"Go to death, and go to slaughter!": The un-glorious carnage of war is just one thing that Series 2 of "Downton Abbey" is capturing strikingly

"Go to death, and go to slaughter;
die, and every Cornish daughter
with her tears your grave shall water.
Go, ye heroes, go and die!"

No, Series 2 of Downton Abbey hasn't become a battlefield drama, but World War I looms over everything that's happening so far, and we even get some effective glimpses of the battlefront in France, with not a lot of glory involved. That's conniving Thomas, the mobilized Grantham footman (Rob James-Collier), in the foreground.

Major-General Stanley has called on the gallant young Frederic to "let your escort lion-hearted be summoned to receive a general’s blessing, ere they depart upon their dread adventure" -- going into combat against the dreaded Pirates of Penzance. "Dear Sir," Frederic replied, "they come." Indeed they do. The "escort lion-hearted" turns out to be the local constabulary.

Enter POLICE, marching in single file. They form in line, facing audience.

SERGEANT, with POLICE: When the foeman bares his steel -- tarantara! tarantara! --
we uncomfortable feel -- tarantara! --
and we find the wisest thing -- tarantara! tarantara! --
is to slap our chests and sing -- tarantara!
For when threatened with emeutes -- trantara! tarantara! --
and your heart is in your boots -- tarantara! --
there is nothing brings it round
like the trumpet’s martial sound,
like the trumpet’s martial sound.
ALL: Tarantara! tarantara!, etc.
MABEL: Go, ye heroes, go to glory,
though ye die in combat gory
ye shall live in song and story.
Go to immortality!
Go to death, and go to slaughter;
die, and every Cornish daughter
with her tears your grave shall water.
Go, ye heroes, go and die!
GIRLS: Go, ye heroes, go and die!
SERGEANT, with POLICE: Though to us it’s evident -- tarantara! tarantara! --
these attentions are well meant -- tarantara! --
such expressions don’t appear -- tarantara! tarantara! --
calculated men to cheer -- tarantara! --
who are going to meet their fate
in a highly nervous state -- tarantara! tarantara! tarantara!
Still to us it’s evident
these attentions are well meant -- tarantara! tarantara! tarantara!
EDITH: Go and do your best endeavour,
and before all links we sever,
we will say farewell forever.
go to glory and the grave!
GIRLS: Go to glory and the grave!
For your foes are fierce and ruthless,
false, unmerciful, and truthless;
young and tender, old and toothless,
all in vain their mercy crave.
SERGEANT: We observe too great a stress,
on the risks that on us press,
and of reference a lack
to our chance of coming back.
Still, perhaps it would be wise
not to carp or criticise,
for it’s very evident
these attentions are well meant.
POLICE: Yes, it’s very evident
these attentions are well meant, etc.
CHORUS OF ALL BUT POLICE:
Go, ye heroes, go to glory, etc.
CHORUS OF POLICE:
When the foeman bears his steel, etc.
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY: Away, away!
POLICE [without moving]: Yes, yes, we go.
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY: These pirates slay.
POLICE: Tarantara!
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY: Then do not stay.
POLICE: Tarantara!
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY: Then why this delay?
POLICE: All right, we go.
Yes, forward on the foe!
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY: Yes, but you don’t go!
POLICE: We go, we go
Yes, forward on the foe!
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY: Damme, you don’t go!
ALL: At last they really go!

-- from Act II of The Pirates of Penzance (1879)

The shivering-in-their-boots police, spoken for by their intrepid Sergeant (Donald Adams), are exhorted on to glory by Major-General Stanley's daughters Mabel (Valerie Masterson) and Edith (Ann Hood) and prodded on -- in mounting exasperation -- by the general himself (John Reed). Sir Malcolm Sargent conducts the D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus and the Royal Philharmonic in this 1965 recording.

by Ken

I enjoyed Season 1 of Downton Abbey without quite getting what the uproar was about, on both sides of the Atlantic. So while I certainly intended to watch Season 2 when it arrived (which it did last night on many PBS stations), I also had a little trepidation about it. I mean, how much more mileage could you get out of the premise, which was sort of moving Upstairs, Downstairs to rural Yorkshire and the estate of an almost too-good-to-be-true earl (Lord Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville, pictured here in uniform) whose immediate family faces something like eventual ruination due to the preposterous law that makes it impossible for either the title or the estate to pass to any of his three (shudder!) daughters? And never mind that the not-so-near cousin to whom the title will instead pass, Matthew (Dan Stevens), doesn't want anything to do with it.

