Limited Liability Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDEDEFFGEEG HIHJEEEEKKLFFL MLMLFFFFDDFFFF| Some seven men form an Association | A |
| If possible all Peers and Baronets | B |
| They start off with a public declaration | A |
| To what extent they mean to pay their debts | C |
| That's called their Capital if they are wary | D |
| They will not quote it at a sum immense | E |
| The figure's immaterial it may vary | D |
| From eighteen million down to eighteenpence | E |
| I should put it rather low | F |
| The good sense of doing so | F |
| Will be evident at once to any debtor | G |
| When it's left to you to say | E |
| What amount you mean to pay | E |
| Why the lower you can put it at the better | G |
| - | |
| They then proceed to trade with all who'll trust 'em | H |
| Quite irrespective of their capital | I |
| It's shady but it's sanctified by custom | H |
| Bank Railway Loan or Panama Canal | J |
| You can't embark on trading too tremendous | E |
| It's strictly fair and based on common sense | E |
| If you succeed your profits are stupendous | E |
| And if you fail pop goes your eighteenpence | E |
| Make the money spinner spin | K |
| For you only stand to win | K |
| And you'll never with dishonesty be twitted | L |
| For nobody can know | F |
| To a million or so | F |
| To what extent your capital's committed | L |
| - | |
| If you come to grief and creditors are craving | M |
| For nothing that is planned by mortal head | L |
| Is certain in this Vale of Sorrow saving | M |
| That one's Liability is Limited | L |
| Do you suppose that signifies perdition | F |
| If so you're but a monetary dunce | F |
| You merely file a Winding Up Petition | F |
| And start another Company at once | F |
| Though a Rothschild you may be | D |
| In your own capacity | D |
| As a Company you've come to utter sorrow | F |
| But the Liquidators say | F |
| Never mind you needn't pay | F |
| So you start another Company to morrow | F |
William Schwenck Gilbert
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SJPBrooklyn: Utopia, Limited was one of Gilbert & Sullivan's least successful operas, and for good reason. It's long-winded, even more contrived than their earlier works, and not terribly interesting. The plot, such as it is, revolves around the intention of the backward king of an ocean paradise to re-make his country in England's image. Still, it contains two first-rate musical numbers: this "explanation" by a financial promoter of how limited liability works (hence the opera's title), and the "minstrel song," in which the king and his British consultants explain to the audience how "this happy country has been Anglicized completely." It is called the minstrel song because a practical joke on the king turns the Court of St. James (a metaphor for British royalty and their entourage) into St. James's Hall, a popular London music hall that was also home to the Christy Minstrels. The latter group, founded mid-nineteenth century, performed in blackface, which would not be tolerated in today's theater. Modern performances of this song usually involve silly behaviors, often with tambourines, evocative of Monty Python routines.
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