Traditional nursery rhymes may appear at first glance to be mere pleasant nonsense, but they often conceal a sharply satirical reference to events and personalities long forgotten.
—
No. 1. “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”
Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, marry have I, three bags full.
One for my master, one for my dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.
The “black sheep” who claims to have wool for everyone represents leftist radicals who would distribute the nation’s goods (represented under the similitude of bags of wool) on a basis of strict equality to the three estates, ignoring considerations of merit and desert. We may, however, reassure ourselves that the sheep comes to an ill end, as recounted in another popular nursery rhyme:
Black sheep, black sheep,
Cute as a button,
Black sheep, black sheep,
Soon you’ll be mutton.