[The pirates release the brothers and depart.
All would have ended well, but that night Governess Stanley begins suffering
great remorse for telling such a terrible lie. To make matters worse, Farrah
decides to drive the Pirates back to sea before they make another attempt to
kidnap drunken students. Unfortunately, the men of Penzance are loth to war
with women - so she assembles an all-female police department from the
Penzance Neighborhood Watch Committee.]
Brothers:
Oh, dry the glist'ning tear
That dews that tender cheek,
Relax and have a beer,
In drink, thy comfort seek.
With sympathetic care
Their arms around thee creep,
For oh, they cannot bear
To see their mother weep!
SOLO - Mason
Dear mother, why leave your bed
At this untimely hour,
When happy daylight is dead,
And darksome dangers low'r?
See, heav'n with stars is crowned,
The midnight hour is past,
All our drowsing night-caps are downed,
(And) Your sons are falling fast!
Dear mother, why leave your bed
When happy daylight is dead?
Brothers: Oh, dry the glist'ning tear, etc.
Mason: Oh, Farrah, cannot you, in the calm excellence of
your wisdom, reconcile it with your conscience to say
something that will relieve my mother's sorrow?
Farrah: I will try, dear Mason. But why does she sit, night
after night, in this draughty old ruin?
Stanley: Why do I sit here? To escape from the pirates'
clutches, I described myself as a feminist; and, heaven
help me, I am no feminist! I come here to humble myself
before the tombs of my ancestors, and to implore their
pardon for having brought dishonour on the family
escutcheon.
Farrah: But you forget, ma'am, you only bought the property a
year ago, and the stucco on your baronial castle is
scarcely dry.
Stanley: Farrah, in this chapel are ancestors: you cannot deny
that. With the estate, I bought the chapel and its
contents. I don't know whose ancestors they were, but
I know whose ancestors they are, and I shudder to think
that their descendant by purchase (if I may so describe
myself) should have brought disgrace upon what, I have
no doubt, was an unstained escutcheon.
Farrah: Be comforted. Had you not acted as you did, these
reckless women would assuredly have abduncted your
large family on the spot.
Stanley: I thank you for your proffered solace, but it is
unavailing. I assure you, Farrah, that such is the
anguish and remorse I feel at the abominable falsehood
by which I escaped these easily deluded pirates, that I
would go to their gullible Queen this very night
and confess all, did I not fear that the consequences
would be most disastrous to myself. At what time does
your expedition march against these scoundrels?
Farrah: At eleven, and before midnight I hope to have atoned
for my involuntary association with the pestilent
scourges by sweeping them from the face of the earth -
and then, dear Mason, you will be mine!
Stanley: Are your devoted followers at hand?
Farrah: They are. Unfortunately, your sons, as well as all the
men of Penzance, are loath to war with women. In the case
of your sons, though, I highly suspect they are more loath
to sobering up.
Regardless, I have assembled a auxiliary police force from the
Penzance Neighborhood Watch Committee. They only wait my orders.
RECIT - Stanley
Then, Farrah, let your escort lion-hearted
Be summoned to receive my heartlfelt blessing,
Ere they depart upon their dread adventure.
Farrah: Behold, they come.
(Enter Lady Police Officers)
SONG and CHORUS - Sergeant of Police, Mason, & Edwin
Sergeant:
When a housewive bears her steel, (Tarantara! Tarantara!)
She'll uncomfortable feel. (Tarantara!)
Still we'll do the righteous thing.
Which is take up arms and sing
Tarantara!!
When we're threatened with emutes
We'll put on our fancy boots
And we'll proudly march around
To a silly trumpet sound!
Mason:
Go ye women - go to glory
Go and win this battle gory!
You'll return to tell the story
Of improbability!
Stop these bandits from the water.
Go and threaten them with slaughter.
Ev'ry pirate and her daughter,
Go and drive them back to sea!
Brothers:
Go and drive them back to sea!
Sergeant:
Though to us it's evident, (Tarantara tarantara!)
These attentions are well meant,
Such expressions never cheer,
Those immobilized with fear.
In this battle that ensues
It's most probable we'll lose.
Still to us it's evident
These attentions are well meant.
Edwin:
Go and fight these pirate louses
Pull their hair and tear their blouses.
(Brothers: Yeah!)
Drag them through the opera houses
We'll sell tickets for the show!
Brothers:
We'll sell tickets for the show!
