Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [534]
sent a petition, That he their inspirer and patron would be! When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian: ‘Voice, fiddle, and flute,
No longer be mute!
I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot.’ “
The singer’s voice cracked painfully on “voice, fiddle, and flute,” but he sang stoutly on, despite the laughter from his audience. I smiled wryly to myself as he hit the final couplet,
“‘And, besides, I’ll instruct you like me to entwine,
The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine!’”
I lifted my cup in salute to the wheeled coffin, softly echoing the melody of the singer’s last lines.
“Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
I drained my cup and sat still, waiting for the men to come out.