I have to say, I was encouraged by the premiere episode last night. As I usually do, I had avoided reading or hearing about it as much as I could, which I would have done even if I was waiting on tenterhooks for it. I want the story told by the storytellers -- the writer (once again series creator Julian Fellowes) and the teams of actors, directors, and producers. (UPDATE: And of course the legions of other behind-the-camera people. They're part of the storytelling too, and I don't know how I could have left them out.)

I had nevertheless become aware that Series 2 would be interacting with World War I, and I can't say that encouraged me either. Hasn't that been, you know, done? Yes, but as it turns out, it can be done again, and still show us some powerful things about what it means to go to war, things I'm afraid we still need to be shown quite a lot.

The new series jumps two years from the end of Series 1 to 1916, meaning that the "Great War" is well under way and our characters have all had time to adjust to the new realities of national "glory" and horrific carnage. It's still possible for one of the servant characters (Thomas, wasn't it?) to rattle on about his willingness, no eagerness, to serve "King and country." But it may be that the very absence of any discussion of the geopolitical issues of the war serves to underscore how little idea these people have as to why they're fighting this unimaginably horrible war.

Already by 1916 the scale of the dying -- and the maiming -- has become a horrifying reality for most everyone. And one of the fascinating realities is how war intersects with the entrenched class system. The war doesn't break the system down, but it sure gives it a mighty shaking, and the Downton Abbey team so far is doing a dandy job of showing us how the experience of war is filtered through the characters' very different class situations, including the way people of different standings were forced into interactions that just wouldn't have happened otherwise, to the frequent befuddlement of most and the consternation of some.

The team finds all sorts of interesting ways of dramatizing the preposterousness of those class differences. Maybe it's just me, but something as simple as the arrival of a train from London at the little local station packed a wallop, as people emerge so differently from adjacent third-class and first-class carriages, even before we become aware that two of "our" characters are among them -- Lord Grantham's valet Bates (Brendan Coyle) emerging from third class and the eldest Crawley sister, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery, pictured here), from first. In all the scenes directly related to the war -- in the trenches in France, in the hospital back home -- there's the preposterous reality that officers are officers simply because they did so much better a job at being born, and are attended by batmen who are in all likelihood older and wiser.

We're also exposed to the reality that especially by 1916 the country wasn't by any means unanimous in its thirst for military glory. Oh yes, life could be made unpleasant for able-bodied men not in uniform, but we also see our share of men by no means eager to be drawn into the fray.

And of course the war also wreaks havoc on that other "settled" great division: the one between men and women. The youngest of the Crawley sisters, Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown-Findlay), driven by her war awakening ("Sometimes it feels as if all the men I ever danced with are dead," she says), seeks a way of serving in the war effort, and determines to become a nurse. The evil middle sister, Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael), learns to drive a truck (shocking!) -- and manages to do evil while ostensibly helping a local farmer. And poor Mr. Carson, the Grantham butler (Jim Carter, pictured here), having lost both his footmen to the war effort, and after experimenting disastrously with using His Lordship's new valet, Lang (Cal Macaninch), via whom we're introduced to the new and improved phenomenon of "shell shock," has to contemplate the unthinkable: having women serve at table!

Sure, you notice plot mechanics creaking around the edges. But the reward for having establlshed such a nice set of characters in Series 1 (many of whom I haven't mentioned, only because they didn't happen to come up here -- the huge cast is really all awfully good) is that you can get a lot of mileage by adding the new reality of war to the already-established battlefields of class and gender inequality. It's early yet, of course, but there's the potential for Series 2 of Downton Abbey to be better than Series 1.

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