Annotation:Siege of Troy (The)

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X:1 T:Siege of Troy, The M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Air B:Crosby - Crosby's Irish Musical Repository (1810, pp. 95-96) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G (B/c/)|ddd cAF|GGG G2A/B/|cAB cAG|FDE D2B/c/| dBc dBc|def ggd/e/|=fdB cAF|GGG GG(B/c/)|| dBB cAF|G2G G2(A/B/)|cAB cAG|FDE F2 (B/c/)| dBc dBc|def g2 d/e/|=fdB cAF|G2G G2||

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SIEGE OF TROY, THE (Seagad na Traige). AKA - "The Fall of Troy." Irish, Slow Air (6/8 time). G Major/Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The melody is the vehicle for the song "Siege of Troy," written and composed around 1788 by English stage songsmith Charles Dibdin (1745-1814). It was printed in Crosby's Irish Musical Repository: A Choice Selection of Esteemed Irish Songs (1810, pp. 95-96):

I sing of a war set on foot for a toy,
And of Paris, and Helen, and Hector and Troy;
Where on women, kings, gen'rals, and cobblers, you stumble,
And of mortals and gods meet a very strange jumble.
Sing diderot, burbero, oh my joy,
How sweetly did one another destroy!
Come fill up your bumpers, the whisky enjoy,
May we ne'er see the like of the siege of Troy.

"The Siege of Troy," printed was also printed in The Edinburgh Miscellany' (1792, pp. 253-254). The melody was reworked by Francis O'Neill's collaborator, Sgt. James O'Neill, a musically literate fiddler originally from County Down, and was included in Music of Ireland (1903).