| God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Christmas carol |
| Written | Traditional |
| Based on | Luke2 |
| Meter | 8.6.8.6.8.6 with refrain |
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", also known as "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", is an English traditional Christmas carol. It is in the Roxburghe Collection (iii. 452), and is listed as no. 394 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It is also known as "Tidings of Comfort and Joy," and by other variant incipits.
An early version of this carol is found in an anonymous manuscript, dating from the 1650s. [1] [2] [3] It contains a slightly different version of the first line from that found in later texts, with the first line "Sit yow merry gentlemen" (also transcribed "Sit you merry gentlemen" and "Sit you merry gentlemen"). [4] [2] [3]
The earliest known printed edition of the carol is in a broadsheet dated to c. 1760. [5] A precisely datable reference to the carol is found in the November 1764 edition of the Monthly Review . [6] Some sources claim that the carol dates as far back as the 16th century. [7] Others date it later, to the 18th or early 19th centuries. [8] [9]
Although there is a second tune known as 'Cornish', in print by 1833 [10] and referred to as "the usual version" in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols , this version is seldom heard today. [11] The better-known traditional English melody is in the minor mode; the earliest printed edition of the melody appears to be in a rondo arrangement for fortepiano by Samuel Wesley, which was already reviewed in 1815. [11] Soon after, it appeared in a parody published in 1820 by William Hone. [12] It had been associated with the carol since at least the mid-18th century, when it was recorded by James Nares in a hand-written manuscript under the title "The old Christmas Carol". [13] Hone's version of the tune differs from the present melody in the third line. The full current melody was published by Chappell in 1855. [13] [14]
An article in the March 1824 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine complains that, in London, no Christmas carols are heard "excepting some croaking ballad-singer bawling out 'God rest you, merry gentlemen', or a like doggerel". [15] The carol is referred to in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol . [16] It is also quoted in George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner . [17]
The following version of the first verse is found in a manuscript dating from the early 1650s: [3] [18]
Sit yow merry Gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
for Jesus Christ is borne
to save or soules from Satan's power
Whenas we runne astray
O tidings of comfort & joy
to save or soules from Satan
When as we runne away
O tidings of comfort & joy
A later version is found in Three New Christmas Carols, dated c. 1760. Its first verse reads:
God rest ye, merry Gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this Day.
To save poor souls from Satan's power,
Which long time had gone astray.
Which brings tidings of comfort and joy. [19]
The historic meaning of the phrase "God rest you merry" is 'may God grant you peace and happiness'; the Oxford English Dictionary records uses of this phrase from 1534 onwards. It appears in Shakespeare's play As You Like It [20] and the phrase "rest you merry" appears in Romeo and Juliet; [21] both plays date from the 1590s. The ditransitive use of the verb rest in the sense "to keep, cause to continue, to remain" is typical of 16th- to 17th-century language. [9] However, in the present day, merry is often misinterpreted as an adjective modifying gentlemen. [22] [23] Etymonline.com notes that the first line "often is mispunctuated" as "God rest you, merry gentlemen" because in contemporary language, rest has lost its use "with a predicate adjective following and qualifying the object" ( Century Dictionary ). This is the case already in the 1775 variant, and is also reflected by Dickens' replacement of the verb rest by bless in A Christmas Carol. [9]
Some variants give the pronoun in the first line as ye instead of you, [24] in a pseudo-archaism. [25] In fact, ye would never have been correct, because ye is a subjective (nominative) pronoun only, never an objective (accusative) pronoun.
A variant text was printed in 1775 in The Beauties of the Magazines, and Other Periodical Works, Selected for a Series of Years. This text was reproduced from a song-sheet bought from a caroler in the street. [26] This version is shown here alongside the version reported by W. B. Sandys (1833) [27] and the version adopted by Carols for Choirs (OUP, 1961), which has become the de facto baseline reference in the UK.
| The Beauties of the Magazines (1775) | Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, W. B. Sandys (1833) | Carols for Choirs (1961) |
|---|---|---|
1. God rest you, merry gentlemen, | 1. God rest you merry, gentlemen | 1. God rest you merry, gentlemen, |
2. From God that is our Father | 2. In Bethlehem, in Jewry [28] | 2. From God our heavenly Father |
3. Now when they came to Bethlehem, | 3. From God our Heavenly Father | 3. The shepherds at those tidings |
4. With sudden joy and gladness, | 4. Fear not, then said the Angel, | 4. But when to Bethlehem they came, |
5. Now to the Lord sing praises, | 5. The Shepherds at those tidings | 5. Now to the Lord sing praises, |
<no further couplets> | 6. But when to Bethlehem they came, | <no further couplets> |
If Persia's shining had not been mentioned, would not this choral lay be a good deal in the style of a Christmas carol?
God rest you, merry Gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay, &c.
Many carols such as 'God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen' and 'The First Noel', date back at least as far as the 16th century
God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember we were left alive
Upon last Christmas Day,
With both our lips at liberty
To praise Lord C[astlereag]h
With his 'practical' comfort and joy!
The words of this carol are in the Roxburghe Collection (iii. 452), together with three other 'choice Carols for Christmas Holidays', for St. Stephen's, St. John's, and Innocents' days. The tune was printed by Hone, in his Facetiæ, to a 'political Christmas Carol', ... I have seen no earlier copy of the tune than one in the handwriting of Dr. Nares, the cathedral composer, in which it is entitled 'The old Christmas Carol'; but I have received many versions from different sources, for no carol seems to be more generally known. In the Halliwell Collection of Broadsides, No. 263, Chetham Library, is 'The overthrow of proud Holofernes, and the Triumph of virtuous Queen Judith; to the tune of Tidings of comfort and joy.'
The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of—
'God bless you merry gentleman!
May nothing you dismay!'
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.
Aaron was not indisposed to display his talents, even to an ogre, under protecting circumstances; and after a few more signs of coyness, consisting chiefly in rubbing the backs of his hands over his eyes, and then peeping between them at Master Marner, to see if he looked anxious for the 'carril', he at length allowed his head to be duly adjusted, and standing behind the table, which let him appear above it only as far as his broad frill, so that he looked like a cherubic head untroubled with a body, he began with a clear chirp, and in a melody that had the rhythm of an industrious hammer,—
'God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas-day.'
Dolly listened with a devout look, glancing at Marner in some confidence that this strain would help to allure him to church.
Will. God rest you merry sir
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