Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Mary Mary (disambiguation).
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary is an English nursery rhyme; an alternate first line is Mistress Mary, quite contrary.
- Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,
- How does your garden grow?
- With silver bells and cockleshells
- And pretty maids all in a row.
[edit] Explanations
Like many nursery rhymes, it has acquired spurious historical explanations. One is that it refers to Mary I of Scotland, with "how does your garden grow" referring to how she was doing controlling the country, "silver bells" referring to (Catholic) cathedral bells, "cockleshells" being an insult as that her husband cheated, and "pretty maids all in a row" referring to that all her babies had died and she buried them in rows. However, Mary Queen of Scots was accounted a great beauty. She was also not known for killing "rows and rows" of people, although her husband, Darnley, was mixed up in a murder, and her lover and third husband, Lord Bothwell, was thought to have arranged the murder of Darnley.
Another is that it refers to Mary I of England and her unpopular attempts to bring Roman Catholicism back to England, identifying the "cockle shells," for example, with the symbol of pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James in Spain (Santiago de Compostela) and the "pretty maids all in a row" with nuns.
These explanations range; it is generally thought to be about Mary I for roughly the same reasons as her Scottish counterpart, as her husband Phillip II of Spain was barely interested in her (hence the word "cockleshells"), the "How does your garden grow?" being a mockery of her womb (and her inability to produce heirs) or the idea many had taken that England had became a Catholic vassal or "branch" of Spain and the Habsburgs. "Quite contrary" seems to be a reference to the way she unsuccessfully tried to undo what her father Henry VIII and brother Edward VI had done with the church. The "pretty maids all in a row" could be another reference to her miscarriages as with the other Mary or her execution of Lady Jane Grey after coming to the throne. "Rows and rows" is attributed to her infamous burnings and executions of Protestants.
Alternatively, capitalising on the queen's portrayal by Whig historians as 'Bloody Mary', the "silver bells and cockle shells" referred to in the nursery rhyme could be colloquialisms for instruments of torture. The 'silver bells' may refer to thumbscrews, while the 'cockleshells' are thought to have been instruments of torture which were attached to the genitals. Finally, 'maids' might be a reference to 'maidens' which were early guillotine-like devices used to sever heads.
Still, some argue that no proof has been found that the rhyme was known before the eighteenth century, while Mary I of England and Mary I of Scotland (who were contemporaries) lived in the sixteenth century. Some historians claim the song was invented by the Protestants and Anglicans any time during or long after to mock Mary I of England's unsuccessful reign, or even both Mary's.
[edit] Quoted
- "How Does Your Garden Grow?" (in Poirot's Early Cases) by Agatha Christie
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- The song "Mary, Mary So Contrary" from the album Monster Movie, by the rock group Can
- A verse in Rufus Thomas's classic blues song Walkin' The Dog.
- In modified form, in the Smashing Pumpkins song ".X.Y.U."
[edit] References
- The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Iona and Peter Opie
