I found today’s rhyme Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes to be an interesting example of how the language changes… I’d never even seen wanton as a noun before… and even then I think i’m going to have to crack open my copy of Oxford Unabridged to find it meaning what it does in this context.
Today’s rhyme, Madam, I Come a Courting, was another one that kind of stumped me the only real detail that’s given (beyond a courtship going on) is the implication that since the woman wants a handsome man, the suitor isn’t one. In the end, because of the line about how long flowers last I decided to focus on the garden this was taking place in.
The rhyme seems to accuse the woman of being only interested in beauty… says the man who assumes love can be bought…
Of course I’m sure whoever wrote this would say “what has love got to do with marriage?”
I think today’s rhyme, “A Long Tail’d Pig” is more of an example of values dissonance than a when was this ever for kids rhyme. At first I assumed the latter because of… brutality of the life on the farm, butchering a pig. But then I tried to think of it from the perspective of a child from the 17th century the response to that statement would be “yeah, what’s your point?”
For today’s nursery rhyme, “Dance Thumbkin, Dance!” I’ve come to the conclusion that children sitting on their parent’s lap is something I have to add to the bin, containing cats and horses, of things I can’t draw without a reference.
Anyway with this one it was a choice between taking the rhyme completely literally and have a picture of five men dancing, which probably wouldn’t make much sense or the way I chose with a mother singing the song with her child while wiggling each finger, which is difficult to make clear in one panel… perhaps if I had done it more as a closeup.
On a side note, as I’d said previously, I’ve been rereading A Song of Ice and Fire… So I couldn’t help thinking about a very different finger dance when I was drawing this.
Today’s Rhyme, “I Doubt, I doubt”, made no sense whatsoever when I read it the first time. I guess it had something to do with a guy going nuts when his wife was out and… when she got home she killed a dog, I guess?
As I’ve said in previous ones this will definitely be the last one like this and when I come across them the best I can do is do the most memorable image in the poem… Which in this case is a dog and a pig wearing a saddle and a bridle respectively.
I briefly thought of doing today’s rhyme, Henry was a Worthy King, literally until I got to the finally verse and it seemed clear it was a couple of kids playing at kings and queens in the garden.
On a side note I technically failed today’s challenge as the first number I pulled was for a poem about what colors Witches wear on Halloween and when you’re working with grey pencils that’s kind of tricky.