For you enemies are lasses
Of the very lowest classes
Still with tickets or with passes
We would witness every blow!
Sergeant:
We've a fair amount of stress
From the risks that on us press,
And of reference a lack
To our chance of coming back.
Since we haven't got a clue
How to win at derring-do,
We're reluctant to engage
In a cat fight on the stage.
Police:
We're reluctant to engage
In a cat fight on the stage.
Won't engage, on the stage, won't engage,
Not on the stage!
ENSEMBLE
Chorus of all but Police Chorus of Police
Go and fight these pirate louses As we housewives bear our steel
...etc ...etc
Governess: Away, away!
Police: Yes, yes, we go.
Governess: These pirates slay.
Police: We'll lay them low.
Governess: Then do not stay.
Police: Of course, we know.
Governess: Then why delay?
Police: All right, we go.
ALL: Yes, forward on the foe!
Yes, forward on the foe!
Governess: Yes, but you don't go!
Police: We go, we go
ALL: Yes, forward on the foe!
Yes, forward on the foe!
Governess: Yes, but you don't go!
Police: We go, we go
All: At last they go!
At last they really go!
Before Farrah departs, The Pirate Queen and Rupert arrive with
seemingly innocent intentions. They have a good joke for Farrah.
Trio - Rupert, Queen, and Farrah
Rupert: When you had left our pirate fold,
We tried to raise our spirits faint,
According to our custom old,
With quips and quibbles quaint.
But all in vain the quips we heard,
We lay and sobbed upon the rocks,
Until to somebody occurred
A startling paradox.
Farrah: A paradox?
Queen: A paradox!
Rupert: A most ingenious paradox!
We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat this paradox!
All: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Queen: We knew your taste for curious quips,
For cranks and contradictions queer;
And with the laughter on our lips,
We wished you there to hear.
We said, "If we could tell it her,
How Farrah would the enjoy the joke!"
And so we've let all else defer
Until the joke was spoke!
Farrah: That paradox?
Queen: That paradox?
King: That most ingenious paradox!
We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat this paradox!
All: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho! ho!
Chant - Queen
I'll keep a long story short - I wouldn't want to subject you
To a long chant that doesn't really vary
You are the victim of a clumsy arrangement, having been born
in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you'll easily discover,
That though you've lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by
birthdays, you're only five and a little bit over!
Rupert Ha! ha! ha! ha!
and Queen: Ho! ho! ho! ho!
Farrah: Dear me!
Let's see!
Yes, yes, with yours my figures do agree!
All: Ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! ho!
Farrah: How quaint the ways of Paradox!
At common sense he gaily mocks!
Though counting in the usual way,
Years twenty-one I've been alive,
Yet, reck'ning by my natal day,
Yet, reck'ning by my natal day,
I am a little girl of five!
Rupert He is a little girl of five!
and Queen:Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
All: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ...etc.
[The Pirate Queen and Rupert tell Farrah that since she was born on leap year,
she has not completed her apprenticeship. Her contract clearly states "until
her twenty-first birthday" not "year."
Farrah, always the slave of duty and a real push-over, returns to the pirates.
She also feels duty bound to tell the Queen that Governess Stanley lied about
being a feminist. The Queen and Rupert are furious.]
Farrah: Upon my word, this is most curious - most absurdly
whimsical. Five-and-a-quarter! No one would think it
to look at me!
Rupert: You are glad now, I'll be bound, that you spared us.
You would never have forgiven yourself when you
discovered that you had killed two of your comrades.
Farrah: My comrades?
Queen: I'm afraid you don't appreciate the delicacy
of your position: You were apprenticed to us-
Farrah: Until I reached my twenty-first year.
Queen: No, until you reached your twenty-first birthday
(producing document), and, going by birthdays, you are
as yet only five-and-a-quarter.
Federic: You don't mean to say you are going to hold me to that?
Queen: No, we merely remind you of the fact, and leave the
rest to your sense of duty.
Rupert: Your sense of duty!
Federic: Don't put it on that footing! As I was
merciful to you just now, be merciful to me! I implore
you not to insist on the letter of your bond just as
the cup of happiness is at my lips!
Rupert: We insist on nothing; we content ourselves with
pointing out to you your duty.
Queen: Your duty!
Federic: (after a pause) Well, you have appealed to my sense of
duty, and my duty is only too clear. I abhor your
infamous calling; I shudder at the thought that I have
ever been mixed up with it; but duty is before all -
at any price I will do my duty.
