http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence wrote:
<<Sing a Song of Sixpence is a well known English nursery rhyme, at least as old as the 18th century.
A common modern version is:
[list] Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.[/list][/color]The final line of the fourth verse is sometimes slightly varied, with nose pecked or nipped off.
One of the following additional verses is often added to moderate the ending:
[list] They send for the king's doctor,
who sewed it on again;
He sewed it on so neatly,
the seam was never seen.[/list][/color]or:
[list] There was such a commotion,
that little Jenny wren;
Flew down into the garden,
and put it back again.[/list][/color]The rhyme's ultimate origins are uncertain. References have been inferred in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (c. 1602), (Act II, Scene iii), where Sir Toby Belch tells a clown: "Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song" and in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca (1614), where the line "Whoa, here's a stir now! Sing a song o' sixpence!" occurs. In the past it has often been attributed to George Steevens (1736–1800), who used it in a pun at the expense of Poet Laureate Henry James Pye (1745–1813) in 1790, but the first verse had already appeared in print in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published in London around 1744, in the form:
[list] Sing a Song of Sixpence,
A bag full of Rye,
Four and twenty Naughty Boys,
Baked in a Pye.[/list][/color]The next printed version that survives, from around 1780, has two verses and the boys have been replaced by birds. A version of the modern four verses is first extant in Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus published in 1784, which ends with a magpie attacking the unfortunate maid. The additional fifth verses with the happier endings began to be added from the middle of the 19th century.
Many interpretations have been placed on this rhyme. It is known that a 16th century amusement was to place live birds in a pie. An Italian cookbook from 1549 (translated into English in 1598) contained such a recipe: "to make pies so that birds may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up" and this was referred to in a cook book of 1725 by John Nott. The wedding of Marie de' Medici and Henry IV of France in 1600 contains some interesting parallels. "The first surprise, though, came shortly before the starter—when the guests sat down, unfolded their napkins and saw songbirds fly out. The highlight of the meal were sherbets of milk and honey, which were created by Buontalenti."
Theories of the significance of the rhyme listed by Iona and Peter Opie include:
[list] * That the twenty-four birds are the hours of the day, the king the sun, the queen the moon, etc.
* That the blackbird taking the maid's nose is a demon stealing her soul.
* That the blackbirds are the choirs of the 'dainty dish' of the monasteries
dissolved by Henry VIII and that Catherine of Aragon is the queen and Anne Boleyn is the maid.
* That the rye and birds are tribute sent to Henry VIII.
* That it celebrates the printing of the first English Bible, typeset with twenty-four letters.[/list][/color]No corroborative evidence has been found to support these theories and given that the earliest version has only one verse and mentions "naughty boys" and not blackbirds, they can only be applicable if it is assumed that more recently printed versions accurately preserve an older tradition.
An origin posted on the Snopes.com section The Repository Of Lost Legends (TROLL) - that the song was originally used by Blackbeard's pirates to attract new members - was actually created by Snopes, and has no factual basis, but was an exercise, like the other Lost Legends, in advising against false authority.>>
