"A Kid! A Kid!" Sang the Hebrew
Children in Lieu of Our Parable from
the Pages of Mother Goose.
The sources of our nursery rhymes are many, and slowly to be traced out.
Many of them have a lineage with serious historical meaning; others seem
to have been suggested by the forms of more serious verses or parables.
Take "The House That Jack Built"; many sources and parallels have been dug
out. The Kafirs of South Africa tell a story like it in form and
substance. The most interesting parallel, however, is an ancient Hebrew
parable called "The Two Zuzim," the summation of which is as follows:
[This is] the kid that my father bought
for two zuzim.
[This is] the cat that ate the kid, etc.
[This is] the dog that bit the cat, etc.
[This is] the stick that beat the dog, etc.
[This is] the fire that burned the stick, etc.
[This is] the water that quenched the fire,
etc.
[This is] the ox that drank the water, etc.
[This is] the butcher that slew the ox, etc.
[This is] the angel of death that killed the
butcher, etc.
[This is] Yaveh, that vanquished the angel
of death, etc.
Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua.