the owl and the pussycat

[Julian.West@mac.dartmouth.edu]

Doug took the following stab at recalling Edward Lear's
nonsense masterpiece, "The Owl and the Pussy Cat":

>     The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to sea
>     in a beautiful pea green boat.
>     They brought some honey, and plenty of money
>     wrapped in a ten pound note.
>     [etc]
>     The Owl said to the Pussy, "My love,
>     what a beautiful Pussy you are, you are.
>     What a beautiful Pussy you are."
>     [etc]

>or something like that.

Good start, let's see how well I can do.

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The owl and the pussycat went to sea
in a beautiful pea green boat
They took some money, and plenty of honey
wrapped up in a five pound note.

The owl looked up to the stars above
and sang to a small guitar:
"My beautiful pussy, my pussy my love,
what a beautiful pussy you are, you are,
what a beautiful pussy you are"

Pussy said to the owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O, let us get married -- too long we have tarried --
But what shall we do for a ring?

They sailed away for a year and a day
to the land where the bong tree grows.
And there in a wood, a piggywig stood,
with a ring on the end of his nose, his nose.
With a ring on the end of his nose.

"Dear pig, are you willing to sell, for one shilling, 
your ring?" Said the piggy, "I will"
They took it away and were married next day
by the turkey who lived on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince
which they ate with a runcible spoon,
And they (ate it with?) ...
and danced by the light of the moon, the moon
and danced by the light of the moon.

---------------------------------------------------------

Well, I'm pretty sure about most of it, but the missing
penultimate line proves that I was too lazy to go look
it up. If anyone can fill it in for me, I'll thank them
after I finish kicking myself.

By the way, Lear invented the nonsense word "runcible"
without any particular meaning in mind, much as 
Carroll did with "vorpal blade". It's application to
those funny spoons which are really forks and knives at
the same time came _later_. This is a fine example of a
word with a nonsense etymology.

---------------------------------------- Julian ---------

P.S. Who are these "Boat" people anyway?