We all know the nursery rhyme, “Baa Baa, Black Sheep.” But has anyone ever stopped to question its underlying message? Or even the plausibility of such an animal? While shopping for shoes today, someone mentioned wool, which led me to consider the old rhyme and its origins. Who wrote it, and why? In the following paragraphs, I attempt to answer these questions using evidence from the text.
For those of us who can’t remember the second part of the poem, I have included it in its entirety below:
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
The rhyme brings many intriguing questions to mind:
First, who is the narrator of this story? The perspective change during the first stanza brings the identity of the speaker into question. Some may postulate that the black sheep is the speaker, and is merely repeating the question that it answered in some earlier situation. Others may argue that the narrator is none other than the inquisitor; that is, the person who poses the initial question of “Have you any wool?” Others still may propose that the speaker is an unknown onlooker who later recounted the scene to an outside audience.
I submit that the speaker is indeed the sheep-inquisitor. My reasons for making this judgment are outlined with the following question:
How could the sheep possibly answer this question? It is common knowledge that sheep (in addition to all other mammals), lack the necessary anatomical apparatuses to engage in human speech. It would be impossible for the sheep to give any indication of whether or not it is in possession of said wool. Thus it is my belief that the speaker is the individual who asks the question, and the “answers” that follow are just suppositions made by the speaker.
Having established the identity of the narrator, one question still remains: why would he/she ask such an obvious question (especially to a mute recipient)? One can surmise that this individual is none too bright to be asking a sheep whether or not it has any wool. Unless the speaker is blind, he/she can perform a quick visual check to verify the presence of the wool (and even if the speaker is blind, he/she could simply feel the sheep to answer the question). Therefore, the speaker has no reason to even ask the question in the first place. However, the speaker does indeed make an inquiry to the aphasic animal. Ergo, this individual can be assumed to be of sub-standard intelligence.
Consequently, “Baa Baa, Black Sheep” is nothing more than the daft drivel of an addled individual.
Mystery solved. And by the way, I did get that new pair of shoes.
Music of the moment:
Driven to Tears
The Police