The Very Model of a modern Major-General

The classic aria from Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance

I am the very model of a modern Major-General;
I've information vegetable, animal and mineral:
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lit o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse...
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I know our mystic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics; I've a pretty taste for paradox;
I quote, in elegiacs, all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies
I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's dinafore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense, Pinafore!...
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:
In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

In fact when I know what is meant my "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
When such affairs of sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery--
In short when I've a smattering of elemental strategy--
You'll say a better major-General has never sat a gee.
For my military knowledge, tho' I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.