And when I know precisely what is meant by "plating of the beans"

August 20, 2015 2:55 PM

What does "no danger lowr's" mean in the lyrics to Poor Wandering One from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance?

I saw a production of Pirates of Penzance earlier this month, and I while I mondegreened a lot of the lyrics, I was still able to get the basic gist of what was going on. What has thrown me for a loop is this song, which apparently I *did* hear correctly, but I just don't get.

The verse is (lyrics from Genius):
GIRLS:
Take heart, no danger low'rs;
Take any heart but ours!
MABEL:
Take heart, fair days will shine;
Take any heart -- take mine!

The joke is obviously the "take any heart [but ours/take mine]" split between Mabel and the girls, but I'd like to figure out the rest of it.

The best I can come up with is that it's intended to be a synonym for "looms," but I don't understand how that fits in with the context of what the chorus is singing. I hope that by understanding it I can get it this ear worm out of my head.

posted by sparklemotion to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

"lowering" can also mean "threatening", as in "the lowering clouds suggested that a picnic would be a poor way to spend the afternoon," which I assume is the intended meaning here. So I assume what G&S meant was something like "no danger threatens".
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 3:02 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

It's related to this definition of lowers (note the pronunciation as matching what it would need to be; it basically just means there's no danger threatening here. A more gilbert-and-sullivan cite here.
posted by brainmouse at 3:03 PM on August 20, 2015

I came in for the same answer, which basically yeah it's not far from looms. As to how that fits in the context, "there's no danger" and "fair days will shine" are basically just shoring up that yeah we're really using the normal idiomatic "words of encouragement" sense of "take heart", OH NO WAIT IT'S A TRAP PUN!!!
posted by aubilenon at 3:14 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

I know lowring from this bit in the King James Bible, which also refers to threatening weather: "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
posted by interplanetjanet at 4:13 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's also spelt "lour", which is a bit less confusing. The OED notes: "The spelling lower (compare flower) renders the word identical in its written form with lower v., to bring or come down, and the two verbs have often been confused: when said of clouds, lower /ˈlaʊə(r)/ to look threatening, has some affinity in sense with lower /ˈləʊə(r)/ to descend, and it is not always possible to discover which verb was in the mind of a writer." In this case, due to the rhyme, it means threatening.
posted by Athanassiel at 7:49 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Don't you just get a visual image of threatening (glowering) eyebrows though. I've always felt it conjures hovering above something threateningly close, ready to come down like a ton of bricks.
posted by glasseyes at 7:36 AM on August 21, 2015