Tom o' Bedlam

"Tom O' Bedlam" is the name of a critically acclaimed^[1] anonymous poem written circa 1600 (it can be definitely dated back to 1634^[2]) 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 (see also Abraham-men). 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"^[3] (the same Maud who was mentioned in the verse "With a thought I took for Maudlin / And a cruise 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

The remaining stanzas include:

I went down to Satan's kitchen

To break my fast one morning

And there I got souls piping hot

All on the spit a-turning.

There I took a cauldron

Where boiled ten thousand harlots

Though full of flame I drank the same

To the health of all such varlets.

My staff has murdered giants

My bag a long knife carries

To cut mince pies from children's thighs

For which to feed the fairies.

No gypsy, slut or doxy

Shall win my mad Tom from me

I'll weep all night, with stars I'll fight

The fray shall well become me.
^[4][5]

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.

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

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.^[6] This version is taken from Bloom,^[7]

From the hagg and hungrie goblin

That into raggs would rend ye,

And the spirit that stands by the naked man

In the Book of Moones - 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 of Bedlam,

With stubble soft and dainty,

Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,

With wholesome hunger plenty.

With a thought I took for Maudlin

And a cruse of cockle pottage,

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,

In an oaken inn I pound my skin

As a suit of gilt apparel.

The moon's my constant Mistrisse,

And the lowly owl my morrowe,

The flaming Drake and the Nightcrow make

Me music to my sorrow.

The palsie plagues my pulses

When I prigg your pigs or pullen,

Your culvers take, or matchless make

Your Chanticleers, or sullen.

When I want provant, with Humfrie

I sup, and when benighted,

I repose in Powles with waking souls

Yet never am affrighted.

I know more than Apollo,

For oft, when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin 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.

The Gipsie Snap and Pedro

Are none of Tom's companions.

The punk I skorne and the cut purse sworne

And the roaring boyes bravadoe.

The meek, the white, the gentle,

Me handle touch and spare not

But those that crosse Tom Rynosseros

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.

In modern fiction

• Kenneth Patchen's surrealist novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight is loosely based on and makes frequent reference to the poem.
• Part II of Alfred Bester's novel The Stars My Destination is introduced with a section of the poem.
• Robert Silverberg's science fiction novel Tom O' Bedlam (1985) includes several quotations from the poem.
• John Brunner's 1968 novel Bedlam Planet prefaces each chapter with entire stanzas from the poem, titling the chapter after the subject of the stanza.
• Mercedes Lackey has co-authored a series of books whose titles are taken from verses of the poem.
• A character named Tom O' Bedlam is an important mentor/mystic/revolutionary in Grant Morrison's graphic novel The Invisibles.
• A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer mentions the song often, in quotes and as the party anthem of the Monarchist party in Aravis.
• Dan Abnett's Legion, part of the Horus Heresy series of Warhammer 40,000 novels, uses the first 4 lines of the poem.
• In Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, John Canty says of Edward "Gone stark mad as any Tom o' Bedlam!"^[8]
• Tom O'Bedlam is an important inspiration for the character of Tom Tyson in the Rynosseros cycle of Terry Dowling. Tom Tyson in these stories has emerged from the Madhouse (here, a place where the Aboriginal tribes of the future Australia have confined rebels). Tyson has no memories and the cycle largely concerns his quest to recover these lost memories.
• Parts of Derek Walcott's poem, The Bounty (1997), are addressed to "mad Tom."

References

External links

• Comments by Isaac Disraeli in "Curiosities of Literature"