Mother Goose as Mother Nature
Part 4: Love and Death
Whenever we look back on the history of humanity, we find that there are two main occasions when people tend to come together. The first comes whenever someone is going to get married, as with “The Wedding of the Flea and the Nit.” All come together to pitch in and make it happen. The second occasion occurs whenever someone dies, as with “The Death of Cock Robin,” when all the birds gather to give the dead robin a proper funeral. Nursery rhymes tend to feature children that are playing at being adults. In this first ditty, a dead blackbird senses an old lady moving by its grave, and he gives her a big wallop:
“The old, dead blackbird soundly rests in his tomb, rests in his tomb, rests in his tomb. The old, dead blackbird soundly rests in his tomb, ay, ay, ay. The sun-ripened fruit has now started to fall, started to fall, started to fall. The sun-ripened fruit has now started to fall, ay, ay, ay. An old lady soon comes to gather it all, gather it all, gather it all. An old lady soon comes to gather it all, ay, ay, ay. The old blackbird stood up and gave her a whop, gave her a whop, gave her a whop. The old blackbird stood up and gave her a whop, ay, ay, ay. If you’d to hear it, then sing it yourself, sing it yourself, sing it yourself. If you’d like to hear it, then sing it yourself, ay, ay, ay.”
Sometimes love takes extreme measures such as with passion. Whenever passion gets out of hand, violence tends to enter the picture. In this traditional Spanish ditty, a mountain shepherdess lives alone with her cat. She loves her kitty, as long as it behaves itself. But whenever the cat sticks its snout into her homemade cheese, she kills her cat, and she must therefore go confess her sin. Fr. Gil gives her a penance, which would be considered sexual harassment by the standards of today:
“Way up into the mountains, her little flock a-tending, there lived a shepherd lady who, one day come descending, she came descending. It seems the shepherd lady, who did a little baking, took milk from her dear sheepies, a little cheese was making, -a cheese was making. When she had made the morsel, not felling pai or pity, she set it on the table and told her little kitty, -she told her kitty: ‘If you go near my cheesie, your little paws a-sticking, you’ll be so very sorry; you’ll get more than a licking, -more than a licking.’ She didn’t stick her pawsies since it was not her duty. She climbed up on the table and stuck her little snootie,
-her little snootie. The shepherdess went crazy because she disobeyed her. She struck her little kitty and in the grass she laid her, -in grass she laid her. She went forth to Confession, to save her little soulie, and told it to her pastor, Fr. Gil, good and holy -so good and holy. ‘Because you lost your temper, I tell you now, my missy, you’ll have to come and hug me and must give me a kissy, -a little kissy.”
In the Middle Ages, all of creation was divided into “The Great Chain of Being,” wherein all creatures had a regent and each also had its own negative or antithetical value. The animal kingdom had the noble lion as king and his antithetical value was the fox or the dragon. Among the plants, the rose was queen and the negative aspect was the briar or the thistle. The pearl was the queen among the gems, and its antithetical value was the jet or black coral.
In the kingdom of evil its king was the god Loki or the Devil, and among the animals the leader of mischief was the monkey as we see in the lullaby: “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell down and broke his head. They took him to the doctor, and this is what he said: ‘That’s what you get for jumping on the bed.’ ”In Latino culture, the monkey is considered a more dangerous creature: “Punky the monkey, he killed his dear wife with his little dagger; his sharp-pointed knife. He took out her guts and since he had no money, he traded them in for tortillas