Ring Around the Rosie

There is a very old nursery rhyme sung by children which has often been associated with the bubonic plague:

Ring around the rosie,

a pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.

 

'A-tishoo', which is thought to have represented the sound of the sneeze associated with the illness, is in other versions rendered 'ashes', which may evoke the burning of various incenses and herbs to protect against the virus.

 

In more recent years, folklorists have resisted this interpretation, citing the fact that there are many versions of this rhyme around Europe which seem to have nothing to do with sneezes or ashes or death, and earlier versions as well which preceded the Great London Plague of 1665.

 

Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to me to imagine that children of the time took a familiar rhyme and simply tailored the words to their own situation, describing the marks of the plague, the symptoms of the plague, and indeed the results of the plague (we all fall down).

 

It says something to me about the ability of children to create happiness even in the face of terrible dread wherever they are gathered together. I wonder what they are saying or playing or singing now as a way of negotiating the Covid pandemic?

 

We have really so much in common with those times now centuries in the past, as well as with the responses of the people living (or dying) through them, right down to the necessity of social distancing and the question of whether one must wear a mask, the suggestion that God Himself would protect the faithful, and the conceit that the wearing of a mask indicated a lack of faith. This too was directly addressed by no less a man than Martin Luther, who wrote the following:

 

"I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I will fumigate, purify the air, administer medicine and take medicine. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order to become not contaminated, and thus perchance inflict and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me. But, I have done what he has expected of me, and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely. This is a God fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy, and does not tempt God."

 

Listen up.

 

What has been will be again,

what has been done will

be done again;

There is nothing new under

the sun.

 

--Ecclesiastes 1:9