Hickory Dickory Dock
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- This article is about the nursery rhyme. For the Agatha Christie novel, see Hickory Dickory Dock (novel).
Hickory Dickory Dock is a children's nursery rhyme, also sometimes called Hickety Dickety Dock
Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
The mouse ran down (or "and down he run", or "down the mouse ran")
Hickory Dickory Dock
Contents |
[edit] Additions
A continuation to this is
Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck two
The mouse said "boo"
Hickory Dickory Dock
Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck three
The mouse said "wee"
Hickory Dickory Dock
Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck four
The mouse said "no more"
Hickory Dickory Dock
Another rhyme, Dickery Dickery Dare (or sometimes called "Hickory Dickory Dare") is often used as a second verse to "Hickory Dickory Dock."
Dickery dickery dare
The pig flew up in the air
The man in brown
Soon brought him down
Dickery dickery dare
[edit] Parody
- Hickory Dickory Dock
- Three mice ran up the clock
- The clock struck one
- The other two escaped with minor injuries
[edit] Language- and word-play
A book by Luis d'Antin Van Rooten, in which he is allegedly the editor of a manuscript by the fictional François Charles Fernand d’Antin, called Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames (the title is in French, but when pronounced, sounds like the English "Mother Goose Rhymes"), contains many poems in French which sound like well-known English nursery rhymes. Here is "Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?" ("Hickory Dickory Dock"):
- Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?
- De Meuse raines, houp! de cloques.
- De quelles loques ce turque coin.
- Et ne d'anes ni rennes,
- Ecuries des curés d'Oc.
An automated translation renders this in English as:
- And who laughs at the priests of Oc?
- From Meuse groove, houp! blisters.
- Of who wrecks this Turkish corner.
- And of neither asses nor reindeers,
- Stables of the priests of Oc.
("Oc" refers to Occitania. Van Rooten supplies copious footnotes in a parody of academic scholarship).
The point is that a reader with a knowledge of both English nursery rhymes and intermediate French would at first try to comprehend the meaning of the purported English translation ("aided" by the help of Van Rooten's copious footnotes, which thus become a parody), but then gradually, as it is realized which nursery rhyme is being sabotaged, would find humor in recognizing how cleverly the "editor" constructed the written French text to make the audible English rhyme.
[edit] Trivia
- A Trivial Pursuit question asks "What time did the mouse run up the clock?" The answer is given as 1 o'clock, but this must be wrong since the mouse did not run down until the clock had struck one.
- The plot of a Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie is loosely based on this nursery rhyme (Hickory Dickory Dock, 1955).
- As with many other nursery rhymes there are two substantially different melodies, one associated with Great Britain and the other with North America.
