very model of a modern Major-General_
"Major-General Stanley introduces himself in one of the fastest and most famous of all the Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs. It must also be one of the most parodied. The American comedian Tom Lehrer set the entire table of chemical elements to the tune, beginning 'There's antimony, arsenic, aluminium, selenium'.
In its original version the song began 'I am the very pattern of a modern Major-General'. Its distinctive rhythm, with sixteen syllables to the line, is found in the Grand Duke Rudolph's song 'A pattern to professors of monarchal autonomy' in _the Grand Duke_, which contains the major-general-like line 'I weigh out tea and sugar with precsion mathematical'."
Gee whiz, Ian, you may have the experience of "Gilbert and Sullivan" existing as "very much a male taste" ... but this chick can stomach it just fine. Maybe it was you, just a decade or two ago.
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