Simple Simon (nursery rhyme) on:
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"Simple Simon" is an
The rhyme is as follows;
:Simple Simon met a pieman,
:Going to the fair;
:Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
:”Let me taste your ware.”
:Said the pieman unto Simon,
:Show me first your penny;
:Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
:”Indeed I have not any.”
:Simple Simon went a-fishing,
:For to catch a whale;
:All the water he had got,
:Was in his mother's pail.
:Simple Simon went to look
:If plums grew on a thistle;
:He pricked his fingers very much,
:Which made poor Simon whistle.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 333-4.
:He went for water in a sieve
:But soon it all fell through
:And now poor Simple Simon
:Bids you all adieu!
A page containing the full text of the rhyme
{{Authority control Year of song unknown Chapbooks English nursery rhymes English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Songs about fictional male characters
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 19777.
Lyrics
The rhyme is as follows;
:Simple Simon met a pieman,
:Going to the fair;
:Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
:”Let me taste your ware.”
:Said the pieman unto Simon,
:Show me first your penny;
:Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
:”Indeed I have not any.”
:Simple Simon went a-fishing,
:For to catch a whale;
:All the water he had got,
:Was in his mother's pail.
:Simple Simon went to look
:If plums grew on a thistle;
:He pricked his fingers very much,
:Which made poor Simon whistle.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 333-4.
:He went for water in a sieve
:But soon it all fell through
:And now poor Simple Simon
:Bids you all adieu!
Origins
The verses used today are the first of a longerchapbook
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...
history first published in 1764. The character of Simple Simon may have been in circulation much longer, possibly appearing in an Elizabethan chapbook and in a ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
, ''Simple Simon's Misfortunes and his Wife Margery's Cruelty'', from about 1685. Another possible inspiration was Simon Edy, a beggar in the St Giles area in the 18th century.
Notes
External links
A page containing the full text of the rhyme
{{Authority control Year of song unknown Chapbooks English nursery rhymes English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Songs about fictional male characters