#a begging I will go

[theoutcastrogue]

Tom of Bedlam

[by Daniel P. Mason, M.D. | American Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 171, Number 12, December 2014]

Illustration of a 17th-century broadside, featuring a malingering beggar, set “to the tune of Tom of Bedlam” (from Euing Ballad number 55)

In Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, the King—betrayed by his daughters, bereft of his kingdom—sets off across the heath in a fit of rage. In a forlorn hovel, he encounters a curious character. Half-naked, his face “grimed with filth,” the man introduces himself as

Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished, and imprisoned….

Lear cannot know that Tom, with his wild appetites, hallucinations, and tales of persecution is, in fact, Edgar, son of the Earl of Gloucester. Falsely accused of plotting against his father, Edgar has also fled to the heath, disguised as a “Bedlam beggar.” The conversation that ensues between the two madmen—one feigned, one real— is one of the most dizzying and psychiatrically rich in a play famously brimming with madness in its many forms.

Who then was this “Tom of Bedlam,” featured so prominently on the title page of the first quarto edition of the play? To begin, while Shakespeare may have been Tom’s most famous champion, Tom was not the Bard’s invention. Less a man, than many, Tom was a familiar folkloric “type” well known to 17th-century audiences: a “lunatick” vagabond who claimed to have been released from the notorious London asylum of St. Mary of Bethlehem (Bedlam).

“Claimed,” here, is key. For the earliest references to the figure of Tom are not as madmen but as malingering beggars. In other words, Edgar, rather than just playing a madman, was playing a man playing a madman. First appearing in the printer John Awdeley’s 1561 Fraternitye of Vacabondes, a compendium of Elizabethan beggar types, “poor Tom” was described as one who “walketh bare armed, and bare legged, and faineth him selfe mad”. Later “rogue encyclopedias” listed him among such deceptive vagabonds as “whipjackes” (fake shipwrecked sailors) and “priggers of prauncers” (horse thieves). By the 17th century Tom was familiar enough as to be recognizable by his “long staff, and a cow or ox-horn by his side; his cloathing fantastic and ridiculous... decked and dressed all over with robins [ribbons], feathers, cuttings of cloth”.

No one knows how many flesh-and-blood Toms were wandering the countryside by the time Shakespeare cast him as Edgar’s disguise. But few could have come from the institution itself: Saint Mary of Bethlehem in those decades housed fewer than 30 patients at a time. And yet so many beggars claimed to have been released from Bedlam that in 1675 the overseers of the hospital placed an advertisement in the London Gazette disclaiming the hoaxes.

With the end of the Civil Wars, Tom of Bedlam was said to have disappeared from English highways. By then, however, he had been immortalized, not only by Shakespeare, but in a proliferation of popular songs. There was “Loving Mad Tom” and “The Vagabond” and “To find my Tom of Bedlam.” Some became so famous that other songs could be published with the simple direction “to be sung to the tune of Tom of Bedlam”.

Of all the Mad Tom songs, one in particular stands out: “From the Hagg and Hungry Goblin,” an anonymous piece transcribed around 1615, now surviving in a single manuscript in the British Museum. In it we find Tom, recently released from Bedlam (or claiming so), begging for alms as he travels alone:

With a host of furious fancies Whereof I am commander, With a burning spear and a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander.

The song, quoted by Poe, Kipling, and Scott, was praised by the critic Harold Bloom for a “visionary perspective only rarely achieved in poetic history”. The poet Sir Robert Graves even suggested it was written by Shakespeare himself.

Or perhaps Tom never really vanished, but instead lives in those who have inherited his itinerancy. For, with this remarkable character, Shakespeare also created a mirror for today’s troubled wanderers, pursued by their own “foul fiends.” In them we find Tom’s many-layered complexity: at times seeking pity, at times refusing it, at times threatening, at times forlorn, at times arresting with their colorful clothes and speech. At times mad, at times playing madder: “knights,” as one Mad Tom put it, “of ghosts and shadows.”

