Rose of Persia Song No. 18

Gilbert and Sullivan Archive

The Rose of Persia
Song No. 18

Let a satirist enumerate a catalogue


CD 2	Track 1

MIDI File 17K, 2 min. 28 seconds.

The Sultan enters. Everyone is prostrated.

SONG. -- SULTAN and CHORUS.

Let a satirist enumerate a catalogue of crimes

Though he label them the outcome of our

shallow modern times;

Yet a Persian Punch's pencil, in a prehistoric peep,

Would show us human nature just as shallow,

or as deep.

It is money more than manners nowadays that makes a man;

And the man may make his money in such manner as he can;

And the more he makes of it, the more his

friends will make of him --

That has always been the way since human

sharks began to swim!

And cynics may complain

That Society is mixed;

But I gather in the main

Its ingredients are fixed;

And Society has always been a sort of "ginger-pop,"

The dregs are at the bottom, and the froth

is at the top!

Chorus:

Sultan:
Now philosophy may frown upon the follies

of the froth,
Where bounce has beaten brains and vulgar
shoddy's counted cloth,
Where sentiment is "silly," and politeness
"out of date,"
And hearts, instead of golden, are a cheap
electro-plate;
But a woman is a woman, and a man is but a man,
And the froth has always floated ever since
the world began;
And the froth of human nature is the feeble-minded mob
Of animated fashion-plates that make the genus "snob."
And cynics may complain
That Society is mixed;
I am ready to maintain
Its ingredients are fixed;
And the world of men and women is a
social "ginger-pop,"
The dregs are at the bottom, and the froth
is at the top!
Chorus:
And the world of men and women is a
social "ginger-pop,"
The dregs are at the bottom, and the froth
is at the top!
Exeunt Chorus [and Executioner.]

Page updated 24 July 1999