“Four Nights Drunk” from South India

“Four Nights Drunk” from South India?

Prof. V. RAMA MURTHY

Nagarjuna University

Much work has been done in the comparative study of folk literatures, particularly in the area of tales, epics and myths. But the folk ballad seems to have missed the attention of the comparatist. Also, the approaches made in a cross-genre comparison were not genuinely literary. They were either historical, sociological or psychological and were based on external rather than internal data. The reason may be that most of the work in folklore studies have been carried out by anthropologists and sociologists with a slant of their particular discipline or predisposition. They have not shown any interest in the literary character of tale or song. Their concern has been primarily sociological with an emphasis on history, context and aetiology. There were, however, some comparatists who used comparison, especially for cataloguing and indexing; but their work, although important, remains good only for occasional reference. What started as textual (or etymological) analysis gradually diverged into a wide variety of extra-literary approaches. They were extra-literary in the sense that their concern had been for external evidence such as context and period rather than for internal evidence such as content, form and language. Content (such as idea or meaning), form (such as architectonic), language (such as symbol, metaphor, syntax and diction) are literary and form part of internal evidence. Unfortunately, much of the recent study in folklore is based on extra-literary reference and has regrettably robbed the tales or ballad of their essentially literary character. This has also resulted in folklore being relegated to the departments of sociology or anthropology.

Max Mueller tried to relate a number of myths and tales to common source but his contemporary Andrew Lang advocated the theory of polygenesis according to which the myths came into “being simultaneously at several places and that any resemblance in them was only accidental. With the rise of the cult of polygenesis, individual studies of folklore displaced comparative studies but comparison has its own significance and serves as an investigative tool yielding rich dividends especially where a strong case for monogenesis exists.

I spent sometime during 1982-’83 at Wisconsin University studying American folk ballads. I was on a one-year Visiting Fellowship under a scheme of the Indo-U.S. sub-commission on education and culture. In my study of these ballads, I stumbled upon some curious parallels to them in Telugu folk ballads. Telugu ballads originated in Andhra Pradesh, South India, where there is a strong intermixture of Aryan, Dravidian, African, Polynesian and indigenous tribal populations. Telugu is a blend of Sanskritic and Dravidian elements but it is basically Dravidian. It is one of the oldest languages of India with a written literature going back to the eleventh century. It is spoken by over 40 million people. One may wonder how there could be correspondences between the American and Telugu folk ballads. But they are there not as a cross-cultural phenomenon but as an inheritance that can be traced back to Ancient India, Europe and Africa. The literatures of these regions seem, to have more in common to one another than to, say, the older Eskimo or Amerindian literatures.

The correspondences between Telugu folk ballads and some ballads found in America are in form, ethos and at times even in specific situations. The ballads coming from the working classes from both places (the Blues, in particular, in America) have what may be called a Marxist ethos. Poverty, suffering and protest are common to both. Besides this, both have a sense of humour coupled with sensuality. In some ballads there are similarities on the side of form – in binary construction, refrain, parallelism and certain prosodic features. One may argue that these are accidental but such an argument should answer the question why they are not accidental elsewhere, for instance in Eskimo or Amerindian ballads. If they are common to Indian, European and African ballads only, then they are definitely not accidental.

III

The like elements are scattered over a large number of ballads and this is not the place or time to cite all of them. I shall, however, specifically refer to one ballad which is popularly known as “Four Nights Drunk” in America. It has been rendered by a number of American folk singers including Pete Saeger of New York (Folkways FA 2322). Others who have set it to music are Cisco Houston, Oscar Brand, Ewan MacColl and others. The ballad with certain variations peculiar to each rendering runs thus:

“Four Nights Drunk”

He: I came home the other night drunk as I could be,

I saw a horse in the stable where my horse ought to be. So, I said to my wife, “My pretty little wife, explain this thing to me.

“What is this horse do-in’ in the stable where my horse ought to be”

She: You darn fool, you drunken fool, can’t you never see? It’s nothing but a milk cow your mother gave to me.

He: Welt, I’ve travelled this wide world over ten thousand miles or more

But a saddle on a milk cow I never did see before.

