Lyr Add: Monkey and Nuts (from Bodleian)

Subject: Lyr Add: MONKEY AND NUTS (from Bodleian)
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 10:10 AM

I can't make out whether this is really about cruelty to a cat, or has a double meaning which escapes me. Any ideas?

MONKEY AND NUTS
Tune unknown

A monkey being fond of nuts
He thought he'd like some roasted
And how was he to get them done
Not liking to be toasted
A poor young cat was passing by
And innocently watches
The wicked monkey saw her stop
And at his victim snatches

Poor pussy you are just the one
That I've been looking out for
How beautiful you look today
But tell me what you pout for
Upon my word I long have had
For you a fond affection
Now you shall stay and dine with me
Or take some slight refection

Twas no use for poor puss to speak
Or offer to deny him
The monkey had her in his grasp
And she could not defy him
As he begun to laugh and chat
And show a few grimaces
O! if you had have seen like I
The contrast in their faces

He put some nuts into her paw
And he the fire approached
As if a salamander he
Or made of young cockroaches
Poor pussy now began to squall
Her face the fire attacking
And sadly too her paw was burnt
The while the nuts were cracking

The monkey having feasted well
Began to snarl and grumble
To think how he was taken in
With nuts he scarce could mumble
"Dear me" said he "and how they're burnt"
And at poor puss a looking
"I cannot think how I could bear
Such miserable cooking"

And what a fuss you make about
A little bit of warming
I've often done the thing myself
There's nothing so alarming
"So take this for your pains" he said
"And next time be less squalling"
Then gave the puss a hearty cuff
That sent the poor thing sprawling

"And take this good advice" he said
"As I am one of letters"
Leave off you rude obstreperous ways
When you are with your betters
And think yourself well off" he said
"That I had mercy on you
For many would have sent you home
Without a dress upon you"
NHJ

Transcribed From a print in the Bodley Ballad collection

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 10:19 AM

It could well have some ancient political reference, but I have no idea what!

A

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 10:27 AM

I storngly suspect it has political meanings - but who the monkey is, and who the cat that he abuses and then blames for the abuse , I haven't the foggiest. a check on the date of publication against political records might give some idea.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 10:43 AM

Unfortunately it's not dated, but from the style of printing and the typeface, I think it must have been early to mid-1800's. The other song printed on the sheet is Nelson's Monument, but there is no reference to his column, so that may be significant.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Jacob B
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 12:49 PM

To me, the last line of the song makes it clear that the cat represents a woman. Perhaps the song is about a nineteenth century sex scandal.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:41 PM

That's what I though originally, but the rest of the song didn't seem to make sense in that context.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 07:22 PM

The French were often referred to as monkeys,and depicted that way in cartoons in Napoleonic times, as was Napoleon (and that ties in with the Hartlepool Monkey story). So maybe it's got some referance to an episode in the Napoleonic wars.

Maybe the cat represents some country that got its paws burnt because it couldn't avoid the attentions of the French.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 03:39 PM

McGrath of Harlow,

I think you are on the right lines, could it be a reference to the French Alliance with Spain, cumilating in the replacement of Ferdinand with Joseph Bonupart ?

Does this jog anyones memory ?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 05:29 PM

As the song was printed on a sheet which included a song about a monument to Nelson, it was possibly after Napoleon had been defeated. Yes, I know that Nelson was dead before Waterloo but the sheet seems later in style.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 07:50 PM

But songs can get reprinted years after they were first written.

Also if it was Nelson's Monument rathr than Nelson's Column (on London) or Puillar (in Dublin), it could well be the one near Edinburgh which was built in 1816. There might even have been earlier ones.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 07:56 PM

Pavane,

Ah well, that Llareggub's that theory then.

I still have a gut feeling that the McGraths thought on the Monkey representing the French has a spine of reality in it - but beyond the Spanish conection, I am lost.

Surely in the massed ranks of the Catters someone can put a can opening thought to this satire.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 08:26 PM

Browsing around I found this history of the 19th century in cartoons, online - and in it there is a cartoon about a shortlived English Coalition government that wanted to make peace after Pitt's death in 1806:

"A composite picture by Rowlandson shows the ministry as a spectacled ape in the wig of a learned justice, with episcopal mitre and Catholic crozier. He wears a lawyer's coat and ragged breeches, with a shoe on one foot and a French jack-boot on the other. He is dancing on a funeral pyre of papers, the results of the administration, its endless negotiations with France, its sinecures and patronages, which are blazing away. The creature's foot is discharging a gun, which produces signal mischief in the rear and brings down two heavy folios, the Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath, upon its head."

That's got an ape and a fire in, though I doubt if it's the source of this song.But I suspect it could well be a versification of a cartoon. I haven't had time to look through that book, but it might be worth it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 08:40 PM

The McGrath.

