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Tom o' Bedlam

"Tom o' Bedlam" is the title of an anonymous poem in the "mad song" genre, written in the voice of a homeless "Bedlamite". The poem was probably composed at the beginning of the 17th century. In How to Read and Why Harold Bloom called it "the greatest anonymous lyric in the [English] language."

The terms "Tom o' Bedlam" and “Bedlam beggar” were used to describe beggars and vagrants who had or feigned mental illness (see also Abraham-men). Aubrey writes that such a beggar could be identified by “an armilla of tin printed, of about three inches breadth” attached to his left arm. They claimed, or were assumed, to be former inmates of the Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam). It was commonly thought that inmates were released with authority to make their way by begging, though this is probably untrue. If it happened at all, the numbers were small, though there were probably large numbers of mentally ill travellers who turned to begging, but had never been near Bedlam. It was adopted as a technique of begging, or a character. For example, Edgar in King Lear disguises himself as mad "Tom o' Bedlam".

Structure and verses

The poem has eight verses of eight lines each, each verse concluding with a repetition of a four-line chorus. The existence of a chorus suggests that the poem may originally have been sung as a ballad. The version reproduced here is the one presented in Bloom's How to Read and Why.

"Mad Maudlin's Search"

The original ballad was popular enough that another poem was written in reply: "Mad Maudlin's Search" or "Mad Maudlin's Search for Her Tom of Bedlam" (she may be meant to be the Maud who seems to be mentioned in the verse "With a thought I took for Maudlin / And a cruise of cockle pottage / With a thing thus tall, Sky bless you all / I befell into this dotage." which apparently records Tom going mad) or "Bedlam Boys" (from the chorus, "Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys / Bedlam boys are bonny / For they all go bare and they live by the air / And they want no drink or money."), whose first stanza is:

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,

Ten thousand miles I've traveled.

Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,

For to save her shoes from gravel

The remaining stanzas include:

I went down to Satan's kitchen

To break my fast one morning

And there I got souls piping hot

All on the spit a-turning.

There I took a cauldron

Where boiled ten thousand harlots

Though full of flame I drank the same

To the health of all such varlets.

My staff has murdered giants

My bag a long knife carries

To cut mince pies from children's thighs

For which to feed the fairies.

No gypsy, slut or doxy

Shall win my mad Tom from me

I'll weep all night, with stars I'll fight

The fray shall well become me.

It was apparently first published in 1720 by Thomas d'Urfey in his Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. "Maudlin" was a form of Mary Magdalene.

Because of the number of variants of each poem, and confusion between the two, neither "Tom o' Bedlam" nor "Mad Maudlin" can be said to have definitive texts.

The folk-rock band Steeleye Span recorded "Boys of Bedlam", a version of "Mad Maudlin", on their 1971 album Please To See The King. Steeleye recorded a very different arrangement on Dodgy Bastards (2016), which included a rap section and a bassline that set the song in the Phrygian mode.

In modern culture

Lin Carter included the poem in his 1969 fantasy anthology Dragons, Elves, and Heroes.
Tom o' Bedlam is the name Edgar gives in Shakespeare's King Lear when he pretends to be a mad vagrant. It is also to be found in a case before Star Chamber in 1632 when a Sussex man complains of being defamed in a set of verses sung in the ale houses of Rye to the tune of Tom o' Bedlam, further indication that it was a ballad.
Kenneth Patchen's surrealist novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight is loosely based on and makes frequent reference to the poem.
Robert Silverberg's science fiction novel Tom O' Bedlam (1985) includes several quotations from the poem. The main character also calls himself by that name.
John Brunner's 1968 novel Bedlam Planet prefaces each chapter with entire stanzas from the poem, titling the chapter after the subject of the stanza.
Mercedes Lackey has co-authored a series of books whose titles are taken from verses of the poem.
Parts of Derek Walcott's poem, The Bounty (1997), are addressed to "mad Tom."
Folk rock band Steeleye Span set the poem to music on the album Please to See the King.
Jolie Holland recorded a version of Maudlin's song titled "Mad Tom of Bedlam" on her 2004 album Escondida. Charlene Kaye also recorded this version for her The Brilliant Eyes EP.
Old Blind Dogs, a traditional Scottish band, recorded a version titled "Bedlam Boys" on their 1992 debut album New Tricks and a new arrangement on their 2004 album Four on the Floor.
A recording of the poem sung in the style of a tavern song is included in the soundtrack of the video game Stronghold 3. For unknown reasons, the line "Ten thousand miles I've traveled" was changed to "Ten thousand years I travel".
An incidental character in Rosemary Sutcliff's Brother Dusty-Feet is called "Tom o' Bedlam" and sings this poem (anachronistically: Brother Dusty-Feet is set in the reign of Queen Elizabeth), of which only the last verse (without the refrain) occurs in the text.
In the 2015 video game Assassin's Creed Syndicate, there are 31 hidden music boxes scattered throughout 1868 London's streets. When one goes to the Progression Log and look under "Secrets Of London", they can see the locations of each of the 31 music boxes as a screenshot showing the box and whatever is nearby, leaving it up to the player to figure out exactly where it is. Additionally, each entry is accompanied by a 4-line quote from "Tom o' Bedlam".