"mystical Germans"
In the original lyrics to the Mikado's "A More Humane Mikado" (the "let the punishment fit the crime" song), as well as in the updated version we used, the Mikado lists as the punishment for
All prosy dull society sinners,
Who chatter and bleat and bore,
that they
Are sent to hear sermons
From mystical Germans
Who preach from ten till four.
Martyn Green glosses this line as "[a]n allusion to a number of German Lutheran evangelists who were visiting England" (Green 434 n. 78).
To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
To the homepage of this Mikado website.
Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.
(c) Copyright 1998 Sharon Cogdill, dramaturg for this production and author of this website.
College of Fine Arts and Humanities
St. Cloud State University
This URL: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scogdill/mikado/germans.html.
Last update: 16 May 1998.