The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished. The melody is very typical of the middle English period.
Scarborough Fair - English Folk Song
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there She once was a true love of mine.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
- On the side of a hill in the deep forest green Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
- Tracing a sparrow on snow
-crested ground
Without no seams nor needlework
- Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain.
Then she'll be a true love of mine
- Sleeps unaware of the clarion call
Tell her to find me an acre of land
- On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
- Washes the ground with so many tears
Between the salt water and the sea strand
- A soldier cleans and polishes a gun
Then she'll be a true love of mine.
Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
- War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
- Generals order their soldiers to kill
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
- And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten
