'The Major General's Song'

SONG--MAJOR-GENERAL

          I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
          I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
	  I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
          From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
	  I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
	  I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
          About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
	  With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

ALL:      With many cheerful facts, etc.

GENERAL:  I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
          I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
          In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

ALL:      In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

GENERAL:  I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
	  I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
          I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
          In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
	  I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
	  I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes!
	  Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
	  And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

ALL:      And whistle all the airs, etc.

GENERAL:  Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
          And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:
          In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

ALL:      In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

GENERAL:  In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
          When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
	  When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
	  And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
	  When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
	  When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery --
          In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,
          You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.

ALL:      You'll say a better Major-General, etc.

GENERAL:  For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
	  Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
          But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

ALL:      But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

W.S. Gilbert