Talk:God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen

Improving the Article

No one who has attempted to read ten lines of John Skelton or William Caxton could imagine that "The lyrics are reputed to date back to the 15th century, and are written in Early Modern English". Some notes for an improved article are to be found at this page. --Wetman 02:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC).

I'd like to see some proof of the contention that "merry" should be construed as "strong" in the sense of "mighty." I can't find any evidence of it in my Concise Oxford. Unless proof is forthcoming, I'm inclined to suggest that the statements questioned by Wetman and myself should be excised. pmr 19:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I have today deleted the above-mentioned material, having waited 10 months for proof of its veracity and having found none myself. I have also deleted the following weak, unattributed and unsupported assertion: "It is believed that the song was sung to the gentry by town watchmen who earned additional money during the Christmas season."pmr 10:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

That may be nice, but in the missalette, there are changes in the final verse, replacing "brotherhood" with "charity", and "This holytide of Christmas / All others doth deface" is changed to "This holytide of Chistmas / Is filled with heavenly grace". It seems there's something missing here. --Angeldeb82 16:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree about "Wetman"'s comment. This has no strong claim to being one of the earliest Christmas carols, so I have removed some words from the first sentence. Sorry I forgot to sign in. Ogg 19:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

With regard to the note on the archaic meaning of deface, purely for illustrative purposes does anyone think it may be worth mentioning that the archaic meaning of "deface" is preserved in heraldry? In heraldry, a description like "field ver defaced with a lion azure" means that the blue lion is in the fore of the green field. Would just briefly mentioning the heraldic meaning of "deface" be useful information in the point about "deface"? 150.203.110.172 (talk) 14:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding proof that merry at one time meant strong or mighty: from Online Etymology Dictionary https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=merry Merrie England (now frequently satirical or ironic) is c. 1400, meri ingland, originally in a broader sense of "bountiful, prosperous." from author Ace Collins in his book, "Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas," http://deeprootsmag.org/2014/12/02/pt-god-rest-ye-merry-gentlemen-lost-punctuation-mark/ When “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was written, merry had a very different meaning. Robin Hood’s “Merry Men” might have been happy, but the merry that described them meant great and mighty. Thus, in the Middle Ages, a strong army was a merry army, a great singer was a merry singer, and a mighty ruler was a merry ruler. PatrickJamesG (talk) 06:28, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

"Ye" vs. "You"

Any comment about how Catholic missalettes are replacing the "Ye" with "You"?Delmlsfan 03:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It has to be You which is accusative, ye is nominative and because of the comma before Gentlemen it has to be you. replacing you/ye with him/he it would be:

God rest he merry, Gentlemen. vs God rest him merry, gentlemen.

Here him is the right choice and so is you.

In the punctuation: God rest ye, merry gentlemen Ye would be correct, but this would change the meanging of the sentence. --87.185.184.97 (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" is, in fact, how I've always assumed the title is punctuated. Yes, putting the comma after merry would, of course, change the meaning of the "sentence", but it would do that no matter the case of the pronoun. TheScotch (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I had an early music teacher who was adamant that the title should be "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Apparently, the "merry" is meant to describe the actions of God, something like "May God give you good rest." In that particular form of older English expression, using "Ye" would still be correct.150.203.110.172 (talk) 14:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

According to both the American Heritage Dictionary, first edition and the latest edition of the Unabridged Random House Dictionary, ye can function either as a subject pronoun or as an object pronoun. TheScotch (talk) 07:53, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Let's suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that ye could be used only as an subject pronoun. Would that demonstrate that the correct title substitutes you? What about Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me, Babe? That's undoubtedly ungrammatical, yet it's also undoubtedly the correct title. How can we say that? Well, we know the author, and the author called his song It Ain't Me, Babe. In the case of God Rest, we don't know the author. God Rest is functionally a folk song, and folk songs often exist in variant forms with variant titles. The best argument for ye here is that the song is more commonly known with the ye than without it and has been for a considerable time. (That fact that oldest known source gives you may suggest but doesn't prove that the original title had you--we simply don't know the origin of the song.) TheScotch (talk) 01:16, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Not that I am putting Snopes as an ultra-authoritive source, but it does go to lengths to say that the original printing of the lyrics in the "three new carols" used you, rather than ye. From https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/god-rest-ye-merry-gentlemen/

The earliest known source documenting the existence of a carol called “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” is a broadsheet published in London around 1760 that included the song as part of a collection of “Three new Christmas carols” (emphasis ours), which suggests the song originated much closer to the mid-18th century than the 15th century. That publication also used the word “you” throughout the lyrics and title rather than the now-archaic “ye,” which may indicate that the latter form was not part of the original and was inserted later to instill the carol with an older, more formal sound.

