Tom o' Bedlam

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"Tom O' Bedlam" is the name of a critically acclaimed^[1] anonymous poem written circa 1600 (it can be definitely dated back to 1634[1]) about a Bedlamite.

The term "Tom O' Bedlam" was used in Early Modern Britain and later to describe beggars and vagrants who had or feigned mental illness. They claimed, or were assumed, to have been former inmates at the Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam). It was commonly thought that inmates were released with authority to make their way by begging, though this is probably untrue. If it happened at all the numbers were certainly small, though there were probably large numbers of mentally ill travellers who turned to begging, but had never been near Bedlam. It was adopted as a technique of begging, or a character. For example, Edgar in King Lear disguises himself as mad "Tom O'Bedlam".

It was a popular enough ballad that another poem was written in reply, "Mad Maudlin's Search" or "Mad Maudlin's Search for Her Tom of Bedlam"[2] (the same Maud who was mentioned in the verse "With a thought I took for Maudlin, / And a cruse of cockle pottage, / With a thing thus tall, Sky bless you all, / I befell into this dotage." which apparently records Tom going mad, "dotage") or "Bedlam Boys (from the chorus, "Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys / Bedlam boys are bonny / For they all go bare and they live by the air / And they want no drink or money."), whose first stanza was:

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,

Ten thousand miles I've traveled.

Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,

For to save her shoes from gravel
[3] [4]

It was apparently first published in 1720 by Thomas D'Urfey in his Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. "Maudlin" was a form of Mary Magdalene; Bedlam was all-male, and the corresponding institute for females was the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem.

1 Structure and verses
2 In modern fiction
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Structure and verses

At least 25 stanzas of 4 lines each comprise the complete poem. The existence of a chorus suggests that it was originally sung as a ballad. Both "Tom O' Bedlam" and "Mad Maudlin" are difficult to give a definitive form, because of the number of variant versions and the confusion between the two within the manuscripts. [5] The version given here is taken from Bloom ^[2]; Bloom modernizes the spelling however.

From the hagg and hungrie goblin

That into raggs would rend ye,

And the spirit that stands by the naked man [Hermes, god associated with magic?]

In the Book of Moones [presumably a work of astrology]- defend ye!

That of your five sound senses

You never be forsaken,

Nor wander from your selves with Tom

Abroad to beg your bacon.

(Chorus; sung after every verse)

While I doe sing "any foode, any feeding,

Feedinge, drinke or clothing,"

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I

Twice twenty been enraged,

And of forty been three times fifteen

In durance soundly caged.

On the lordly lofts [this is sarcasm] of Bedlam,

With stubble soft and dainty,

Brave bracelets [handcuffs] strong, sweet whips ding-dong,

With wholesome hunger plenty.

With a thought I took for Maudlin

And a cruse of cockle pottage["weed stew"],

With a thing thus tall, skie blesse you all,

I befell into this dotage.

I slept not since the Conquest,

Till then I never waked,

Till the roguish boy of love where I lay

Me found and stript me naked.

When I short have shorne my sowre face

And swigged my horny barrel, [flask of leather]

In an oaken inn I [im]pound my skin

As a suit of gilt apparel.

The moon's my constant Mistrisse,

And the lowly owl my morrowe,"mate"?[]

The flaming Drake [dragon/wyrm] and the Nightcrow make

Me music to my sorrow.

The palsie plagues my pulses

When I prigg [steal] your pigs or pullen[poultry],

Your culvers [doves] take, or matchless make

Your Chanticleers[rooster from Chaucer], or sullen.

When I want provant,[provender] with Humfrie

I sup, and when benighted,

I repose in Powles [St. Paul's Churchyard] with waking souls

Yet never am affrighted.

I know more than Apollo [Greek god of rationality],

For oft, when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin [the sky arch] weeping,

The moone embrace her shepherd

And the queen of Love her warrior,

While the first doth horne the star of morne,

And the next the heavenly Farrier.[Hephaestus?]

The Gipsie Snap and Pedro

Are none of Tom's companions.

The punk [prostitute] I skorne and the cut purse [pickpocket] sworne

And the roaring boyes [street gangster] bravadoe.

The meek, the white, the gentle,

Me handle touch and spare not

But those that crosse Tom Rynosseros[Rhinoceros]>

Do what the panther dare not.

With a host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghostes and shadowes

I summon'd am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end.

Methinks it is no journey.

[edit] In modern fiction

Kenneth Patchen's surrealist novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight is loosely based on "Tom O'Bedlam" and makes frequent reference to the poem.
Poul Anderson wrote a novel called A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows.
Robert Silverberg has written a book called Tom O' Bedlam (1985).
Mercedes Lackey has co-authored a series of books whose titles are taken from verses of the poem.
The Jolie Holland album Escondida features a song titled "Mad Tom of Bedlam," based on the lyrics of "Tom O'Bedlam".
A character named Tom O'Bedlam is an important mentor/mystic/revolutionary in Grant Morrison's graphic novel The Invisibles. He appears as a mad old homeless man whose madness is really an act that both aides and masks his transcendent knowledge.

[edit] References

^ "Part of the fascination of the Popular Ballads is their anonymity. Not even the best among them is quite of the eminence of the greatest anonymous lyrics in the language, "Tom O'Bedlam", first discovered in a commonplace book of about 1620, four years after the death of Shakespeare." pg 104 of 283 of Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why, 2000 Scribner ISBN 0-684-85906-8 Book design by Erich Hobbing
^ pg 104-107 of How to Read and Why