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Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

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"Pussy cat, Pussy cat"
Nursery rhyme
Published1805
Songwriter(s)Traditional

"Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat" or "Pussycat, Pussycat" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 15094.[1]

Lyrics and melody

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Common modern versions include:

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit/look at/see the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there?
I frightened a little mouse under her/the chair.[2]

The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first noted by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (1870).[3] For the original version, there is no 'do' in 'what did you there'.

Origins

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The earliest record of the rhyme is publication in Songs for the Nursery, printed in London in 1805.[2] The Queen most often depicted in illustrations is Elizabeth I, but Caroline of Brunswick has also been suggested.[2]

Notes

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  1. ^ "Roud Folksong Index S249491 Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been". Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. English Folk Dance and Song Society. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  2. ^ a b c I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 357.
  3. ^ J. J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk (Courier Dover Publications, 5th edn., 2000), ISBN 0486414752, p. 502.