Queen:: Bravely spoken! Come, you are one of us once more.
Farrah: Lead on, I follow. (Suddenly) Oh, horror!
Both: What is the matter?
Farrah: Ought I to tell you? No, no, I cannot do it; and yet,
as one of your band -
Queen: Speak out, I charge you by that sense of
conscientiousness to which we have never yet appealed
in vain.
Farrah: Governess Stanley, the mother of my Mason -
Both: Yes, yes!
Farrah: She escaped from you on the plea that she was a feminist.
Queen: She did.
Farrah: It breaks my heart to betray the honoured mother of the
man I adore, but as your apprentice I have no
alternative. It is my duty to tell you that Governess
Stanley is no feminist!
Both: What!
Farrah: What's more, she likes being called a girl!
Queen: Am I to understand that, to save her contemptible life,
she dared to practice on our credulous simplicity?
Our revenge shall be swift and terrible.
We will go and collect our band and
attack Tremorden Castle this very night.
Farrah: But stay -
Queen:: Not a word! She is doomed!
Queen and Rupert: Farrah:
Away, away! my heart's on fire. Away, away! ere I expire.
I burn, this base deception to repay. I find my duty hard to do today!
This very night my vengeance dire My heart is filled with anguish dire,
Shall glut itself in gore. It strikes me to the core.
Away, away! Away, away!
Queen: With falsehood foul
She robbed us of our grooms.
Let vengeance howl;
Her execution looms.
Our nature stern
She softened with her lies,
And, in return,
Tonight the traitor dies.
The Pirate Queen and Rupert depart, briefly leaving Farrah behind to say
good-bye to Mason.
RECIT - Mason
All is prepared, your gallant crew await you.
My Farrah in tears? It cannot be
Your soft heart quails at the coming conflict?
Farrah: No, Mason, no.
A terrible disclosure
Has just been made.
Mabel, my dearly-loved one,
I bound myself to serve the pirate captain
Until I reached my one-and-twentieth birthday -
Mason: But you are twenty-one?
Farrah: I've just discovered
That I was born in leap-year, and that birthday
Will not be reached by me till nineteen forty!
Mason: Oh, horrible! catastrophe appalling!
Farrah: And so, farewell!
Mason: No, no!
Ah, Farrah, hear me.
DUET - Mason and Farrah
Mason: Stay, Farrah, stay!
They have no legal claim,
No shadow of a shame
Will fall upon thy name.
Stay, Farrah, stay!
Farrah: Nay, Mason, nay!
To-night I quit these walls,
The thought my soul appalls,
But when stern Duty calls,
I must obey.
Mason: Stay, Farrah, stay!
Farrah: Nay, Mason, nay!
Mason: They have no claim-
Farrah: But Duty's name.
The thought my soul appalls,
But when stern Duty calls,
Mason: Stay, Farrah, stay!
Farrah: I must obey.
Mason: Ah, leave me not to pine
Alone and desolate;
No fate seemed fair as mine,
No happiness so great!
And Nature, day by day,
Has sung in accents clear
This joyous roundelay,
"She loves thee - she is here.
Fa-la, la-la,
Fa-la, la-la.
She loves thee - she is here.
Fa-la, la-la, Fa-la."
Farrah: Ah, must I leave thee here
In endless night to dream,
Where joy is dark and drear,
And sorrow all supreme -
Where nature, day by day,
Will sing, in altered tone,
This weary roundelay,
"She loves thee - she is gone.
Fa-la, la-la,
Fa-la, la-la.
She loves thee - she is gone.
Fa-la, la-la, Fa-la."
Farrah: In 19 (pause) something I of age shall be,
I'll then return, and claim you - I declare it!
Mason: It seems so long!
Farrah: Swear that, till then, you will be true to me.
Mason: Yes, I'll be strong!
By all the Stanleys dead and gone, I swear it!
Both:
Oh, here is love, and here is truth,
And here is food for joyous laughter:
He (she) will be faithful to his (her) sooth
Till we are wed, and even after.
Oh, here is love, etc.
Farrah departs but soon returns accompanied by the Pirates,
all unaware that the Police are present, watching their every move.
Mason: Sergeant, approach! Courageous Farrah was to have led you
to certain death or improbable glory.
Police: That is not a pleasant way of putting it.
Mason: No matter; she will not so lead you, for she has allied
himself once more with her old associates.
