Talia Smock
ENG 5190: The Warrior Women Project
Ballad Annotation
The Constant Female
(The Rakish Female Sailor)[1]
A. Ryle & Co., Printers, 2 & 3, Monmouth Court, Bloomsbury.
I am a rakish[2] fair maid, who dare not well be seen, 1
And for the sake of Jemmy, I dare not be seen,
I’ll cross the raging seas, if Jemmy he is dead,
I will mourn constantly, all for my Jemmy’s sake i’ll cross the raging seas, &c[3].
A tarry jacket[4] and blue trousers this maiden did put on, 5
And like a gallant sailor she briskly moved along
She bargain’d with a captain her passage to get free,
To be his own companion crossing o’er the sea.
As they were a stripping them, and jumping into bed[5],
The captain did sigh and say, I wish you were a maid: 10
Your ruby lips and cherry cheek have so enticed me.
That I do wish with all my heart you were a maid said he.
O hold your tongue, dear captain, O hold your tongue said she,
If the sailors should now hear us, they would make a game of me.[6]
For when that we do reach the shore, some handsome girls you’ll find, 15
To sport among the fair maids I always was inclin’d[7]
In less than two days sailing our ship did reach the shore,
She said farewell, dear captain, adieu for evermore.
A sailor I was once on board, but now I’m a maid on shore[8],
He said, return my dearest lady, for you I do adore 20
It is a handsome portion I will bestow on thee
Five hundred bright sovereigns now the sum shall be.
If you consent to marry me, O say you will be mine.
O, hold your tongue dear captain, your talk is all in vain,
O, for the sake of Jemmy I cross’d the raging sea 25
For he was the only lad, I could love none but he.
If my Jemmy should be he dead, I will mourn constantly,
And for the sake of Jemmy, a maid I’ll live and die.[9]
Harvard, 25242.17, Vol. VII, BS 123.
[1] Diane Dugaw lists nine different versions of this ballad and catalogues three, although I will only be focusing on this one, titled The Rakish Female Sailor.
[2] The Oxford English dictionary defines a “rake” as “a fashionable or stylish man of dissolute or promiscuous habits” or it can reference a woman taking on these qualities in a masculine way.
[3] A shorthand way to say “et cetera”.
[4] A tarry jacket would refer to a dirty jacket, defined as “covered, smeared, soiled, or impregnated with tar; tarred; black as if smeared with tar,” by the OED.
[5] This is the only ballad of the Constant Female variants that includes the Sailor stripping down with the captain and “jumping into bed”, every other version merely mentions them “walking toward bed.” This difference paints the Sailor in this version to be much more sexualized than any other, her sexuality is already at the forefront and an important aspect of this ballad. In addition this changes the sexuality of the Captain from just being interested in the Sailor because of “his” feminine features to being fully engaged in a sexual relationship, but understanding they cannot continue the relationship on shore due to the gender of the Sailor.
[6] If their sexual relationship is exposed she risks being mocked or even raped by the other men on board either because they believe her to be a gay man, to which they may take advantage, or they discover her to be a woman in which case she could also risk rape and abuse.
[7] She only previously mentions having relations with men, as in the Captain and Jemmy, but this could be her referencing her interest in women, an interest she may not have acted upon previously. This is also the only version of the ballad collected by Dugaw where the Sailor does not first include herself in the attempt to find a girl, she merely mentions the interest as a side note.
[8] The wording here creates a duality of the character, splitting her into two seperate personas; a male at sea and a maid on shore. This could easily reinforce a transgender or genderfluid narrative recognizing her male persona as more than just a disguise.
[9] This may reference that she will never marry but may not elude to her sexuality after this point or even possibly her preferred gender. She may not marry because of her exploring her interest in women as she mentioned previously, or because she now wants to live as a sailor and be free of marriage ties. The other interpretation could be a much more bleak one, she has lived as an unmarried girl up until this point and Jemmy was the only thing keeping her that way, if a gender change is not an option for her after this point maybe she says she will commit suicide and choose to die young. The wording she chooses may corroborate this theory because she says she will die a “maid”, that is, die young. In various interpretations we may get more back story for the Sailor but we never get farther than this point, we never learn if Jemmy is alive and if they ever reunite. A more positive interpreter may say they do reunite and this line tells us her ending, for the same of Jemmy, she stays a maid and lives on with him until she dies.