Brexit

No set of limericks would be complete without something about Brexit, which is generating more heat at the moment than Hinkley Point C. It may turn out to be a triumph or a calamity, or more probably a shambles. We shall see.

 To start, Dumas’ three famous characters came to mind, so:

Just look at the three Brexiteers
And realise your very worst fears
With Pathos, Bathos and
Allamiss to hand
It's enough to reduce you to tears 

 

Please feel free to choose your own interpretation. Is there a d'Artagnan waiting in the wings do you think?

Take pity on poor Theresa
No news at the moment to please her
"Of course there's a plan
I'll tell when I can"
So unkind of her MPs to tease her

Clearly she's stuck between a rock and a hard Brexit, not helped by the mutterings of her Foreign Secretary on the subject of cake.

"We're having our cake and we're eating it
I've said it and now I'm repeating it
Don't listen  to them
It's all so much phlegm
They need us and will end up admitting it"

Sorry about the rhyming (or lack of it) in the last line.

Apparently there's a suggestion that we may offer the EU some form of subscription (i.e. bribe) to sort of stay in: about £350M a week perhaps. Sorry about the NHS.

We don't want to be part of the club
But perhaps if we offered a sub
They'd see their way clear
To make it appear
As if we were out - there's the rub

Clever Clogs

People have played all sorts of games with limericks, including one person who wrote one reading from bottom to top. When I was at school we had a prize for solving mathematical connundrums (connundra?) which I never won. We had a clever clogs in the class who always did, and went on to get a first. This limerick is by a British mathematician who would also no doubt have won.

12 + 144 + 20 + 3√4  + (5x11) = 9² + 0
               7

Or in English:

A dozen, a gross and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more

Another from the same Wikipedia source makes fun of the difference between pronunciation and spelling, in this case of the Scots name Menzies.

A lively young damsel named Menzies
Inquired:"Do you know what this thenzies?'
Her aunt with a gasp
Replied "It's a wasp
And you're holding the end where the stenzies"

Two more of the same, the first from me this time and the second modified from Brownielocks:

A girl who was dressed all in taupe
Was considered a bit of a daupe
Her parents despaired
Of getting her paired
Said her mother "there isn't a haupe"

An elderly bride from Port Jervis
Was quite understandably nervis
As her much younger groom
With three wives in the toom
Was insuring her during the servis

The next two were collected by Bennet Cerf, who, in his own words revised, dry cleaned and annotated them. The second one is particularly complicated, hence splitting the first line in two. It illustrates the incredible problems people learning English must have with pronouncing -ough, and that's not the only one!

There was a young girl in the choir
Whose voice went up hoir and hoir
'Till on Sunday night 
It vanished from sight
And turned up next day in the spoir 

The wind was rough ...
... and cold and blough
She kept her hands within her mough
It chilled her through
Her nose tuned blough
And still the squall the faster flough

And yet, although ...
... there was no snough
The weather was a cruel fough
It made her cough
Please do not scough
She coughed until her hat blough ough

Naughty Naughty

The following anonymous limerick is to be found in Wikipedia's entry on the limerick as poetry:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space which is quite economical
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical

I don't necessarily agree, but many of the saucy ones are funny, although most would not qualify for an airing on the BBC. Otherwise serious writers, such as George Bernard Shaw thought that clean limericks were generally rather dull.  Be warned, some of the ones which follow are definitely saucy, but, at the same time, funny.

 Isaac Asimov, when not concocting laws for robots, wrote dirty (and funny) limericks. Here is one from his book "Lecherous Limericks":

There was a sweet girl of Decatur 
Who went to sea on a freighter
She was screwed by the master
An utter disaster
But the crew all made up for it later

I like this one, source unknown, though often quoted:

There was a young girl of Cape Cod
Who thought babies were fashioned by God
But 'twas not the Almighty
Who hitched up her nightie
'Twas Roger the lodger, the sod

This one is politically incorrect, but it sort of illustrates Mendel's first law:

There was a young lady called Starkey
Who had an affair with a darkie
The result of her sins
Was quadruplets not twins
One black, one white and two khaki

And finally, the first from AngelFire, and the second from me (do your own translation):

A wanton young lady from Wimley
Reproached for not acting quite primly
Said, "Heavens above!
I know sex isn't love,
But it's such an entrancing facsimile."

I knew it would just be my luck
At the end of our ultimate (activity often conducted in bed)
For her chap to appear
Full of whisky and cheer
With my (male appendage) irretrievably stuck

Nantucket ...