Lawrie (talk) 03:57, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I read that ye were still used in dialectal Irish English, in both case senses. (As distinctive plural) But original, ye is the nominative. --Universal-Interessierter^de (talk (de)) 03:29, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Cover version

God Rest Ye, Deadly Gentlemen from Rise of the Triad. j.engelh 11:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Umm...a "cover version" of an anonymous Christmas carol? This is, I suppose, a reductio ad absurdum for the widespread misuse (abuse) of the term cover.

A cover is really a recording released immediately after a first recording intended to compete with on the charts (or "cover") that first recording while bypassing having to pay an initial one-time payment for the song. For this to work, the cover has to be released very shortly after the first recording and well before that recording has completed its sales trajectory (after the first recording has begun to descend the charts is too late). A cover certainly and absolutely is not any recording or performance of any piece not written by the performer. (In fact, in the classic and clearest case the song will not have been written by the performers on the first recording, on the recording being covered.)

An initial one-time payment is usually negotiated between a professional pop songwriter and those responsible for the first recording--the singer or his representative or the record company--because a professional pop songwriter couldn't possibly subsist on royalty rates set by federal law. But once a song has been commercially recorded or published, it is legal for anyone to record it as long as he pays this nominal royalty at this nominal rate.

After a pop song has had its initial run on the charts, it's impossible for it to be covered (ever). It's also impossible for anything in the public domain to be covered. TheScotch (talk) 23:50, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

[quote]A cover is really a recording released immediately after a first recording intended to compete with on the charts (or "cover") that first recording while bypassing having to pay an initial one-time payment for the song.[/quote] Are you implying that a song has to chart before it is copyrighted? It is and has been common practice in the modern era to copyright songs before they are released. According to your definition, unless I am missing something, there really is no such thing as a "cover". This runs counter to the generally accepted definition of a cover - as in a "cover band" performing "covers" of popular songs - usually in bars - and never on the charts - as that would invite legal action. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.21.127 (talk) 03:43, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Re: "Are you implying that a song has to of chart before it is copyrighted?" Of course not. I'm saying once a song has been commercially recorded or published anyone can legally perform or record it so long as they pay the extremely small royalty rate stipulated by law.

Re: "According to your definition, unless I am missing something, there really is no such thing as a 'cover'." You are "missing something". A cover is an early (but necessarily not the earliest) recording of a song for which no upfront money has been paid designed to compete commercially with the first recording (for which upfront money has been paid)--to cover, make invisible, that original recording. Covers were actually once quite common. Chubby Checker's hit recording of the Hank Ballard's "The Twist", for example, was a cover of Hank Ballard's own recording released shortly before.

Re: "This runs counter to the generally accepted definition of a cover - as in a 'cover' band performing 'covers' of popular songs - usually in bars - and never on the charts - as that would invite legal action." Neither would "invite legal action". The bar presumably pays yearly dues to ASCAP and BMI which allow all performers at the bar to play any pieces previously published by all ASCAP and BMI composers and lyricists. The act can also record any previously published or recorded piece so long as the record company pays the composers and lyricists in question royalties.

The widespread misuse of the term cover is accounted for by the circumstance that the term properly refers to something slightly subtle and a certain sort of person is generally oblivious to anything slightly subtle. It's rather, in this respect, like the phrase begging the question. Begging the question properly refers to a particular logical fallacy also called petitio princippi, assuming in your argument the very thing you're trying to prove. It's widely misunderstood, however, to mean provoking a question because a certain sort of person has difficulty grasping logical fallacies. TheScotch (talk) 03:28, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

"Rest"