[source]

[theoutcastrogue]

The moon's my constant mistress, And the lowly owl my marrow; The flaming drake and the night crow make Me music to my sorrow.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding, Feeding, drink, or clothing; Come dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing.

(Tom o' Bedlam, 17th century)

'Tom' Bedlam ' illustration by Norman Lindsay, c. 1918.

[blackwoolncrown]

I get it, I really do, but I feel like ppl w decision paralysis related to Gazans are also suffering from a kind of non-malignant egotism

"who do I decide to give it to? everyone needs help! I can't help them all!"

You're not the only person they're asking!!!!!

If you choose one person to help that day, a bunch of other ppl choose others

stopping to overthink your inflated importance as an individual versus one in many is what's giving you paralysis

the more you burden yourself as an incapable hero the less you all act as a group-- which is the exact answer you're looking for

fkn close your eyes, scroll on OOB and donate to whoever you click on first

you're not god, it's not your job to save everyone

JUST DO SOMETHING

[lostpimplepatch]

I was rewatching Young Justice and the fact that all versions of Robin are the only one forced to keep their secret identity even with their teammates and friends is usually written off as Batman being paranoid. I think it's more than that, that it's his way of giving the kids an 'out'. If they ever decide they don't want to fight crime anyone they have a safe identity to return to, no obligations.

They are children first, soldiers second. Bruce knows better than anyone the loneliness his job brings and of course he would want better for anyone, especially his kids.

[meziniart]

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves

[chikinan]

I'm sentimental about them. & about camcorders. [twt + insta + ptrn on bio]

[yallstar]

"...I'm not done telling you all the things that I wanted to say; there's still so much. It's been so long since anyone listened to me talk. Won't you stay?"

Heaven Official's Blessing, Vol 8

[wtchgrrl]

“tma/tme” “amab genitals” “afab experience” “transintersex” “intersex people are fascinating” “are you amab or afab” “forced surgery/hrt isn’t a thing that has ever happened” “futanari” “you can’t be cis and trans” “biologically nonbinary” “i wish i was a hermaphrodite” “DSD” “cis people with disordered sexual development” “im on t so im intersex now”

[lotus-pear]

top 10 moments before disaster (dazai is about to step on his toes)

[soyochii]

Grown adults but also Highschool bullies fr

[sex-tech]

Reunion

[theoutcastrogue]

Shannon - Bedlam Boys

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

  Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys   Bedlam boys are bonnie   For they all go bare and they live by the air   And they want no drink nor money

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.

Me staff has murdered giants And me bag a long knife carries For to cut mince pies from children’s thighs With 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

So drink to Tom of Bedlam Go fill the seas in barrels I’ll drink it all, well brewed with gall And maudlin drunk I’ll quarrel

The spirits white as lightening Would on me travels guide me The stars would shake and the moon would quake Whenever they espied me

The moon’s my constant mistress, And the lowly owl my marrow; The flaming drake and the night crow make Me music to my sorrow.

Original tune by The Halliard, first recorded by Steeleye Span as “Boys of Bedlam”, 1971. The lyrics are from “Mad Maudlin’s Search”, the reply to Tom o’ Bedlam, early 17th century. Other versions: Hickey and Sparks, Heidi Talbot, Heather Alexander, The Bedlam Boys, John Roberts and Tony Barrand.

[seldompathic]

Scruffing of the tiny genius- A national holiday

[loganspr1ncess]

[eti-mun]

Please read thanks

[egophiliac]

do skully have pokemon?

Pumpkaboo is the obvious one, but y'know, sometimes the obvious one is the right one! (we'll say SUPER SIZE Pumpkaboo, just for fun. big pumpkin for big skeleton boy.) and another person actually also suggested Greavard, which I somehow hadn't considered, but feels so perfect that I feel like I should have. dangit.

(they can also have little Nightmare Suit costumes :D)