I threatened to return to limericks in a recent post, and here we are again. This time, it’s a limerick or two about dodos.
Dodos in literature
This is also inspired by a post on the limericks subreddit, but not by the ‘rhyme of the week’1. Someone posted a limerick about the dodo. Interestingly, googling “dodo limerick” only comes back with hits for a journalist and animal lover from Limerick, Ireland, known as Dodo Reddan.
The limerick poem and a reply are shown below.
Limerick and a reply on the subreddit /rlimericks.
The original poem – in case the image doesn’t show – is:
The dodo once lived on Mauritius, The sailors all thought it delicious, The rats and the men, Could all sneak up on them, Since the poor dodo wasn’t suspicious
There is a reply which starts with the phrase “Um, actually” (which I hate more than people starting a question with the word ‘question’), followed by a correction to the effect that the dodo was pretty inedible.
Now, only a small and petty man would get annoyed enough by this to write a reply limerick. So that’s exactly what I did.
There once was a bird called the dodo Whose knack for survival was so-so Pigs, rats and pests Would ravage their nests Though eating their flesh was a no-no
Not content with that, and since I’d seen that the Latin name for the dodo is raphus cucullatus, I wrote another.
The dodo (or raphus cucullatus) A victim of rats (rattus rattus) Their nests on the ground Could also be found By pigs and by cats (felis catus)
Shakespeare in limerick form
After remembering the Macbeth summary I wrote when I was doing my O levels, I found another Shakespeare limerick. This one, written some time in 2015, summarises Romeo and Juliet, the harrowing morality play dressed up as a love story. This limerick, like the second dodo limerick, makes heavy use of parentheses, because, well, why not?
Juliet love Montague hunk Who kills Paris (impetuous lunk!) There’s the balcony scene (What does ‘wherefore’ mean?) And they both die (I blame the monk)
Which is ‘dolor’. Or ‘dolour’, since I’m playing in the UK. ↩︎
The subreddit /rlimericks runs a weekly challenge to rhyme a difficult word in a limerick. I’ve had a couple of goes, which has reawakened my interest in this verse form.
What’s a limerick?
Named after the county in Ireland – or possibly the song ‘Won’t You Come to Limerick’ – the limerick is a five-line verse form with a set meter and rhyme scheme. The first, second and fifth lines have eight syllables and rhyme with each other, while the third and fourth have five syllables and rhyme. There’s no rule against all five lines rhyming (see below). They’re usually comic verse, as in this example:
There was a young fellow called Tate
Who booked dinner for two at 8 – 8
But I will not relate
What it was that young Tate
And his tête-à-tête ate at eight eight
Popularising the form
Edward Lear (1812 -1888) popularised an established form, producing 212 published examples for the amusement of the Victorian gentry. In hindsight, his output was quite poor, mostly relying on using the same word at the end of lines one and five. This was the traditional form, but restricts the writer somewhat.
One of Lear’s limericks. There are other poems of his that I like, and he was also a fantastic illustrator of birds. But these verse leave me cold.
Using the same word to end the first and fifth lines saved him trying to find a rhyme for Thermopylae, I suppose.
Being comic verse, the format can be played with. WS Gilbert, out and off of Gilbert & Sullivan, is credited with one such:
I’ve written a few limericks, but only came back to them again when I stumbled upon the subreddit. A favourite of Mrs S’s is one I wrote in the late 80s called ‘Yuk!’
With scarcely concealed delight
Christopher switched off the light
Bit a chunk from the cat
Spat it out on the mat
And rolled around, laughing, all night
Judge for yourself the mental state of the seventeen year old who wrote that. Though this isn’t the most disgusting Limerick I’ve written2.
An earlier one, which I wrote during my ‘O’ levels, summarises MacBeth, which I was studying at the time. The inspiration is Stanley J Sharpless’ summary of Hamlet (link).
King Duncan was mortally bedded
And MacBeth’s killing hand was well redded
His Mrs went gaga
And to finishes the saga
In vengeance MacBeth was beheaded
I’ve done a few other of Shakespeare’s play. I’ll blog them at some point.
Limerick accent challenge
In the time between my ‘O’ levels and this year, my output dried to a trickle. One I wrote maybe ten years ago is an accent challenge. Younger daughter hates this one, because it makes her talk like me. In other words, correctly.
A Mathematician reflects
“G&Ts help with my maths”
He leans back and casually laughs
“A reduction in mass
Of the gin in my glass
Helps me travel binomial paths”
If you think that doesn’t rhyme, you’re wrong.
Saturday Reddit challenge
Yesterday’s3 challenge was to rhyme the word ‘philodox’. I had to look up the word – it means someone who loves their own opinions and thoughts.
It’s a interesting challenge, since the word doesn’t fit into the standard meter requirements of a limerick. This means breaking the standard rhythm a bit. But that’s fine, as long as it’s done consistently.
I started with a search for words and phrases that would match the word ‘philodox’. Orthodox and heterodox are related terms4, also Goldilocks, pair of crocs, Robert Knox5, letterbox and cotton socks.
I went with the last one, since there’s a British expression ‘bless your cotton socks’, equivalent to ‘bless your heart’. Though a crossover involving Goldilocks and the surgeon involved in the Burke & Hare murders would be a challenge in itself. The idea of blessing and words involved with philosophy and theology seemed to fit. First draft had ‘sinnin’’ rhyming with ‘opinion’, but that didn’t work. So the idea of socks in general and things that are worn on the feet also arrived. There’s a lot of them.
How to make a short story of it all? My experience of the type of person who would be a philodox is a person set in their ways, who would suffer any consequences if it meant they could say they were right. So how about he insists on wearing uncomfortable hosiery, despite the norm is to wear comfy socks? From there the story came about in a few minutes:
