Wednesday, March the 31th, 2004

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Chrononhotonthologos

For many years I believed that the most startling opening line in theatre was Ubu's “Merdre!” in Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. But no! What could better this:

Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?

These are the opening words of Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos, spoken by Rigdum-Funnidos. The play is not unlike Ubu Roi, in that the title character is a greedy, bad-tempered and violent king. (It would have been a great role for Robert Coates.) The final scene leaves the stage littered with corpses—this memorable line will give you some idea:

O horrid! horrible, and horridest horror! Our king! our general! our cook! our doctor! All dead! stone dead! irrevocably dead! O——-h!—— [All groan, a tragedy groan.]

The play also includes my favourite musical direction, which would not be out of place at the Festival of Argumentative Music at Ülm (see 24th February):

SCENE—A Bed Chamber. Chrononhotonthologos asleep. [Rough music, Viz. Salt Boxes and Rolling Pins, Grid-Irons and Tongs, Sow-Gelders Horns, Marrow-Bones and Cleavers, c. c.] He wakes.

Henry Carey (c.1687-1743) also wrote, among much else, the words to God Save The King (or Queen). Chrononhotonthologos was so popular in its day that the title entered the language, as a synonym for “furious, violent, demanding, self-centered” (sounds just like Pa Ubu) and appeared in earlier editions of Roget's Thesaurus, although appears not to have made it into the OED.

You can read the play in full by clicking on the picture of Pa Ubu (for want of a picture of Chrononhotonthologos himself).