Surely when it says "God rest ye merry gentlemen", it isn't saying "Quiet down, all you people who are having a merry party", but "I hope you continue to be merry after Christmas". Not "God rest ye, merry gentlemen" but "God rest ye merry, gentlemen." -- God KEEP you merry? Andrew Rilstone (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "rest" here could mean "keep" - I was going to comment on this. The explanation on the page suggests the phrase means: "May God rest you merrily" -- as in (I assume): "I wish for God to give you a merry rest" -- but that doesn't seem quite right. In my Chambers dictionary it says "rest" can mean "remain" -- I would translate this into modern English therefore as "May God keep you cheerful, Gentlemen" -- which makes sense, as the next words go on to say why they should be cheerful - because of the "good news" of Jesus'birth etc. Orlando098 (talk) 09:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Regarding reference needed for a centuries-old definition of the word rest: From Online Etymology Dictionary: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=rest rest (v.2) "to be left, remain," mid-15c., from Old French rester "to remain," from Latin restare "stand back, be left," from re- "back" (see re-) + stare "to stand," from PIE root *sta- "to stand, make or be firm." Partially confused and merged with the other verb rest. Sense of "to continue to be" is in rest assured. Transitive sense of "to keep, cause to continue to remain" was common in 16c.-17c., "used with a predicate adjective following and qualifying the object" [Century Dictionary]. Hence the phrase rest you merry (1540s), earlier rest þe murie (mid-13c.), as a greeting, "rest well, be happy," from the old adverbial use of merry. The Christmas carol lyric God rest ye merry, gentlemen, often is mis-punctuated. PatrickJamesG (talk) 06:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Lyrics

A recent set of edits to the "Lyrics" section seems to combine some incorrect emendations with some variants which I don't ever recall having come across before. So I'm reverting that set of edits.

But it does highlight a more general problem. For an encyclopaedic article, which ought to use citable sources for acceptable scholarly research, the current "Lyrics" section seems haphazard, and the more so when one considers that this particular carol has existed in many different forms.

We should consider agreeing on one version, and then having alongside, but separate, an index of known variants, each one of which which should be cited. See the current What Child Is This? article for an example.

Given that this is an English carol (see the various researches at various websites), I propose using the "Carols for Choirs" variant as the basis, as this is what has underpinned Christmas services across the UK for the last few decades.

Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that those recently reverted edits are now being re-entered, still without attribution. I still propose the idea above, but with a different detail.

Earlier versions of the carol seem to have more verses (do a web search), and later versions (e.g. New English Hymnal, Hymns and Psalms, Carols for Choirs) have fewer. The Wikipedia version should probably carry as many verses as reasonably possible, and then indicate which ones are omitted in which books. The reasonably current version [1] has seven verses, but my earlier proposal (for Carols for Choirs) would have reduced that to five. So I instead propose to use the UK "Anglican Hymn Book" as the basic version, which (I have just discovered) has the same seven verses as the current Wikipedia version.

Assuming no indications to the contrary, I shall try to get this done soon.

Feline Hymnic (talk) 22:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

In someone's copious free time, might the table of versions be set up so that parallel verses are on the same row? ABS (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

It's been about three weeks since my proposal; no objections. So I have prepared the above change and intend to apply it shortly. Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

"Notable Cover Versions"

What are the criteria (if any!) for "notable" here? There are 27 entries in the 21st century section alone! That to my eyes looks suspiciously like a "Cover Versions I Like" section. Unless we're going to list every cover version ever made then some sort of control needs to be applied. Loganberry (Talk) 22:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I miss the version by Giorgio Tozzi, which definitely is "notable". I did not add it because I don't know (and could not google) the release date. Tozzi recorded an LP full of christmas songs as a donation to salvation army, says http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsp08-KidQ. Cheers, Flo 82.135.6.221 (talk) 03:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Since the song could not possibly be covered--for the reasons I've stipulated above--there should be no section with this or a similar label in this article. Neither is it necessary to list any recording of the piece anywhere else in the article.TheScotch (talk) 23:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

11 1/2 years later, shall we substitute "Recordings" in place of "Cover versions"? Cover versions exist when there's an original recording that established the nature of a song to the public, not when there's a hundreds-of-years-old traditional tune. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek:, I have renamed the section to "Versions by popular music artists", and severely trimmed the details of these versions. The chart positions of these versions do not belong here. Verbcatcher (talk) 04:18, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Excellent! I like this version of the section much better. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:42, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Poor edit

This, in the first paragraph, is not a complete sentence : "In Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas." Presumably the author knew what was meant? An edit is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.118.100 (talk) 09:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Grammaticality of "ye"

The article currently says: "Moreover, 'ye' would be grammatically incorrect, as it is a nominative case form."

