Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described as such. The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from late eighteenth-century England and the tune from 1870 in James William Elliott's National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs. Its origins are obscure, and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings.
Humpty Dumpty was popularized in the United States on Broadway by actor George L. Fox in the pantomime musical Humpty Dumpty. The show ran from 1868 to 1869, for a total of 483 performances. As a character and literary allusion, Humpty Dumpty has appeared or been referred to in many works of literature and popular culture, particularly English author Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, in which he was described as an egg. The rhyme is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No. 13026.
Lyrics and melody
The rhyme is one of the best known in the English language. The common text from 1882 is: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again.
It is a single quatrain with external rhymes that follow the pattern of AABB and with a trochaic metre, which is common in nursery rhymes. The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (London, 1870), as outlined below:
Origins
The earliest known version was published in Samuel Arnold's Juvenile Amusements in 1797 with the lyrics: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Four-score Men and Four-score more, Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.
William Carey Richards (1818–1892) quoted the poem in 1843, commenting, "when we were five years old ... the following parallel lines... were propounded as a riddle ... Humpty-dumpty, reader, is the Dutch or something else for an egg".
A manuscript addition to a copy of Mother Goose's Melody published in 1803 has the modern version with a different last line: "Could not set Humpty Dumpty up again". It was published in 1810 in a version of Gammer Gurton's Garland. (Note: Original spelling variations left intact.) Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall, Humpti Dumpti had a great fall; Threescore men and threescore more, Cannot place Humpty dumpty as he was before.
In 1842, James Orchard Halliwell published a collected version as: Humpty Dumpty lay in a beck. With all his sinews around his neck; Forty Doctors and forty wrights Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty to rights!
The modern-day version of this nursery rhyme, as known throughout the UK since at least the mid-twentieth century, is as follows: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the King's horses And all the King's men, Couldn't put Humpty together again.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the 17th century, the term "humpty dumpty" referred to a drink of brandy boiled with ale. The riddle probably exploited, for misdirection, the fact that "humpty dumpty" was also eighteenth-century reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person. The riddle may depend upon the assumption that a clumsy person falling off a wall might not be irreparably damaged, whereas an egg would be. The rhyme is no longer posed as a riddle, since the answer is now so well known. Similar riddles have been recorded by folklorists in other languages, such as "Boule Boule" in French, "Lille Trille" in Swedish and Norwegian, and "Runtzelken-Puntzelken" or "Humpelken-Pumpelken" in different parts of Germany—although none is as widely known as Humpty Dumpty is in English.
Meaning
The rhyme does not explicitly state that the subject is an egg, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a riddle. There are also various theories of an original "Humpty Dumpty". One, advanced by Katherine Elwes Thomas in 1930 and adopted by Robert Ripley, posits that Humpty Dumpty is King Richard III of England, depicted as hunchbacked in Tudor histories and particularly in Shakespeare's play, and who was defeated, despite his armies, at Bosworth Field in 1485.
In 1785, Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue noted that a "Humpty Dumpty" was "a short clumsey person of either sex, also ale boiled with brandy"; no mention was made of the rhyme.