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Comment by a_e_k | Hacker News Reader

My favorite example is Jack Point from Yeomen of the Guard [0]:

    Point:
        Oh, thoughtless crew!
        Ye know not what ye do!
        Attend to me, and shed a tear or two —
        For I have a song to sing, O!
    All:
        Sing me your song, O!
    Point:
        It is sung to the moon
        By a love-lorn loon,
        Who fled from the mocking throng, O!
        It's a song of a merryman, moping mum,
        Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
        Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
        As he sighed for the love of a ladye.

[0] https://youtu.be/1WDlri5ACNg?t=1801

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Better shown, I think, by Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon and the preceding dialogue, back near the start of Act II. https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_13d.html for the dialogue and https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_14.html for the song. (PDF of the entire libretti, which I find much more convenient: https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/yg_lib.pdf#page=28&zoom=auto,-1....)

The dialogue is useful context for the song in which the jester explains to a would-be jester the troubles of being paid to be funny.

Gilbert enjoyed a spot of paradox, some more patent than others. In The Pirates of Penzance a leap year forms a paradox (, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox) as the protagonist has lived for twenty-one years, yet reckoning by his natal day he is a little boy of five. As for Patience, it is subtitled “or, Bunthorne’s Bride”, yet ends with everyone except Bunthorne scheduled to be married.

Yes, Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon is also an excellent choice, too, and one that I'd debated referencing instead.

But ultimately the "Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum," line in I have a song to sing O! and its reprise in the finale was what led me to pick that song to quote here. (Plus that song and the music is probably my favorite among the G&S canon. :-)

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