That's not true, though; "ye" hasn't been exclusively nominative since the 1400s. Here's what the OED says:

"In the earliest periods of English ye was restricted to the nominative plural. In the 13th cent. it came to be used as a nominative singular [...] When you had usurped the place of ye as a nominative, ye came to be used (in the 15th cent.), vice versa, as an objective singular and plural (= 'thee' and 'you')."

Fortunately, that sentence isn't really relevant to the article anyway, so I've deleted it.

Later in the article, there's a similar claim in a footnote: "The form is 'you', object of 'rest' and not 'ye' which is the archaic subject pronoun. 'Ye' was not used in the earliest instances of the carol." This note is also unnecessary -- the article already explains that the original form was "you", and it shows two examples from the 1700s (both of which use "you"). Since the footnote is unnecessary and misleading, I've removed it too.  --mconst (talk) 07:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

According to The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, ed. David Crystal (CUP: 1995), p. 71, first "the distinction between subject and object uses of ye and you...disappeared", then "you became the norm in all grammatical functions and social situations. Ye continued in use, but by the end of the 16th century it was restricted to archaic, religious, or literary contexts." According to both the first edition of the American Heritage English Dictionary and second edition of the Random House Unabridged English Dictionary, ye can be both a subject and an object. (Its usage continues to be "archaic & poetic".) This Wikipedia article currently includes the clause " 'ye' was the nominative form, and thus was nonstandard as the object of a verb". The truth of this assertion would seem to depend on the time period to which the was refers, and the article doesn't specify that. It would have to be centuries before the earliest known reference to the song. Thus the clause appears essentially nonsensical, and I'm deleting it. TheScotch (talk) 09:26, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

It was reinstated at some point. Was that a mistake? Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Parsing the second verse

The second verse is quoted as saying "...The which His Mother Mary/Did nothing take in scorn". How would one paraphrase this line in standard English prose? I can't parse it. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:24, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

"The which" refers to Jesus being "laid within a manger," (two lines earlier) which is an animal feeding trough. Some people might say, "Ew, yuck," at using a manger as their baby's first crib. However, Mary did not "take in scorn" the use of the manger. She didn't despise it, she wasn't embarrassed by it. Her attitude instead was, "We're here, a manger is the only thing available, and the baby fits. I'm grateful to have it." In modern English, we would say something like, "His Mother Mary did not resent their need to use a manger as a crib." PatrickJamesG (talk) 06:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain ^t/c 22:01, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

---

---

God rest you merry, gentlemen → God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen – Fix capitalization -- edited redir of that name already exists. NapoliRoma (talk) 05:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Why is there a comma in the middle of the title? As I see it there is a comma in the first line, but not in the title, and it is ye, not you.[2] Apteva (talk) 19:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  • This is the title as given in Carols for Choirs (see its Table of Contents).

Note that they render the title in sentence case ("God rest you merry, gentlemen"), but that's a place where OUP and Wikipedia style differ.--NapoliRoma (talk) 05:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

That particular book renders most of the carols in sentence case, such as Adeste fideles. It would be worth it to check other books to see how they list it. As I see it most use caps.[3][4][5][6][7] This one calls it A Christmas Carol, and gives the first line in sentence case.[8] There is also a short story by the same name by Hemingway. Apteva (talk) 08:00, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Mannheim Steamroller

I can't find what would be considered a reliable source that states this, but it appears they did two versions and I think that's significant. One is called "Medieval" and the other is called "Modern".— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

music v. lyric

From Snopes.com: "The song is now widely misunderstood as being addressed to "merry gentlemen"...because the [melody now commonly used with these lyrics] supports that stress pattern."

(The material within the bracket and the brackets themselves are from the Internet source I'm quoting. I didn't put them there. The ellipsis is mine.) This suggests to me that the song published in 1833 may not be the same song as that which appeared on broadsheets in the eighteenth century. TheScotch (talk) 11:37, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

well, as "rest you merry" form a bar, and "gentlemen, let" the next bar, I am not sure this assertion can be made even for the modern melody.

