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Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. Skit Party’s “Ode to an Economist”, undated

In a filed labeled “Miscellaneous” in the Milton Friedman papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, along with such skit party classics as The Cowles Commission Song and a parody from HMS Pinafore about Milton Friedman, we have the following “Ode to an Economist”. I was able to track down the exact issue of Punch from which the ode was admittedly “stolen”. There is no indication of the identity of the “thief” who purloined the parody.

The original parody appears to have been inspired by a remark attributed to George Joachim Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen—at least he is quoted before the poem “The Passionate Statistician to His Love”.

The actual poem parodied was written by Christopher Marlowe and first published after his death in 1599.

In this posting you can read (1) the undated, abridged University of Chicago “Ode to an Economist”, (2) the actual parody published in Punch in 1885 and (3) the original love poem “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.”

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ODE TO AN ECONOMIST
[U. of Chicago Economics, undated]

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That facts and figures can supply
Unto the statistician’s ravished eye

And we will sit ‘midst faction’s shocks
And calculate the price of stocks,
The music of whose rise and fall
Beats most melodious madrigal.

Percentages shall stir our blood
Analyses as clear as mud.
Oh, if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The marriage rate, the price of meat,
Shall yield us raptures calm and sweet ;
And analytic Tables be
Prepared each day to give us glee.

Economists our praise shall sing,
The statesman’s eloquence we’ll wing
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

–stolen from an old Punch

Source: Undated. Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 79, Folder 6 “University of Chicago Miscellaneous”.

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The Passionate Statistician to His Love.
[From Punch. March 21, 1885, p. 137]

” For my part, I am a passionate Statistician . . . Go with me into the study of statistics,
and I will make you all enthusiasts in statistics.”

Mr. Goschen at Whitechapel

 

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That facts and figures can supply
Unto the Statist’s ravished eye.

And we will sit ‘midst faction’s shocks
And calculate the price of Stocks,
The music of whose rise and fall
Beats most melodious madrigal.

We’ll learn how the last Census closes
And the art of counting noses;
And taste the pleasures, sweetly solemn
Of abstract brief, and lengthy column.

We’ll tot the figures fair and full
Relating to the price of wool,
The annual range of heat and cold,
The death-rate, and the price of gold.

Per-centages shall stir our blood
Analyses as clear as mud.
Oh, if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The marriage rate, the price of meat,
Shall yield us raptures calm and sweet ;
And analytic “Tables” be
Prepared each day to give us glee.

Economists our praise shall sing,
The Statesman’s eloquence we’ll wing
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

Source: Parodies of the Works of English and American Authors, Vol. IV. London: Reeves & Turner, 1887, p. 38.

Note:   George Joachim Goschen (1831-1907) was President of the Royal Statistical Society (1886-88).

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THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.
Christopher Marlowe.
[published posthumously, 1599]

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, and hills and fields,
The woods or steepy mountains yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls,
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers and a kirtle,
Embroidered o’er with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat,*
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

*These three verses are often omitted.

Source: Parodies of the Works of English and American Authors, Vol. IV. London: Reeves & Turner, 1887, pp. 36-37.

 

 

Image: Christopher Marlowe from Wikipedia; right, George Joachim Goschen by Alexander Bassano (ca. 1883), National Portrait Gallery. London.