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Women Posing as Sailors
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Blooming Sally
Woodcut from a broadside ballad
The Mariners' Museum Research Library and Archives
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SAILORS' SONGS
Historians studying sailors' songs, or sea shanties, have discovered many about women sailors.These songs were written and sung by the sailors about their life aboard ship.The sea shanty below was a popular song in the nineteenth century.
Can you tell whether the figure in this woodcut is male or female? Either way, it is an inaccurate rendering by a landlubber: no one would have been allowed to smoke near a gun, where loose gunpowder could ignite.
The Rambling Female Sailor
circa 1830
Ballad printed by W. Fordyce,
英国纽卡斯尔
Come all young people far and near,
听我的歌曲,
At Gravesend lived a maiden fair,
Who was both young and pretty.
Her lover he was press'd away,
and drowned in a foreign sea,
which caus'd this maiden to say,
I'll be a Female Sailor.
This maid she was resolv'd to go
Across the foaming ocean,
She was resolv'd to let them know
How she could gain promotion.
With jacket blue and trowsers white,
Just like a sailor neat and tight
The sea it was the heart's delight
of the rambling Female Sailor . . .
From stem to stern she'd boldly go,
She brav'd all dangers, fear'd no foe,
But soon you'll hear the overthrow
Of the Rambling Female Sailor.
This maiden gay did a wager lay,
She would go aloft with any,
And up aloft she straight did go,
Where times she had been many.
This maiden bold--ah, sad to tell,
She missed her hold and down she fell,
And calmly bid this world farewell!
Did the Rambling Female Sailor.
This maiden gay did fade away
Just like a drooping willow,
Which made the sailors for to say
Farewell, young faithful Willy.
When her snow-whitebreast in sight
became, She prov'd to be a female frame,
And Rebecca Young it was the name
Of the Rambling Female Sailor . . .
On the river Thames she was known full well,
Few sailors could with her excel
One tear let fall as the fate you tell,
Of the Rambling Female Sailor.
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Activity:
After reading toThe Rambling Female Sailor, answer the following questions.
1. What does this song say about the female sailor?
2. Do the sailors respect or dislike her?
3. Do you believe this was a real person?
4. Write a sea chantey about a female sailor or ships. |
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