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Mrs. Peachum
The Beggar is a man from the famously poor, crime-ridden London slum of St. Giles who is supposed to represent the opera’s author. He briefly appears onstage in the first and second-to-last scenes alongside the Player. At the beginning of the play, he explains that he did his best to write a true Italian-style opera by including features like similes about animals, a love triangle with two women, and a scene in a prison. Later, he agrees to change the play’s ending—and save Macheath rather than having him executed—in order to conform to the conventions of opera. Of course, in both of these cases, Gay uses the Beggar’s combination of earnestness and ignorance to mock both his audience‚ who likely know little about serious opera, as well as opera itself, which is full of stuffy rules and conventions that limit its appeal. In fact, John Gay also uses the Beggar to make fun of himself for daring to write an opera, despite lacking the elite connections and formal musical training of most serious opera composers.
The Beggar Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
The The Beggar’s Opera quotes below are all either spoken by The Beggar or refer to The Beggar. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Introduction
Quotes
If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure No-body can dispute mine. I own myself of the Company of Beggars; and I make one at their Weekly Festivals at St. Giles’s.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 16
Quotes
PLAYER. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
BEGGAR. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
PLAYER. Why then, Friend, this is a down-right deep Tragedy. The Catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an Opera must end happily.
BEGGAR. Your Objection, Sir, is very just; and is easily remov’d. For you must allow, that in this kind of Drama, ’tis no matter how absurdly things are brought about.—So—you Rabble there—run and cry a Reprieve—let the Prisoner be brought back to his Wives in Triumph.
PLAYER. All this we must do, to comply with the Taste of the Town.
BEGGAR. Through the whole Piece you may observe such a similitude of Manners in high and low Life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable Vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road, or the Gentlemen of the Road the fine Gentlemen.—Had the Play remain’d, as I at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent Moral. ’Twould have shown that the lower Sort of People have their Vices in a degree as well as the Rich: And that they are punish’d for them.
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The Beggar Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
The The Beggar’s Opera quotes below are all either spoken by The Beggar or refer to The Beggar. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Introduction
Quotes
If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure No-body can dispute mine. I own myself of the Company of Beggars; and I make one at their Weekly Festivals at St. Giles’s.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 16
Quotes
PLAYER. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
BEGGAR. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
PLAYER. Why then, Friend, this is a down-right deep Tragedy. The Catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an Opera must end happily.
BEGGAR. Your Objection, Sir, is very just; and is easily remov’d. For you must allow, that in this kind of Drama, ’tis no matter how absurdly things are brought about.—So—you Rabble there—run and cry a Reprieve—let the Prisoner be brought back to his Wives in Triumph.
PLAYER. All this we must do, to comply with the Taste of the Town.
BEGGAR. Through the whole Piece you may observe such a similitude of Manners in high and low Life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable Vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road, or the Gentlemen of the Road the fine Gentlemen.—Had the Play remain’d, as I at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent Moral. ’Twould have shown that the lower Sort of People have their Vices in a degree as well as the Rich: And that they are punish’d for them.
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