Bacchus-u-Akbar! Long live the blondes! Long live the brunettes!

The following brief excerpt from a Mozart opera is apropos to our work here, and welcome comic relief from all the horror and brutality that is the daily fare of those who closely study the Great Jihad.

Our Arabic translator ritamalik, who sent the tip for this splendid clip, provides this introduction:

Here is a small scene from Mozart’s opera, “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” or “Abduction from the Seraglio”. This duet is between two very funny characters in this opera: one is Pedrillo, a Spaniard and a servant who is captive in the house of a Ottoman Pasha; and Osmin, the overseer for the Pasha, and a very cruel and strict Muslim man. In this scene Pedrillo is trying to make Osmin drunk so that he and his master and their beloved girls can escape the harem of the Pasha, where they are captive, and go back to Spain.

What strikes me about this piece is how refreshingly politically incorrect it is! Here in this scene we see Pedrillo pushing Osmin, who is obviously a Muslim and can’t drink alcohol, to drink wine. At the start there is a line where doubtful Osmin says (in German):

“Ob ich’s wage?
Ob’s ich trinke?
Ob’s wohl Allah sehen kann?”

“Shall I chance it?
Shall I drink it?
Can Allah see me?”

And then of course Osmin rapidly relents, and after a few sips he is drunk and is singing praises to blonde and brunette girls with Pedrillo and dancing, before he passes out!

It is very funny, and I often think: Can we write things like this today in the current PC atmosphere? Probably not, and that is a chilling thought! It is a shame that we had more freedom and more honesty about Islam in the 18th century than we have today, two hundred years later.

The whole opera is really funny and very politically incorrect. It is very honest about the vile Ottoman habit of capturing non-Muslim women and forcing them into their harems as sex-slaves. It is strange how Westerners knew these things back them so clearly, but now they have gotten amnesia and forgotten it all.

Anyway, great music and very funny libretto; highly recommend. By the way — the librettist is Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie, and the composer, as I mentioned before, is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater.

Many thanks to Oz-Rita for the translation (with poetic license), and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

00:08   Long live Bacchus! Bacchus was a great guy.
00:12   Long live Bacchus! Bacchus was a worthy man.
00:16   Shall I dare it?
00:20   Shall I drink it? Supposing
00:24   Allah can see it?
00:28   Why procrastinate?
00:32   Down with it! no questions asked.
00:44   Now I’ve done it!
00:48   Now I’ve downed it!
00:52   That’s what I call
00:56   daring.
01:04   Long live the girls, the blondes, the brunettes,
01:08   may they live long,
01:12   long life to them!
01:16   This tastes splendid!
01:20   That tastes marvelous!
01:24   Ahhh that’s what I call a
01:28   nectar for the Gods
01:32   Long live Bacchus,
01:36   who invented wine!
01:40   Bacchus-u-Akbar!
01:44   Girls-u-Akbar!
01:48   The blondes and the brunettes
01:52   Bacchus-u-Akbar!
01:56   Bacchus who invented the wine!
02:00   Long life to the girls, the blondes the brunettes,
02:04   Bacchus,
02:08   who invented wine!
02:12   Bacchus-u-Akbar!
 

3 thoughts on “Bacchus-u-Akbar! Long live the blondes! Long live the brunettes!

  1. Back then, I take it there were no groups like Hope not Hate?
    No government, or “anti-racism group” thuggishly enforcing “incitement to racial hatred” charges?
    And, most importantly, no Muslim mobs in Germany or Austria, to go crazy over a Mozart opera?

    And if the Opera wasn’t to the Ottoman Empire’s liking – well, its power was on the wane, and there was no UN to prevent European armies giving it a battering and helping themselves to some Ottoman territory.
    Being angry is something one chooses to be – so perhaps the Ottomans of the day decided that this wasn’t something that was in their interests to be fussed about, and so remained very courteous, in spite the “blasphemous” references to Allah and drinking?

  2. As for Westerners “forgetting” such Ottoman/Muslim “habits” nowadays – well, with the internet, movies, games and all the other attractions of today, perhaps the majority only have time to skim-read the headlines of the Guardian or BBC, or their equivalents abroad? And if there’s nothing there about Islamic sex slave habits, how are they to know?

    After all, the Guardian reassures us that the grooming scandals are nothing to do with religion, while those nice, friendly Muslims down at the school, university or kebab shop surely mean that it’s impossible for their religion to teach them anything bad?

    As for history – well, that’s so dull and tedious, and surely back then everyone was a horrible waycist, unaware of how their operas, “jokes” and stereotypes were hurtful to millions of nice, friendly, smiling Muslims? So – move on, nothing to see here…

  3. Oz-Rita’ s translation (with poetic licence) is just so great! I couldn’t stop laughing! Thanks for posting this Baron!

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