VIDEO: Faithless Woman!
Presented as a supplement to Chapter 2 Fundamentals of TwelveByTwelve, Enriched is Better than Impoverished, are two other Pirates of Penzance scenes that Marko practiced: Faithless Woman! and Apprentice to a Pirate.
| Faithless Woman! |
VIDEO: Faithless Woman! |
Marko's Penmanship exercise wanders to a segment of the Pirates of Penzance preceding Policeman's Lot. Frederic (Rex Smith), having lived most of his life aboard a pirate ship cannot remember ever having seen any woman but his former nurserymaid, Ruth (Angela Lansbury), who continues to accompany him, and who is presently 47 years old. Ruth has persuaded Frederic that women do not come any more attractive than herself, on the basis of which misrepresentation, she has almost persuaded Frederic to marry her. However, Frederick suddenly espies in his telescope a bevy of beautiful young girls frolicking on the beach, and confronts Ruth thusly:
| FREDERIC: | Oh, false one, you have deceived me! |
| RUTH: | I have deceived you? |
| FREDERIC: | Yes, deceived me! You told me you were fair as gold! |
| RUTH: | And, master, am I not so? |
| FREDERIC: | And now I see you're plain and old. |
| RUTH: | I'm sure I'm not a jot so. |
| FREDERIC: | Upon my innocence you play. |
| RUTH: | I'm not the one to plot so. |
| FREDERIC: | Your face is lined, your hair is grey. |
| RUTH: | It's gradually got so. |
| FREDERIC: | Faithless woman, to deceive me, I who trusted so! |
| RUTH: | Master, master, do not leave me! Hear me, ere you go! |
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Vol. 1 p. 135
Age 06:00 Grade 01:Oct
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You told me you were fair as gold! And, master, am I not so? |
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Vol. 1 p. 147
Age 06:00 Grade 01:Oct
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And now I see you're plain and old. I am sure I am not a jot so. Upon my innocence you play. I'm not the one to plot so. |
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Vol. 1 p. 151
Age 06:01 Grade 01:Oct
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Your face is lined, your hair is grey. It's gradually got so. |
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Vol. 1 p. 155
Age 06:01 Grade 01:Oct
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Faithless woman, to deceive me, I who trusted so! |
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Vol. 1 p. 156
Age 06:01 Grade 01:Nov
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Master, master, do not leave me! Hear me, ere you go! |
| Apprentice to a Pirate |
 VIDEO: Apprentice to a Pirate |
As Marko continues to work on his Penmanship, he happens to wander to a still earlier point in the Pirates of Penzance plot, when Frederic (Rex Smith) and Ruth (Angela Lansbury) were still aboard the pirate ship and Ruth for the first time explained to the Pirate King (Kevin Kline) how it had come to pass years earlier that she and Frederic had joined the pirates:
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When Frederic was a little lad He proved so brave and daring, His father thought he'd 'prentice him To some career seafaring. I was, alas! his nurserymaid, And so it fell to my lot To take and bind the promising boy Apprentice to a pilot – A life not bad for a hardy lad, Though surely not a high lot, Though I'm a nurse, you might do worse Than make your boy a pilot. I was a stupid nurserymaid, On breakers always steering, And I did not catch the word aright, Through being hard of hearing; Mistaking my instructions, Which within my brain did gyrate, I took and bound this promising boy Apprentice to a pirate. A sad mistake it was to make And doom him to a vile lot. I bound him to a pirate – you – Instead of to a pilot. |
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Vol. 2 p. 1
Age 06:02 Grade 01:Nov
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When Frederic was a little lad He proved so brave and daring, |
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Vol. 2 p. 2
Age 06:02 Grade 01:Nov
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His father thought he'd 'prentice him To some career seafaring. I was, alas! his nurserymaid, And so it fell to my lot |
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Vol. 2 p. 3
Age 06:02 Grade 01:Nov
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To take and bind the promising boy Apprentice to a pilot – |
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Vol. 2 p. 5
Age 06:02 Grade 01:Dec
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A life not bad for a hardy lad, Though surely not a high lot, Though I'm a nurse, you might do worse Than make your boy a pilot. |
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Vol. 2 p. 7
Age 06:03 Grade 01:Dec
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I was a stupid nurserymaid, On breakers always steering, And I did not catch the word aright, Through being hard of hearing; |
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Vol. 2 p. 11
Age 06:03 Grade 01:Jan
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Mistaking my instructions, Which within my brain did gyrate, I took and bound this promising boy Apprentice to a pirate. |
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Vol. 2 p. 13
Age 06:04 Grade 01:Jan
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A sad mistake it was to make And doom him to a vile lot. |
Toward the bottom of the page, Marko preferred to skip the last two lines of Apprentice to a Pilot, and turned his attention to a sentence from John Reade's The Cloister and the Hearth, which his family was at the time reading together:
| Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. |