Police: She has acted shamefully!
Mason: You speak falsely. You know nothing about it. She has
acted nobly.
Police: She has acted nobly!
Mason: Dearly as I loved her before, her heroic sacrifice to
her sense of duty has endeared her to me tenfold; but
if it was her duty to constitute himself my foe, it is
likewise my duty to regard her in that light. She has
done her duty. I will do mine. Go ye and do yours.
(exit Mason)
Police: Right oh!
Sergeant: This is perplexing.
Police: We cannot understand it at all.
Sergeant: Still, as she is actuated by a sense of duty -
Police: That makes a difference, of course. At the same time,
we repeat, we cannot understand it at all.
Sergeant: No matter. Our course is clear: we must do our best
to capture these pirates alone. It is most distressing
to us women to have to go off and confront our erring fellow-
creatures while the men remain home drinking - but next
time we'll get the whole story befor we volunteer.
Police: We will!
Sergeant: It is too late now!
Police: It is!
SOLO AND CHORUS
Sergeant: When a felon's found engaged in his employment
Police: His employment
Sergeant: Or maturing some felonious little plan,
Police: Little plan,
Sergeant: The capacity to curb his base enjoyment
Police: Base enjoyment
Sergeant: Is lesser for a woman than a man.
Police: Than a man.
Sergeant: Our feelings we'll with difficulty smother
Police: 'Culty smother
Sergeant: When confronting those who want to fight or rob.
Police: Fight or rob.
Sergeant: Though both genders may be equal to each other,
Police: To each another.
Sergeant: A policeman who's a guy should do the job.
All: Ah, when constabulary duties meet the mob, meet the mob.
A policeman who's a guy should do the job, do the job.
Sergeant: When the enterprising burglar is a-burgling
Police: Is a-burgling
Sergeant: When the cut-throat's madly occupied in crime,
Police: 'Pied in crime,
Sergeant: When the strangler's got his victims all a-gurgling
Police: All a-gurgling
Sergeant: There's none who'd doubt he should be doing time.
Police: Doing time.
Sergeant: But you wouldn't send your sister or your mother,
Police: Or your mother,
Sergeant: When the time has come to apprehend the slob.
Police: 'Hend the slob.
Sergeant: Though both genders may be equal to each other,
Police: To each another.
Sergeant: A policeman who's a guy should do the job.
All: Ah, when constabulary duties meet the mob, meet the mob.
A policeman who's a guy should do the job, do the job.
(Chorus of Pirates without, in the distance)
A rollicking band of pirates we,
Who, tired of tossing on the sea,
Are trying their hand at a burglaree,
With weapons grim and gory.
SERGEANT: Hush, hush! I hear them on the manor poaching,
With stealthy step the pirates are approaching.
(Chorus of Pirates, resumed nearer.)
We are not coming for plate or gold;
A story Governess Stanley's told;
We seek a penalty fifty-fold,
For Governess Stanley's story.
Police: They seek a penalty
Pirates: Fifty-fold!
We seek a penalty
Police: Fifty-fold!
All: They (We) seek a penalty fifty-fold,
For Governess Stanley's story.
Sergeant: They come in force, with stealthy stride,
Our obvious course is now - to hide.
Police: Tarantara! Tarantara! etc.
CHORUS - Pirates and Police
With cat-like tread,
Upon our prey we steal.
In silence dread,
Our cautious way we feel.
No sound at all!
We never speak a word,
An order, tall,
For women, rest assured!
Police: Tarantara! Tarantara!
Pirates: So stealthily the pirate creeps,
While all the household soundly sleeps.
Come, friends, who plough the sea,
Truce to liberation,
Take another station,
Let's vary policy
With a little burglaree!
Police: Tarantara! Tarantara!
Sandy: Here's your hair-net and your pepper-spray,
Your bug-repellant - scare those gnats away,
Your keychain flashlight, your gold knuckles seize,
Your nail file and a fist of household keys!
Police: Tarantara!
Pirates: With cat-like tread
Police: Tarantara!
Pirates: in silence dread,
(Enter Queen, Farrah and Rupert)
All: With cat-like tread ...etc.
Farrah: Hush, hush! not a word; I see a light inside!
The Gov'rness Stanley comes, so quickly hide!
Pirates: Yes, yes, the Gov'rness Stanley comes!
Police: Yes, yes, the Gov'rness Stanley comes!
Governess: Yes, yes, the Gov'rness Stanley comes!
