The bal­lad “Eti­quette” from “The Bab Bal­lads” tells a humor­ous yet insight­ful sto­ry about the absur­di­ties of social con­ven­tions and the pow­er­ful role of per­son­al con­nec­tions. The tale begins with the sink­ing of the BALLYSHANNON off the coast of Cari­boo, lead­ing to the unfor­tu­nate drown­ing of its crew, cap­tains, and greedy own­ers. How­ev­er, two pas­sen­gers, Young PETER GRAY, a tea taster for BAKER, CROOP, AND CO., and SOMERS, an importer of indi­go from East­ern shores, sur­vive by cling­ing to a mast and even­tu­al­ly find them­selves cast away on a desert­ed island.

Despite their des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion, the two men adhere rigid­ly to social eti­quette, refus­ing to com­mu­ni­cate or coop­er­ate with each oth­er because they have not been for­mal­ly intro­duced. As a result, they divide the island between them, with GRAY tak­ing the north and SOMERS the south. Iron­i­cal­ly, their respec­tive sides of the island yield the very resources each man can­not stand or are sick­ened by—oysters for GRAY and tur­tles for SOMERS.

The turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship comes when GRAY over­hears SOMERS men­tion a mutu­al acquain­tance, ROBINSON, spark­ing a con­ver­sa­tion and lead­ing to their for­mal intro­duc­tion. This dis­cov­ery of a shared con­nec­tion trans­forms them from strangers to friends, enabling them to enjoy each oth­er’s resources and com­pan­ion­ship. They bond over singing, writ­ing odes, and shar­ing tales of wives and past adven­tures, even sav­ing each oth­er’s lives on sev­er­al occa­sions.

Their sto­ry takes anoth­er turn with the arrival of a frigate, which they ini­tial­ly con­sid­er as a means to return to Eng­land. Yet, they decide against leav­ing when they dis­cov­er the ship is a con­vict ves­sel, humor­ous­ly rec­og­niz­ing a fel­low named ROBINSON among the con­victs, con­demned for embez­zle­ment. This rev­e­la­tion caus­es a rift between GRAY and SOMERS, as asso­ci­at­ing with some­one con­nect­ed to a con­vict tar­nish­es their new­found friend­ship. They return to their pre­vi­ous arrange­ment, divid­ing the island and resum­ing their soli­tary lives, now estranged due to the unfor­tu­nate asso­ci­a­tion with ROBINSON.

Through wit­ty vers­es and a clever nar­ra­tive, “Eti­quette” sat­i­rizes the ludi­crous yet per­va­sive influ­ence of social norms and the whim­si­cal nature of human rela­tion­ships, all set against the back­drop of sur­vival and friend­ship test­ed by soci­etal con­straints.