But it is true that the distribution of note lengths shows some variation, c.f. Hune 1827 with Sharp 1911 (here set to "worthy gentlemen").

The melody now considered standard seems to have lost any rhythm and just divides the two bars into quarter notes throughout?[9] -- if this is what snopes.com is referring to, I find it even harder to argue that it intrinsically supports any "stress pattern" at all.

I think the fact that it is the only possible way to parse the sentence in contemporary English is sufficient as an explanation for the re-analysis. --dab (𒁳) 12:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

it occurred to me that this isn't quite true, there may also be God, rest you merry gentlemen as in "[expletive] sit still you funny guys". --dab (𒁳) 13:46, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the melody doesn't really imply any grammatical divisions. It's in 4/4 meter with an upbeat, which creates iambic stress patterns (unstressed, stressed; unstressed, stressed; etc.) The words show the same rhythmic pattern in their natural stresses: God rést you mérry géntlemén, etc. There isn't a break inside the line: i.e., we don't sing it like God rest you (pause) merry gentlemen, but as God rest you merry gentlemen (pause). The existence of a measure break at that point doesn't imply that there's a pause there. The only pause, in songs like this, is at the end of the poetic line. So I'm not sure what on earth Snopes is talking about. — Eru·tuon 20:07, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Date estimate

All musicological references I checked say it is among the oldest, either "16th century" or "at least 16th century". The point made about two 18th-century prints being given the title of "new Christmas carols" suggesting 18th century origin is thus completely fabricated, on-wiki WP:SYNTH.

1. the mere fact that the same song is called a "new carol" in c. 1760, and again a "new carol" in c. 1790 should establish that the "new" in these publications (which were attempts to make money off carollers, not document musical history) is to be taken with a grain of salt.
2. the very earliest record known to Chappell 1859, in the handwriting of James Nares, is entitled "The old Christmas Carol" (not just an old Christmas carol, it's the old Christmas Carol in Nares' time). Now I don't know if Chappell was aware of the 1760 print, and Nares floruit 1730-1780, so Nares' version isn't necessarily much older than the 1760 printed one, but his "old" surely more than cancels any "new" used to hand-wave about then-recent composition).
3. also, the "Holofernes" broadsheet, printed, I take it, about 1750, sets its song to "the tune of Tidings of comfort and joy", and Chappell says the Holofernes lyrics fit the carol tune. This means that in 1750, Tidings of comfort and joy was the title used to refer to this carol, and that its melody was strongly associated with it even then. This does not prove 16th or even 17th century origin, but I would say it does prove that in 1750 the carol was widely known, and the "new" versions published later in the 18th century at best included the addition of some extra verses (if we had the text of the 1760 version, we could comare it with the 1775 one (five verses) and the 1833 one (seven verses) and see if it might have introduced new ones, which may be all the advertisement as "new" was intended to convey)
4. the references say "16th century", so unless we have any other reference that disagrees explicitly, there is no call for us to try casting doubt on this on Wikipedia's behalf.

--dab (𒁳) 12:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Bruce Olson has the full text of the poem as found in Oxford Bodleian Library MS Eng. poet. b. 5, p. 57.

Sit yow merry Gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay
for Jesus Christ is borne
to save or soules from Satan's power
Whenas we runne astray

O tidings of comfort & joy
to save or soules from Satan
When as we runne away

O tidings of comfort & joy

Unfortunately I have not been able to find an image of that manuscript online (someone should visit the Bodleian Library and obtain one for us!) but Recusant Community and Jesuit Mission in Parliament Days: Bodleian MS Eng. poet. b. 5 by Cedric C. Brown, page 311, found in **The Yearbook of English Studies**, Vol. 33, Medieval and Early Modern Miscellanies and Anthologies, 2003, confirms that a poem with this incipit is on page 57 of Bodleian MS Eng. poet. b. 5.

The Bodlein Archives and Manuscripts page for MS. Eng. poet. b. 5 says that it is a "collection of recusant verse" compiled 1651-1657. MS. Eng. poet. b. 5 is a compilation of verse - no originals. So "Sit you merry Gentlemen" was a pre-existing poem in the 1650s.

Putting all that together, we have well referenced and reliable information that the date of composition of "Sit you merry Gentlemen" is the 1650s at latest.

