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Don't Solicit for Your SisterSeptember 20, 2005 So yesterday I was humming Tom Lehrer's "Be Prepared," notably the lines that advise
and this morning I hit the Play button on my boom box and what starts up but Eileen McGann's Beyond the Storm. Track 6 is about, you guessed it, a brother who solicits for his sister: "Young Clifford and Fair Rosamond." When Henry II was king of England, his reputation was such that wise parents hid their comely daughters and wise daughters hid themselves when he passed through town. It's a safe bet that young Clifford knew what he was doing when he dropped his sister's name in Henry's hearing. Rosamond was not pleased. History records that Rosamond was Henry's only long-term mistress; he even set her up in a palace of her own. Legend records that Henry's wife, the great Eleanor of Aquitaine, did Rosamond in. Eileen McGann's CD includes one version, "Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond," in which Henry goes off to war and Eleanor proceeds immediately to Rosamond's palace and forces her to drink poison; Henry returns and, furious, locks Eleanor up. Most of this is not true. Henry did lock Eleanor up, but for launching a rebellion against him, and she'd been imprisoned for three years already when Rosamond died of natural causes -- in the convent to which Henry sent her when he finally tired of her. Eileen McGann has more about the story and the songs on her website: http://members.shaw.ca/emcgann/stormnotes.html. You can start your Eileen McGann CD collection at the same time: if you can't resist a gorgeous voice and a varied repertoire of original and traditional songs, you can't go wrong. I'm especially partial to "Bonny Susie Cleland," also on Beyond the Storm, in which Bonny Susie confounds her dour father and brothers and doesn't burn at Dundee. * * * Can't help noticing that today is my one and only sister's birthday, so Happy B-day to Ellen! I don't solicit for her; she doesn't solicit for me. However, if you want Rhodry or Allie to model your clothes or star in your movie, I'd be happy to act as their agent. Ellen's daughter goes by Rozzie, which is short for Rosamond, my paternal grandmother's name (she went by Roz, which she may have spelled "Ros"; I forget). Fortunately there are more options for Rosamonds in the 21st century than there were in the 12th. Fewer kings too.
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