The set of the sails ...

Simple Simon est une comptine traditionnelle très très ancienne. Une version écrite attestée la date de 1764, mais elle est sans doute beaucoup plus vieille. Elle décrit les malheurs d'un petit garçon innocent à qui il reste à apprendre les rigueurs de la vraie vie.

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.

Simple Simon went a-fishing,

For to catch a whale;

All the water he had got,

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 for water in a sieve

But soon it all fell through

And now poor simple Simon

Bids you all adieu.

Voici maintenant une version moderne, satirique, de ce vieux poème.

$imple $imon

Met a high man

In the government.

$aid $imple $imon

To the high man,

"How are taxes spent?"

"Billions," said the high man,

"For an antimissile system

That's bound

To be obsolete

Before it ever

Gets off the ground."

"But that's ridiculous!"

$aid $impie $imon.

"If people knew,

They'd make a fuss."

"True," said the high man,

"And when you take into account

That for just about half that amount

Everybody could have a decent job

And a house in a decent neighbourhood."

"Fantastic," said $imple $imon,

"l don't believe it."

$aid the high man,

"Good."

Eve Merriam, from The lnner City Mother Goose:a collection of satirical modernized versions of children's nursery rhymes.