Firstpublished:2014 Description: Text and melody is from: Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive; … VOL. V. 1719
Some sections of the composition are for SSA womans choir and some for TBB male choir.
The piece is free for non commercial use. Pleas inform me (as a courtesy) if you are going to perform it.
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Original text and translations
English text
1 Are you grown so melancholy,
That you think on nought but folly;
are you sad,
are you made,
are you worse;
Do you think,
Want of Chink
Is a Curse:
Do you wish for to have,
Longer life, or a Grave,
Thus would I Cure ye.
2 First I would have a Bag of Gold,
That should ten Thousand Pieces hold,
And all that,
In thy Hat,
Would I pour;
For to spend,
On thy Friend,
Or thy Whore:
For to cast away at Dice,
Or to shift you of your Lice,
Thus would I Cure ye.
3 Next I would have a soft Bed made,
Where a Virgin should be laid;
That would Play,
Any way
You'll devise;
That would stick
Like a Tick,
To your Thighs,
That would bill like a Dove,
Lye beneath or above,
Thus would I Cure ye.
4 Next that same Bowl, where Jove Divine
Drank Nectar in, I’d fill with Wine;
That whereas
You should pause,
You should quaff
Like a Greek
Till your Cheek
To Ceres and to Venus,
To Bacchus and Silenus,
Thus would I Cure ye.
5 But if not Gold, no Woman can
Nor Wine, nor Songs, make merry then;
Let the Batt
Be my Mate,
And the Owl;
Let a Pain
In the Brain,
Make thee Howl;
Let the Pox be thy Friend,
the plague work thy end,
Thus I would Cure you.
English text