Bedtime-Story CLASSIC
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey,
and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh! let us be married;
too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
About the Author: EDWARD LEAR - b1812 London, England--d.1888, Italy
The twentieth child of Jeremiah Lear, a London stockbroker, and his wife Ann, Lear grew up to become a prolific writer as well as a talented artist of both landscapes and birds. Lear also gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria of England. Lear was particularly enchanted with nonsense poetry, and devoted a number of his books to collections of such poems as this;
VOCABULARY:
Antique Words: "runcible"
The term runcible appears in English for the first time in E. Lear's nonsense verse. As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, the word has taken on a life of its own. The Oxford English Dictionary2 on CD-ROM © Copyright Oxford University Press 1994 provides this definition and citations:
runcible, adjective. A nonsense word used by Edward Lear in runcible cat, hat, etc., and esp. in runcible spoon, in later use applied to a kind of fork used for pickles, etc., curved like a spoon and having three broad prongs of which one has a sharp edge.
E. Lear 1871 Owl & Pussy-Cat in Nonsense Songs
They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon.
five-pound note: This is money. The Owl and the Pussycat took some money along with them to buy things when they traveled. Think of it like a five dollar bill. Here are two versions of an English Five Pound Note. The one on the left is from 1935. The one on the right is a more recent bill which has Queen Elizabeth of England on the front, and on the reverse side is The Duke of Wellington b.1769 - d.1852.
Our thanks to Ben Mottram from the U.K. for providing the 1935 version. 
Дата добавления: 2015-10-24; просмотров: 109 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая страница | | | следующая страница ==> |
| Strikes by Shore Personnel | | | They are always having parties until the early hours of the morning. |