Take Up the HBD Burden

I said to Gintas that the subject line of his e-mail about John Derbyshire’s attack on me at Mangan’s, “Mangan takes up his burden again,” which I adapted as the title of the entry, could become the basis of a parody on “Take up the White Man’s Burden,” called, say, “Take up Charles Darwin’s Burden.”

Gintas replies:

First stanza, on Game:

Take up the HBD burden—
Send forth the few ye breed—
Go bind your sons to Roissy
To serve their gaming need;
To wait in lusty harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen women,
Half-devil and half-child.

- end of initial entry -

LA writes:

I laughed out loud when I read Gintas’s parody. The fit between the original and the parody is fantastic. Here’s the first verse of the Kipling poem:

Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 22, 2009 07:19 PM | Send