The second night, I got home, drunk as I could be,

I spied a hat on the hatrack, where my hat ought to be.”

I says to my wife, “My pretty little wife, explain this thing to me.

What’s this hat doing here on the hatrack, where my hat ought to be”

She: You blind fool, you drunken old fool, can’t you never see?

That’s nothing but an old chamber pot my granny gave to me.

He: I travelled this wide world over, ten thousand miles or more

And a J. B. Stetson chamber pot, I never did see before.

I got home the third night, drunk as I could be,

I spied some pants upon the chair where my pants ought to be.

I says to my wife, “My pretty little wife, explain this thing to me,

What’s these pants doing here upon the chair, where my pants ought to be?”

She: You blind fool, you drunken old fool, can’t you never see?

That’s nothing but an old dish rag, my granny gave to me.

He: I’ve travelled this wide world over ten thousand miles or more,

And zippers on a dish rag I never did see before.

I got home the fourth night, drunk as I could be,

I spied a head on the pillow, where my head ought to be.

I says to my wife, “My pretty little wife, explain this thing to me,

What’s this head doings here on the pillow, where my head ought to be?”

She: You blind fool, you drunken old fool, can’t you plainly see?

That’s nothing but a baby child, my granny gave to me.

He: I’ve travelled this wide world over, ten thousand miles or more,

And a moustache on a baby’s face I never did see before. ¹

There is a very rich collection of folk ballads in the Telugu language. I am providing hereunder an English translation of a Telugu ballad which bears a striking resemblance to the American ballad in many respects. This ballad is sung generally when the people in the countryside dance what is called kolatam:

He: When I asked you to fetch firewood from the forest,

How come you, tart, you wear flowers in your chignon?

She: Wind and dust blowing, a basket-like cloud

Shook a branch filling my chignon, husband,

By my troth, I haven’t cuckolded,

By your troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your father’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your mother’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded.

He: That’s all right, that’s all right.

How come there’s so much dust on your saree, tart,

Tut, tut, how come there’s so much dust on your saree?

She: When I went to the cowherd’s for milk,

The he-calf hit me husband,

By my troth, I haven’t cuckolded;

By your troth, I haven’t cuckolded,

By your father’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your mother’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded.

He: That’s all right, that’s all right.

How come, there are scratches on your cheek, tart,

Tut, tut, how come there are scratches on your cheeks?

She: When I went to buy coconuts in the shop

The weights fell on my cheek husband,

By my troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your father’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your mother’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded.

He: That’s all right, that’s all right.

How come there’s a young man under your cot, tart,

How come there’s a young man under your cot?

She: He is none but our next-door boy

Who came for a bug to cure his cat of its headache, husband,

By my troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your father’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded

By your mother’s troth, I haven’t cuckolded.²

The two ballads must have undergone a sea-change while passing from mouth to mouth. Even Pete Saeger has altered some lines and made the ballad his own. In spite of these changes, the basic structure of the two ballads is quite discernible. Both of them have a common theme (cuckoldry) and a common form (dialogue). The characters are husband and wife and the ingenuity of the woman and the professed innocence of the husband bear a striking resemblance. There is a make-belief structure or frame-work with a blend of hilarity and absurdity. The ethos in both cases is a certain amount of tolerance towards adultery. So the ballads are alike in ethos, form, content and context.

One may argue that these may be quite accidental. But they are not accidental, if we remember that there are many European versions of the same ballad, of course, with many interpolations. F. J. Child, the renowned folklorist, mentions as many as ten versions of this ballad under the title “Our Goodman” in his English Scottish Ballads (Vol. V., p. 88). He says that the variations of this ballad are found in German, Gaelic, Flemish, Scandinavian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, French and Italian languages. In printed form it appeared earliest under the title “The merry cuckold and the kind wife” in Herd’s Ancient and Modern Ballads in 1776. So it must have been current in Europe much earlier. It may be remembered that many of the tales from Panchatantra, Kathasaritsagara and Jataka travelled to Europe in the good old days and many of the European folk tales could be traced to these sources. Could it be that this ballad too travelled to Europe in those days and from there to America with the European immigrants? It has a special significance as it comes from a non-Indo-European source.