Il était incapable de mentir, il était trop méchant pour cela.

Réalisé par Charles De Meyer

Dans l'île au trésor, de Robert Louis Stevenson, quelques vers d'une chanson pirate reviennent continuellement... Young Ewing Allison en a écrit la suite.

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
The mate was fixed by the bosun’s pike
The bosun brained with a marlinspike
And cookey’s throat was marked belike
It had been gripped by fingers ten
And there they lay, all good dead men
Like break o’day in a boozing ken
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

Fifteen men of the whole ship’s list
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion’s axe his cheek had shore
And the scullion he was stabbed four times four
And there they lay, and the soggy skies
Dripped all day long in up-staring eyes
At murk sunset and at foul sunrise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

Fifteen men of ’em stiff and stark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
Ten of the crew had the murder mark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
’Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers’ glut with a rotting red
And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes
All loukouts clapped on paradise
All souls bound just contrawise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

Fifteen men of ’em good and true
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
Ev’ry man jack could ha’ sailed with Old Pew
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
There was chest on chest of Spanish gold
With a ton of plate in the middle hold
And the cabins riot of loot untold
And there lay there that had took the plum
With sightless glare and their lips struck dumb
While we shared all by the rule of thumb
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

More was seen through a sternlight screen
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
Chartings no doubt where a woman had been
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
’Twas a flimsy shift on a bunker cot
With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot
Oh was she wench or some shudderin’ maid
That dared the knife and took the blade
By God ! she had stuff for a plucky jade
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
We wrapped ’em all in a mains’l tight
With twice ten turns of a hawser’s bight
And we heaved ’em over and out of sight
With a Yo-Heave-Ho ! and a fare-you-well
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !

To understand the lyrics better, here are some Information taken from http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=642753

Stanza 1.

It’s the break of day over what was once a boozing ken or sea tavern on the shores of West Indies island used as a regular hideout by buccaneers during piracy days. Bosun is a spelling variant for a Boatswain and a bosun’s pike was a weapon that belonged to this a petty officer who was in charge of hull maintenance and related work. A marlinspike was a long pointy tool handy for untying knots and braining pirates.

Stanza 2

The whole ship’s list refers to the muster or list of sailors aboard and the captain’s nob is of course the state of his poor head left by the scullion. A scullion is the cook’s, or in this case, "cookey’s" assistant who did KP duty. After a dark sunset with rain and overcast skies the sun comes up to reveal a fetid sight. Aptly enough the nautical term for foul refers to " piece of equipment that is jammed or entangled, or dirtied." One can just imagine the tangle of bodies lying overnight upon the lifeless deck.

Stanza 3

Ten of the crew had the murder mark ! Avast ! Out of fifteen men, ten had been branded as killers ! Who or what had the temerity to kill these terrible men ? A cutlass was a short curving sword used by sailors during the 1500’s on warships and scuppers are the all the drains on deck which is grisly and flooded with blood as it drained down into the bottom of the ship.

Stanza 4

Spanish gold was also called pieces of eight and a ton of plate in this sense means a piece of silver ; partly from Old Spanish plata meaning a ton of silver coins. Between 1519 and 1617, when the Calusa Indians were at the height of their trading power, the King of Spain’s plate fleets transported millions in New World gold, silver and precious
stones.

Jack is a general term for sailor and Old Pew is the only character from Treasure Island that Allison makes a direct comment about. He is an old deformed, blind beggar and apparently a harmless pirate. In Stevenson’s story Pew gives Billy a black spot, an ultimatum to give up the sea chest’s contents to the pirate gang. To "place the Black Spot" on another is to sentence him to death, to warn him he is marked for death, or sometimes just to accuse him of a serious crime before other pirates. Billy does indeed breath his last breath soon after Pew’s visit, and Pew get killed in a carriage accident. Pew can be seen as an angel of death since he foreshadows many of the pirate deaths in
the book.

Stanza 5

A jade in this instance is "a flirtatious girl" and this verse is Allison’s acknowledgement of the ancient Grecian myth that women are bad luck on a sailing vessel. The myth has its beginnings in the legends of the Sirens described as huge birds with the heads and voices of women who sang irresistible songs luring sailors and their ships that came near them to their deaths on the rocks off the shores of Sicily. The only man to ever hear their songs and survive was the Greek hero Odysseus who had his men lash him to the mast of his ship to prevent him from jumping to his death.

Stanza 6

A hawser is a large rope for towing, mooring, or securing a ship and the poet ends his grim tale with a rather fitting burial at sea, wrapped in sail cloth and bound with rope and, like Stevenson moral seems to say, it doesn’t matter what kind of intentions one paves the road with it still leads to the same place.