anche le ballate raccontano storie – Geordie

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In the Middle Ages the most popular form of poetry was the ballad. Minstrels told their stories using rhymes and repetitions: musicality made easier and more memorable their tales.

Ballads were originally meant for singing and dancing and were rediscovered and translated into English in the 19th century, when the interest in the past was revived.

Geordie is surely one of the most popular which survives in our age thanks to song and adaptations made by singers like the Italian Fabrizio de André (1964) and the American Joan Baez (1967).

It is the story of a  pretty girl who goes to London on her white pony  to ask pardon for her lover.  Her man, Geordie, is accused of  stealing sixteen deer from the king’s forest – a story similar to Robin Hood’s.  In that period, the Normansestablished the forest laws that punished with death who poached in the royal woods.

Unfortunately she is too late, Geordie is  condemned and she is desperate: the hangman will hang  Geordie from a golden chain because is of royal blood.

There are many different versions of Geordie’s ballad and it still circulates in Great Britain for  the implicit criticism towards the privileges of ruling classes.

NOTES

rhyme= rima 

meant: designed, intended

revived: revitalized

stealing: robbing (to steal=rubare)

deer = cervi (sing: deer; plur. deer)

established: created (stabilire)

poached: robbed ( fare bracconaggio)

hangman: the man who execute death sentences (boia)

hang = impiccare

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