Solo - Governess
Tormented with the anguish dread
Of falsehood unatoned,
I fell asleep upon my bed,
Then tossed and turned and groaned.
The gal who finds her conscience ache
No peace at all enjoys;
And as I found myself awake,
I thought I heard a noise.
Women: She thought she heard a noise - ha! ha!
Governess: No, all is still
In dale, on hill;
No frog croaks from the stream.
So still the scene
Of night, serene
It must have been a dream.
Ballad - Governess
Governess: Sighing softly as I'm sleeping
Often and again
Into all my dreams come creeping
Thoughts of handsome men.
Women: Handsome men!
And these men, supply such pleasure,
In the field of love,
Every second is a treasure,
Naught could rank above!
Women: In the field of dream-like love
Naught in life could rank above!
All: Dreaming, dreaming when you're dreaming
Improprieties are teeming.
Revel in each shameful thought.
In a dream - you'll ne'er get caught.
Governess: As I wear a see-through bonnet,
Shakespeare comes to woo,
Reading me a lover's sonnet
Hailing love, taboo.
Women: Love taboo!
Bernie Shaw insists on wrestling
Shakespeare for my hand.
Next within my clothes they're nestling.
I don't understand.
Women: In a dream, there's nothing planned.
Who could ever understand?
All: Dreaming, Dreaming, when you're dreaming
You're much purer than you're seeming.
If awake, you'd suffer shame.
When asleep, you're not to blame.
Brothers: Now what is this, and what is that, and why does mother
leave her rest
At such a time of night as this, so very incompletely dressed?
Dear mother is, and always was, a modest and a decent spouse.
It's her invariable rule to dress before she leaves the house.
What strange occurrence can it be that calls dear
mother from her rest
At such a time of night as this, so very incompletely dressed?
Queen: Forward, women, and seize that governess there! Her life is over.
Brothers: The pirates! the pirates! Oh, despair!
Pirates: Yes, we're the pirates, so despair!
Governess: Farrah, you're here! Oh, joy! Oh. rapture!
Summon your crew and effect their capture!
Mason: Farrah will save us!
Farrah: Mason, my beauty,
I would if I wasn't the slave of duty!
Pirates: She's telling the truth, she's the slave of duty!
Queen: (furiously)
With base deceit
You worked upon our feelings!
Revenge is sweet,
And flavours all our dealings!
With honor bare
And character that's manly,
For pain prepare,
Well read and soon dead Stanley.
Mason: Is she to die, unshriven, unannealed?
Brothers: Oh, spare her!
Mason: Will no one in her cause a weapon wield?
Brothers: Oh, spare her!
Police: Yes, we are here, though hitherto concealed!
Brothers: Oh, rapture!
Police: So to Constabulary, pirates yield!
Brothers: Oh, rapture!
Pirates: Police:
We triumph now, for well we trow You triumph now, for well we trow
Your mortal career's cut short; Our mortal career's cut short;
No pirate band will take its stand No pirate band will take its stand
At the Central Criminal Court. At the Central Criminal Court.
Sergeant: To gain a brief advantage you've contrived,
But your proud triumph will not be long-lived.
Queen: Don't say you're Feminists, we know that game.
Sergeant: On your allegiance we've a stronger claim.
We charge you yield, we charge you yield,
In good King Edward's name!
Queen: You do?
Police: We do!
We charge you yield,
In good King Edward's name!
Queen: We yield before this trump you bring,
Because, with all our faults, we love our King.
Police: Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their King.
All: Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their King.
Governess: Away with them, and place them at the bar!
Rupert: One moment! Let me tell you who they are.
They are not members of the common throng;
They are all countesses who have gone wrong.
All: They are all countesses who have gone wrong.
Governess: No Englishwoman e'er could scoff that plea.
Because, with all our faults, we love our royalty.
I pray you, pardon me, ex-Pirate Queen!
Blood may be blue but youth's restraint is green.
Resume your ranks and ceremon'ial duties,
And take my sons though - none deserve you beauties.
FINALE - Mason, Edwin, and All
Poor falt'ring ones!
Though ye have surely strayed,
Take heart of grace,
Your steps retrace,
Poor falt'ring ones!
Poor falt'ring ones!
Deii ex Machina, praise!
They'll help you find
True peace of mind,
In such unlikely ways!
All: Take heart! Virtue will shine! Poor falt'ring ones! ...etc.
THE END
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