Simple Simon
Version 1
Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair;
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
“Let me taste your ware.”
Said the pieman to Simple Simon,
“Show me first your penny;”
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
“Sir, I haven’t any.”
(Mother Goose Club Version)
Version 2
Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair;
Said Simple Simon to the pieman
“Let me taste your ware.”
Said the pieman unto Simon,
“Show me first your penny;”
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
“Sir, I haven’t any.”
Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale;
But all the water that he had
Was in his mother’s pail.
Simple Simon went to look
If plums grew on a thistle;
He pricked his fingers very much,
Which made poor Simon whistle.
He went to catch a dicky bird,
And thought he could not fail,
Because he had a little salt
To put upon its tail
He went for water with a sieve,
But soon it ran all through;
And now poor Simple Simon
Bids you all adieu.
Source: A Children’s Treasury of Mother Goose
Version 3
Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Let me taste your ware.
Says the pieman to Simple Simon,
Show me first your penny;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Indeed I have not any.
Source: Extraordinary Nursery Rhymes and Tales: New Yet Old (1876)
Historical Background
The four verses of “Simple Simon” form an integral part of the chapbook history of the same name, printed in 1764. Chapbooks were small books or pamphlets containing poems, ballads, and stories printed early as 1570. As a character, Simple Simon’s origins date back to the late-seventeenth-century ballad, “Simple Simon’s Misfortunes and his Wife Margery’s Cruelty.”
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