The Univerity of Kent at Canterbury should have this in thier Archieves. yes this seat of learning has a department on the history of Cartoons.

number 3 sister is a mature student there, I'll ask her to dig - but this will take some time.

Incidently nice point on the carictures of the French as Monkeys, it puts the Hartlepool Momkey in context, I confess that I had missed that originally.

Gareth

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 10:42 PM

To every complex question, there is an answer that is Simple, Logical and Clear. And wrong.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 12:29 PM

Keep digging! This is getting fascinating.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 08:15 PM

There still is of course the possibility - as Dick G reminded us - that this Napoleonic cartoon idea is a red herring.

It come across to me clearly as retelling a story from some other source, with the cartoon being one option; but it could be a retelling of a pre-existing animal fable. Aesop/La Fontaine - or some other collection. So does it ring a bell with anyone who is familiar with this branch of storytelling?

I imagine it's a bit early for Brer Rabbit, but there have always been people telling animal stories, and collecting them as well.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 09:25 AM

Fascinating stuff! Keep it up, catters!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 08:20 PM

Here is a pretty massive on line compendium of fables and stories.

Whether or not it turns out that this particularly eposode is in there is another question. But it's a useful site to have turned up anyway.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 07:14 PM

I wish you success with your search. If you look at most English nursery rhymes, they are generally political in origin. For example, Silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row. Can't remember the real name, but you know what I mean! Usually, these poems were aimed at royalty or the local Whig. I shall watch this space with interest. Lion

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 07:26 PM

Well there's actually some doubt about that particular example, Lonesome - take a a quick shufty at what Malcolm Douglas and the Opie's have to say.

But generally I think it's true that, if it doesn't make much sense, it's probably got something to do with politics.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 25 Jul 01 - 02:46 AM

That still seems true today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 25 Jul 01 - 04:05 AM

Definitely reads like someone 'taking advantage' of a young woman to me, but it doesn't seem wholly that way. Its the last verse that seems particularly that way, so maybe its an added variation.
Intriguing.

Kris

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 25 Jul 01 - 04:57 AM

Yes, that last verse does seem puzzling.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 25 Jul 01 - 04:56 PM

The last verse might be an addition, or possibly a verse brought up on a truncation. I doubt if the jobbing printer had that many metal types in stock (differing Points) and no Microsoft "Shrink to fit".

pavane has very kindly pointed me to the original web page. Next project to enhance and sharpen and see what other clues there are.

If theres an imprint in small type it might show up.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 01 - 07:37 PM

I wonder if that last line might involve some kind of word play or pun, involving some name that sounds a bit like "dress", or something of that kind.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 03:22 PM

McGrath

Dress - as in bandage ?

Aping her betters ?

Reference to the sumtery Laws (God knows how you spell it)

Just a thought in the pond to see how the ripples flow.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Hollowfox
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 03:48 PM

Yes, folks, it's from a fable, but I couldn't verify that it comes from Aesop. It's also where the term "catspaw" comes from, meaning a dupe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: LoopySanchez
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 03:49 PM

"Dress" as a bandage makes sense to me, considering that it would make more sense to "dress" the wounds suffered from the fire than to offer clothing. This would tend to suggest a theme different from the "woman being taken advantage of" idea suggested earlier, but who knows?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 11:43 AM

Hollowfox has it - here is what Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable has to say:

Cat's Paw.

To be made a cat's paw of, i.e. the tool of another, the medium of doing another's dirty work. The allusion is to the fable of the monkey who wanted to get from the fire some roasted chestnuts, and took the paw of the cat to get them from the hot ashes.

Of course the fact that it was based on an existing fable wouldn't rule out the possibility of this version being written with a topical reference. But it don't seem necessary. I'd say it's more likely to have been written with a view to being included in a chapbook for children learning to read.

And I'd suspect that Loopy is right, and it's as if the last line could mean "without a dressing on you."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 01:41 PM

Yes sometimes the simplest solution may well be the most accurate.

Moral of this tale - don't try and be two clever !!!

Chastened, Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Hollowfox
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 01:48 PM

No need to feel chastened, darlin'. Your thoughts gave me new ways to look at the tale.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: pavane
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 01:57 PM

Wonderful! and appropriate!. Thanks everyone

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 04:08 PM

And at least we now know where catspaw is coming from.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 07:28 PM

Thought,

Has this any conection with the saying
"and you can put that where the Monkey put the Nuts."

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Monkey & nuts : cruelty to cat? :-(
From: Gareth
Date: 28 Jul 01 - 07:03 PM

Pavane, McGrath et al.

I put the GIF of this ballard sheet through the clarification/enhancement process.

No imprint but no heading, title or sub title, in fact I'd say that this was possibly a sheet from a pamphlet.

without knowing the provenance and source (which the Bodlian Libuary might have) there are no clues or dates, or any other information.

I think Hollowfox/ McGrath have it on the mark, a childrens primer sold by the Chapman.

Gareth