If one thing is for certain about being a human being on Earth, it’s this: we all need a little guidance. As children, that help comes from teachers. But what do those teachers employ? Often songs and ditties. This is why nursery rhymes have been so popular throughout human history, why hundreds of them have subsisted throughout the centuries.
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But there are two ways to learn: by following someone’s good example or by making sure not to follow someone’s bad example. Here below we will dive into the latter via the traditional nursery rhyme, “Simple Simon.” In short: don’t be like Simon. That’s the basic meaning. But let’s explore more.
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Try Not To Make Mistakes
Simple Simon is not someone you want to be like. Throughout history, there have been many examples of characters like this. But they all generally share the same characteristics: they do dumb things, don’t understand how society works and are unable to grasp even the most basic of concepts. For Simple Simon, this comes down to jobs like fetching water, shopping for food and going fishing. See:
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.
He went for water in a sieve
But soon it all fell through
And now poor Simple Simon
Bids you all adieu
In five verses, we learn how unprepared, unaware and rather incapable this person is. Reading about him, does it make you want to be him? Of course not! So, what lessons does this rhyme teach us: know how commerce works, know how to catch a fish (or provide for yourself) and know how to gather water (and how basic physics works). These are all reasonable lessons.
And what is the consequence if you don’t know how to do these things? Well, in a way, loneliness and perhaps even excommunication or exclusion. In the end, we learn, after all those errors, Simple Simon bids “all adieu,” meaning he is leaving the pack behind. But not for valor, for stupidity.
Origin And Final Thoughts
This rhyme, the origin of which comes from a 1764 book but may date as far back as the 1685 work, Simple Simon’s Misfortunes and his Wife Margery’s Cruelty, is said to perhaps be inspired by notorious British beggar Simon Edy. But more likely, the alliteration and the concept of the character came first.
No matter the roots, what the rhyme teaches us is to behave, fall in line and learn the way things work. Or else. But it does so in a cute, sing-song way that is easily digestible, memorable and sharable. Like a good pie from a pieman!
Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images
