The Prince was bold, the Prince was brave,
The Prince was young and strong,
All of these things he was, and yet
He did not live so long.
The Prince sought the Princess’s hand;
The King, to try his skill,
Commanded, “Slay the giant!”
And the Prince, he said, “I will!”
The giant’s name was Fumblegrunt
The largest of that race –
Full thirty yards he measured,
From his feet up to his face!
All night they fought, and then all day;
All afternoon as well;
Until at last the brute was slain
– And then, of course, he fell.
For Fumblegrunt was huge and strong,
And ugly and appalling;
And heavy, too, as the Prince found, who
Reckoned without his falling.
So once you’ve slain the giant –
Though your heart be filled with pride –
O once you’ve slain the giant,
Don’t forget to step aside.
This is a draft of a sketch of a frippery from a musical play (well, a play with music) that I cherish the notion I may someday finish. The image I cobbled together from various generic warning signs and in particular one called “Danger!” by Flickr user Leo Reynolds, who published it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.
Here are a few related-ish posts that you may find, you know, related:
The Chinese Dragons (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Hugh (Alphabet, Schmalphabet: H, h)
Bag of Anything 
As a lover of frippery, I like this very much. It doesn’t scan well for me, though. I suppose there’s no telling what the music will do to it, perhaps there’s a tune in there that I can’t hear. I also suppose that if it DID scan it would descend from frippery to doggerel, but what do I know?
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Thanks for the “like,” and especially the “very much” — and yes, on reflection, I think I did indeed play too fast and loose with the ballad meter. Or — not to equivocate — it doesn’t scan for me, either, damn it all. And, since in my theology music disguises, but does not excuse, a multitude of sins, I will likely fix this up sometime soon, though without announcing anywhere that I have done so, since that is, after all, how I roll.
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Oh, good. Then people can look at it, read my comment, and say, “What is this idiot talking about? It scans fine!”
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Ah, you’ve seen right through me.
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That’s hilarious! I love it!
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Why, thank you! You do know it’s not supposed to be funny, though, right? I actually wrote it as a serious allegory of Eurocentric arrogance and its unintended consequences: the King is unbridled capitalism, the Prince, unchecked industrialism, the giant Fumblegrunt is Nature, and the giant’s fall symbolizes global warming.
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Yeah, i just found it funny because its different from the typical ending. Maybe there’s something wrong with my sense of humor, lol 😉
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😉
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