One of the oldest and most famous first lines for a limerick is "There was a young man from Nantucket". Its obvious rhyming potential has led to many rude limericks, but the earliest versions are rather more ingenious and cleaner. According to Wikipedia, the original one was:

There once was a man from Nantucket 
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
But his daughter, named Nan
Ran away with a man 
And as for the bucket, Nantucket

This led to variations on the same style, playing ingenious games with the first and last lines. Two of them are:

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket
The man and the girl with the bucket
And he said to the man
He was welcome to Nan
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset
Where he still held the cash as an asset
But Nan and the man 
Stole the money and ran
As as for the bucket, Manhasset 

So, now two small additions to the series:

The man then went back to Nantucket
And put some more cash in the bucket
Nan flashed him a smile
And then ran a mile  
So once more the wily Nantucket

That foolish old man from Nantucket
Wept over the now empty bucket
With Nan on the run
Once again she had won
So all he could say was "Oh! fuck it"   

There now I've said it! 

Shakespeare Again

When writing the original post I thought of two more limericks on Shakespearian themes (loosely). The first, with apologies to the Scottish play (I'm not superstitious), is:

Why should we three meet again
In thunder, lightning or in rain
Oh bugger the weather
Let's  just get together
And move the whole scene out to Spain

When the remains of Richard III were found in a Leicester car park, I thought:

How sad for Richard of Gloucester
At Bosworth, his kingdom, he lost her
If he'd cried for a car
And got out faster by far
He wouldn't have ended in Leicester

It then transpired that Edward I's remains may be under a car park in Reading, which is even more down market I would have thought. I doubt if William the Conqueror would have been pleased.

Take pity on Edward the first
Another king whose ending was curs'd
Is Leicester or Reading
The best place to be dead in
I'm damn'd if I know which is worst

The Flood

Apologies for no posts since January, but in early February the house was flooded, not very deeply, but enough to cause a horrible mess, and costing lots of noughts to repair. As you can imagine, I have been somewhat preoccupied, but repairing is well under way, the insurance company have been cooperative, and more limericks are emerging.

We've recently experienced a flood
And what is much worse lots of mud
Thanks to a kind neighbour
And a fair amount of labour
We managed to move all the crud

Now some order is almost restored
Repaired, re-painted and re-floored
We'll need to prevent
Any similar event
But we've recovered, and so thank the lord

Quote ... Unquote

Nigel Rees'  radio programme and books provide lots of material for composing limericks, such as this quotation from Sarah, Duchess of Malborough:

"My Lord returned from the war and pleasured me in his topboots", so:

My Lord just returned from the war
And pleasured me thrice on the floor
I'd rather the bed
The floor hurts my head
But it's better than up against the door

The rhythm of the last line is a bit flaky - improvements would be welcomed.

Sir Walter Raleigh is reputed to have taken advantage of a young lady of the court up against a tree. She is supposed to have responded with "Swisser, swatter, Sir Walter", whatever that means, pleasure one hopes.

Thought Sir Walter "perhaps I shall kiss her
But with my luck I'll probably miss her
First a little caress
Then up with her dress
I'll give her one - what's with this swisser?"

Dorothy Parker was noted for her sharp tongue and devastating wit. When at one Hallowe'en party she was told that people were ducking for apples she said "there but for a typographical error is the story of my life". She is also reported to have told a potential caller that she was "too fucking busy - or vice versa". This quotation from her isn't a limerick, and I certainly couldn't match it, but it's very memorable.

“By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying."

Animal Stories

The first animal story concerns one Gérard de Nerval a 19th-century French poet. He had a pet lobster called Thibault, who, it is rumoured, he took on a walk in the garden of the Palais Royal in Paris. The story is probably apocryphal, and whole thing is explored in detail in the Museum of Hoaxes website.
So:
 

The lobster he’d bought for a lark

To take it for walks in the park
It was such a shame
Just not quite the same
If only he’d taught it to bark

The next two are a sort of reflection on the human condition. The first is anon as far as I can tell, the second comes from Ranjit Bolt's book referred to in the introduction.

Said an envious, erudite ermine,
"There's one thing I cannot determine;
When a dame wears my coat,
She's a person of note;
When I wear it, they label me vermine!"

Two bugs were discusing Man's Evil
Whether it was acquired or primeval
"I've no views on that head"
The wiser one said
"I'm just thankful I'm only a weevil"

Sometimes ascribed wrongly to Ogden Nash, but actually by Dixon Lannier Merritt, an American newspaper editor, poet and humourist, this limerick is great example of the form.

