There are many famous poems with lines that transcend the very work in which they appear. In this poem, by Stevenson, the utterance of “Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest” has now permeated culture, from Muppet’s Treasure Island (1996) to The Pirates of the Caribbean (2003). Such longevity might make one wonder: what is the staying power of this verse?
In this post, we are going to examine the poem “Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest” by Robert Louis Stevenson. This poem appears in chapter one of his novel Treasure Island (1883). In examining this poem, we can understand a little background about the verse itself and how it relates to the author’s novel. Of course, the poem is about pirates and the life of a pirate, but what inscrutable details can we parse out of it? Let’s find out!
Poem
Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest —
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest —
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
…
With one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five.
Analysis
As stated, the poem comes from Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson. It references the pirate Black Beard’s attempt to punish a mutinous crew by marooning them on Dead Man’s Chest island. The island itself is only 250 square yards and features high cliffs and not much to eat. Not a completely dastardly man, Black Beard left the crew members (15 all told) with a cutlass and bottle of rum apiece. His intention to return after 30 days to find that the men had all killed themselves fails, as they are still alive.
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
According to Stevenson, he found the name “Dead Man’s Chest” in a book by Charles Kingsley. Stevenson wrote: “Treasure Island came out of Kingsley’s At Last; where I go the Dead Man’s Chest — and that was the seed….” Stevenson also said the book itself came from Captain Johnson’s History of the Notorious Pirates. Curiously, a footnote in Selected Letters states that “Charles Kingsley refers briefly to The Dead Man’s Chest as the name given by buccaneers to one of the islets in the Virgin Islands. The name is in fact Dead Chest Island; there is a Deadman’s Bay on the nearby Peter Island” (Stevenson).
As such, it may not be a chest after all, but a colloquial nickname for an island that pirates once visited. That goes to show you how names can take on many different meanings!
Works Cited
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. New Haven, London. 2001.
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