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Richard Wilbur - Poetry reading: 'Pangloss's Song' (27/83)

To listen to more of Richard Wilbur’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Richard Wilbur (Poet)   Acclaimed US poet Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was the second US Poet Laureate and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and 1989. Educated at Harvard University, he also served in the Army during World War II. [Listener: David Sofield; date recorded: 2005] TRANSCRIPT: This show lyric, 'Pangloss's Song', also called 'Dear Boy', comes at a point in the story, Voltaire's story, at which Candide, who has thought his master, Pangloss, dead, finds that he is alive, but suffering from venereal disease, and he says to him, 'Dear Dr Pangloss, you taught us that everything was for the best in this best of all possible worlds. How can this, your condition, be for the best?' So, Pangloss now sings this rather fuzzy professorial song of rationalization: I Dear boy, you will not hear me speak With sorrow or with rancour Of what has paled my rosy cheek And blasted it with canker; T'was Love, great Love, that did the deed Through nature's gentle laws, And how should ill effects proceed From so divine a cause? Sweet honey comes from bees that sting, As you are well aware; To one adept in reasoning, Whatever pains disease may bring Are but the tangy seasoning To love's delicious fare. II Columbus and his men, they say, Conveyed the virus hither Whereby my features rot away And vital powers wither; Yet had they not traversed the seas And come infected back, Why, think of all the luxuries That modern life would lack! All bitter things conduce to sweet As this example shows; Without the little spirochete We'd have no chocolate to eat, Nor would tobacco's fragrance greet The European nose. III Each nation guards its native land With cannon and with sentry, Inspectors look for contraband At every port of entry, Yet nothing can prevent the spread Of love's divine disease: It rounds the world from bed to bed As pretty as you please. Men worship Venus everywhere, As plainly may be seen; The decorations which I bear Are nobler than the Croix de Guerre, And gained in service of our fair And universal Queen. That... that song was dropped from the show just before the New York opening because of a fear on the part of some of the producers that it might offend somebody, and happily the number has been restored in many subsequent productions of 'Candide'. If there is anything tast... tasteless or raunchy about this, it can be blamed on Voltaire, I think, because this of all the lyrics I wrote for 'Candide', this is the one which is most simply a versification of Voltaire.