Fate’s Discourtesy (Edward Elgar)

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• (Posted 2023-10-12)  CPDL #76286:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-10-12).   Score information: Letter, 16 pages, 697 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Fate’s Discourtesy
Composer: Edward Elgar
Lyricist: Rudyard Kipling
Number of voices: (missing)   Voicing: Unknown
Genre: Unknown, Unknown

Language: English
Instruments: Unknown

First published: 1918 Enoch & Sons
Description: The Fringes of the Fleet, No. 2

In 1915, The Daily Telegraph commissioned Rudyard Kipling to write articles on aspects of the defense of the nation on the sea. They were subsequently published in a booklet titled “The Fringes of the Fleet”. Each section was prefaced by a short poem. In 1916 Lord Charles Beresford asked Elgar to set of some of the verses as songs. Elgar chose to set four of them as a song-cycle, originally for four men’s voices. They were quite popular and Elgar re-wrote them for mixed voices.

Original text and translations

Unknown language

Be well assured that on our side
Our challenged oceans fight,
Though headlong wind and heaping tide
Make us their sport to-night.
By force of weather, not of war,
In jeopardy we steer.
Then welcome Fate’s discourtesy
Whereby it shall appear
How in all time of our distress,
As in our triumph too,
The game is more than the player of the game,
And the ship is more than the crew!

Out of the mist into the mirk
The glimmering combers roll.
Almost these mindless waters work
As though they had a soul --
Almost as though they leagued to whelm
Our flag beneath their green:
Then welcome Fate’s discourtesy
Whereby it shall be seen, etc.

Be well assured, though wave and wind
Have mightier blows in store,
That we who keep the watch assigned
Must stand to it the more;
And as our streaming bows rebuke
Each billow’s baulked career,
Sing, welcome Fate’s discourtesy
Whereby it shall appear
How in all time of our distress,
As in our triumph too,
The game is more than the player of the game,
And the ship is more than the crew!

No matter though our decks be swept
And mast and timber crack --
We can make good all loss except
The loss of turning back.
So, ’twixt these Devils and our deep
Let courteous trumpets sound,
To welcome Fate’s discourtesy
Whereby it shall appear
How in all time of our distress,
As in our triumph too,
The game is more than the player of the game,
And the ship is more than the crew!

Be well assured, though in our power
Is nothing left to give
But chance and place to meet the hour,
And leave to strive to live.
Till these dissolve our Order holds,
Our Service binds us here.
Then welcome Fate’s discourtesy
Whereby it is made clear
How in all time of our distress,
As in our triumph too,
The game is more than the player of the game
And the ship is more than the crew!

Verses of Kipling’s poem in italic omitted by Elgar.