【英语时差8,16】Nursery Rhyme: ‘Mary Mary’ 儿歌《玛丽小姐真倔强》

Nursery¹ Rhyme: ‘Mary Mary’ 儿歌《玛丽小姐真倔强》

 

Children singing: Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row. 

 

Andrea: Yes, it’s a well-known English nursery rhyme.  Morag Styles has been studying the meaning behind popular nursery rhymes. 

 

Mary would appear to be Mary Queen of Scots with her gay² French background and her Popish inclinations³. And of course the pretty maids would be the four ladies who were her ladies-in-waiting. And perhaps the cockle shells were the decorations on a dress given to her by the Dauphin. 

 

I think it’s a bit like Mary is showing off about her garden a bit.The garden sounds really pretty and like she’s really rich and clever and sparkly⁴. 

 

There is a golden age of nursery rhymes in a sense from the reign⁵ of about Henry the Eighth. So you’re talking early 16th century. Mary, Mary Quite Contrary in its current form only dates back to the 18th century so it’s clearly written a long time after Mary Queen of Scots existed. 

 

People are always trying to work out the derivation of nursery rhymes and there’s no hope of ever identifying the true source of more than about a handful⁶ of nursery rhymes. 

 

Andrea: Morag says that it’s very difficult to work out the derivation of nursery rhymes. Maybe it was Mary had a little lamb: “Its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go”.And I wonder what the story is behind that one.

 

1 nursery   

n.托儿所；苗圃

参考例句：

• They have decided to start up a nursery in the factory.他们已决定要在工厂里开办一个托儿所。
• Her company ran its own workplace nursery.她的公司开办了内部的托儿所。

2 gay   

adj.同性恋的；色彩鲜艳的；n.(男)同性恋者

参考例句：

• I don't know he was a gay person.我不知道他是同性恋者。
• Spring comes round to the earth again and everything looks fresh and gay.春回大地，万象更新。

3 inclinations   

倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡

参考例句：

• She has artistic inclinations. 她有艺术爱好。
• I've no inclinations towards life as a doctor. 我的志趣不是行医。

4 sparkly   

闪耀的

参考例句：

• Gardens and fields, sparkly green, decorated the desert landscape like bright emerald necklaces. 一片挨着一片绿得发亮的花园和田园，活像晶亮的绿宝石项链点缀着这荒凉的背景。 来自教父部分
• Description of Moongate: Blue oval sparkly vortex as tall as a player and about as wide. 月门的描述：能容纳一个玩家高宽的椭圆形，里面是有火花的蓝色漩涡。 来自互联网

5 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

6 handful   

n.一把；少量，少数，一小撮

参考例句：

• We invited 30 people, but only a handful came.我们邀请了30人，但是只到了几个人。
• He pulled out a handful of coins from his pocket.他从口袋里掏出一把硬币。