[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Poem
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 09:22:55 -0700
on 8/14/05 11:04 PM, John McCreery at mccreery@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> On 2005/08/15, at 14:55, David Ritchie wrote:
>
>> John, love, you'll often find me with Charles two in the orangery,
>> guarded by three dear little mice with, shall we say, nothing behind?
>
>
> Bit of buggery 'round the bush, eh?
>
See ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nell_Gwyn
As for the three blind mice reference...I knew the verse was old, but it's
older even than I thought. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes says
that in 1609 people were singing:
Three blinde Mice, three blinde Mice,
Dame Julian, Dame Julian,
the Miller and his merry olde Wife,
she scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife.
When adults were nearly "done" with this, more than two hundred years later,
Dr. E. F. Rimbault turned the words over to children.
Searching for further information on Dr. Rimbault and his 1846 collection, I
found that he had linked a different nursery rhyme to two of Charles the
Second's courtesans:
Lucy Locket lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it;
Not a penny was there in it,
Only ribbon round it.
Iona and Peter Opie, authors of the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes call
the link "unscholastic" since no manuscript copy has been found of "Lydia
Fisher's Jig," the song in which this verse is said to have appeared.
However, they offer, almost by way of consolation, a copy of another jig, an
early version of "Yankee Doodle" which was published in London in 1777, and
add that four lines from this appear to take off from "Lucy Locket lost her
pocket" or "anyway show awareness of a verse very similar to it:"
Dolly Bushel let a Fart,
Jenny Jones she found it,
Ambrose carried it to Mill,
Where Doctor Warren ground it.
Carry on beating about the bush.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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