Hymns and Carols of Christmas has a page with lyrics of "Sit yow merry Gentlemen" and some information about it, as well as a page of notes on "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" with information and - even more important! - sources that can be checked.

Bhugh (talk) 08:28, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Popular Culture

Given that the latest dates given in the article are 1927 and 1961 (just a publication date), I think it highly relevant to include uses of the song in the 21st century. Otherwise, the song seems not at all current. I visited the article because I remembered the tune of the latest Walmart commercial was actually this song. This song needs a "popular culture" section to show that the song is still relevant and performed today. My addition of information about the use of the song in advertisements was removed as "trivia". Thoughts? Bod (talk) 00:10, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

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Congratulations to Wikipedia

This article deserves congratulations on getting the comma in the right place in "God rest ye merry, Gentlemen". It could point out that "God rest ye merry" was an old greeting at one time in the English language. Vorbee (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Ernest Hemingway Story

It might be of interest here that there is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, first published in 1925 (as a book in 1933), also bearing the title 'God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen'. Though little known, it is included in some collections, such as 'The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway', New York 1936. 92.79.101.164 (talk) 14:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

J. Smart version

The first set of lyrics we give has a citation of Three new carols for Christmas, printed by J. Smart (c. 1780–1800). However, the wording has been changed since this was introduced in 2009 by User:Neeciv, here. I suspect that several editors have changed these words to what they think is the 'correct' version, without checking the source. Does anyone have access to this source to confirm the wording? If not then we should revert to the wording that was originally introduced here.

The version originally introduced here was:

God rest you merry Gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay;
Remember Christ our Saviour,
Was born on Christmas-day;
To save our souls from Satan's power,
Which long time had gone astray:
This brings Tydings of Comfort and Joy.

Our current version is:

God rest ye, merry Gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this Day.
To save poor souls from Satan's power,
Which long time had gone astray.
Which brings tidings of comfort and joy.

The version quoted in the citation is different again. This also may have been modified by misguided editors.

Also, the main text dates these words to c. 1760, but the citation has c. 1780–1800. Can someone resolve this?

I propose to restore the version that was originally added to the article. Verbcatcher (talk) 22:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

It appears that there is a copy of this book in the Bodlean Library. They have scanned it but I can't get access to it online. It is potentially available from the Wellcome Collection[10] and the National Library of Australia,[11] but both of these demand a password. It is listed at Metro Boston Library Network,[12] but this is blocked outside the US. Please can a US-based editor access this and check the wording? Verbcatcher (talk) 23:05, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

WikiProject Resource Exchange is an excellent vehicle to get copies of potential sources, especially ones like this that are clearly out of copyright. TJRC (talk) 23:13, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

It's available via Gale's "Eighteenth Century Collections Online" database to anyone with privileges at any of these universities or institutions. Any Wikipedians out there able to help? (Sadly, my student days are over). Grover cleveland (talk) 08:11, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

FYI, above under heading Date Estimate I've located and documented a version of the words going back to the 1650s.

It would be nice to locate the J. Smart version as well, but the "Sit you merry Gentlemen" version does pre-date it by more than 100 years.

Bhugh (talk) 08:41, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for unearthing this! I've added a few more sources and edited the text a little. Grover cleveland (talk) 14:51, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, it is looking better now. I made a couple more small edits - mostly just saying that this first version is "different" rather than "garbled". (I know it sounds garbled to us who are used to the current version, but with a manuscript that goes back a full hundred years early than any other, there is a pretty strong presumption that this is far closer to the 'original' version, and if anything, the versions that came 100+ years later are the garbled versions. This goes double when "Sit you merry" was a phrase actually documented as used in the earlier times but more or less lost in the later times.) Regardless of that, it's indisputable that this earlier version is "different" from the one we know, and it's a little more neutral to put it in those terms rather than "garbled," which to me has a fairly negative connotation.

Anyway, that's a lot of words to explain why I changed a word or two in the article. I'm not really as stuck on any of the changes as my long-ish explanation may make it appear.Bhugh (talk) 03:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

"Garbled" was a direct quote from the Wulstan book. I'll see if I can rewrite in a way that makes is clear this is just an opinion from one source. Grover cleveland (talk) 16:57, 14 December 2021 (UTC)