"Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat" or "Pussycat, Pussycat" is a popular
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
nursery rhyme
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.
From t ...
. It has a
Roud Folk Song Index
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...
number of 15094.
Lyrics and melody
Common modern versions include:
:Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
:I've been to London to visit/look at the Queen.
:Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there?
:I frightened a little mouse under her/the chair.
I. Opie and P. Opie
Iona Margaret Balfour Opie, (13 October 1923 – 23 October 2017) and Peter Mason Opie (25 November 1918 – 5 February 1982) were an English married team of folklorists who applied modern techniques to understanding children's literature and ...
, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 357.
The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first noted by the composer and nursery rhyme collector
James William Elliott
James William Elliott (J.W. Elliott) (1833 – 1915) was an England, English collector of nursery rhymes. Together with George Dalziel and Edward Dalziel who did the engraving he published ''Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs Set to Mu ...
in his ''National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs'' (1870).
[J. J. Fuld, ''The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'' (Courier Dover Publications, 5th edn., 2000), , p. 502.] For the original version, there is no 'do' in 'what did you there'.
Origins
The earliest record of the rhyme is publication in ''Songs for the Nursery'', printed in London in 1805.
[ The Queen most often depicted in illustrations is ]Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, but Caroline of Brunswick has also been suggested.[
]
Notes
{{Use dmy dates, date=September 2018
English nursery rhymes
Songs about cats
Songs about London
Songs about mice and rats
English children's songs
English folk songs
Traditional children's songs