Ooops -- that got away quicker than I intended.
According to google, the only place it's called "Dirge for the Unmourned" is
in Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_.
Robin
URL for the following quote:
http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Britain/Miscellaneous/c_executions.html
> The several corps of the line, at the appointed hour and place, parade
> three deep, and are prepared to draw up so as to form three sides of a
> square. The execution parties in divisions, preceded by a band of music,
> and a corps of drummers, with the provost-marshal on horseback at their
> head, march in ordinary time at the front of the prisoner. The music plays
> the dead march in Saul. The guards, formed in divisions, march at the same
> time in rear of the prisoner. The main-guard, commanded by the captain of
> the day, leads. The others follow in succession, according to the rank of
> their regiments.
Kipling's "Danny Deever":
> "What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade.
> "To turn you out, to turn you out", the Colour-Sergeant said.
> "What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.
> "I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said.
> For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play,
> The regiment's in 'ollow square -- they're hangin' him to-day;
> They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,
> An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Frederick Pollack" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 1:30 PM
> Subject: Re: 3 poems
>>> It's called the War Requiem. Benjamin Britten wrote the music around
>>> the poems of Wilfred Owen. Music premiered in 1961 for poems composed
>>> in 1917-18. Sadly we continue to know what it means.
>>>
>>> kw
>>>
>> No, no, Ken, I know the piece, but what I was thinking of is an actual
>> military tattoo, a march-rhythm --- British Army, I thought. Used at
>> executions mandated by courts-martial.
|