A wonderful bird is the pelican 
His bill will hold more than his belican
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I'm damned if I see how the helican

The last two are a) silly and b) a tongue twister. The first comes from the Brownielocks website, the second is by Ogden Nash, the great American humourist. 

Amazingly, antelope stew
Is supposed to be better for you

Than a goulash of rat
Or Hungarian cat;

But I guess that you probably gnu.

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "let us flee!"
"Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue. 

Edward Lear

Probably the best known limericist is Edward Lear, who in 1846 published his "First Book of Nonsense". He didn't call his verses limericks though they follow the form more or less precisely.
There are 212 of them and they follow a particular style not much used today, in that the 5th line is,  unlike modern limericks, less of a punchline and more of a recapitulation of the previous lines. So:

There was an Old Person in Gray,
Whose feelings were tinged with dismay;
She purchased two Parrots,
And fed them with Carrots,
Which pleased that Old Person in Gray.

The last line of this very well-known one is, however, more like today's form. The last few words of lines 1 and 5 are nearly always the same.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said 'It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

So lacking a conventional punchline, the last line is an anticlimax which gives the verses their particular attraction. Arguably his most famous poem is "The Owl and the Pussy-cat":

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!'

It's not strictly a limerick of course, and it has 2 more verses (Wikipedia has them). However I couldn't resist the thought of them spending the £5 and running out of money. Hence: 

Said the Owl to the Pussycat "I vote
That's it's time to sell the green boat
They'd have got a lot more
Than three pounds ninety-four
If the damned thing had managed to float

 Lear's books of nonsense poetry were popular in the 19th century, and encouraged many others to use the limerick form. Many modern limericks are rude; indeed there is a school of thought that holds that clean limericks are second-rate. Lear's limericks are never rude.

Shakespeare ...

Our Will used the limerick form several times in his plays. These are not limericks in the "traditional" sense, but he uses the form for various songs. The one most often quoted is from Othello Act 2:

And let me the canakin clink, clink;
And let me the canakin clink.
A soldier's a man;
A life's but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.

It strikes me that this has an Omar Khayyam feel about it. It reminds me of, for example, quatrain 37, which coincidentally has a similar metre to a limerick:

Ah, fill the cup - what boots it to repeat
How time is slipping underneath our feet:
Unborn tomorrow, and dead yesterday,
Why fret about them if today be sweet!

Two other songs in limerick form come from Hamlet Act 4, sung by Ophelia, after going mad and before committing suicide. One intriguing aspect of this is that the songs are about a girl presumably being deflowered. In her mad scene Ophelia gives away flowers including rue and wormwood, both of which were used in abortions, implying that Hamlet was responsible.

By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't,
if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done,
by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

A final thought to bring the reader back to earth:

Our Will had a way with a quill
We go to his plays even still
To follow the plot
Demands quite a lot
But his quill still gives us a thrill

The First One

According to Wikipedia the earliest authentic limerick is a prayer ascribed to Thomas Aquinas, the highly influental Catholic theologian and philosopher. The limerick was written, naturally, in Latin.
 

Sit vitiorum meorum evacuatio

Concupiscentae et libidinis exterminatio,

Caritatis et patientiae,

Humilitatis et obedientiae,

Omniumque virtutum augmentatio.

 

The literal translation is:

Let it be for the elimination for my sins, 

For the expulsion of desire and lust, 

[And] for the increase of charity and patience, 

Humility and obedience, 

As well as all the virtue.

It doesn't scan in this form so I thought I would take a liberty or two and try to more or less follow the right form, with perhaps a touch of humour:

Please help me to conquer my lust

And expel my desire I must

Charitable and patient

Humble and obedient

Ever virtuous – I think I’ll go bust

Political ...

By contrast there seems to be no reason why limericks can't be used for making political points. They are probably best used for poking fun at ineptitude. They will of course enjoy a short life.

For instance, the recent flooding in the North has done little to enhance the reputation of the Environment agency for water management. One bright spark apparently claimed that the flood defences were working quite well.  Presumbly the water had no right to go over the top. So:

All hail to to the wondrous EA
The masters of bodge it and pray
All of that water
Shouldn't have oughter
Won't somebody take it away?

After the obligatory quasi-royal visit I can imagine Cameron convening a meeting of his advisors at which one brain comes up with an idea.

Said Cameron "now listen up you lot
I just love the idea that he's got
What we shall do
Is set up a review
And spin it out longer than Chilcott"

And:

What we need is clearly a rethink
Northerners won't tolerate much more stink
But Osborne won't pay
So all I can say
Is push off to Annie's for a stiff drink