Sing a song of sixpence
Language: English
Available translation(s): GER
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;1
[Wasn't]2 that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,3
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And [snapped]4 off her nose.
View original text (without footnotes)
1 Here Malotte adds: "Caw! Caw!"
2 Malotte: "was not"
3 Malotte adds: "one, two, three, four, (ha, ha, ha, ha!)"
4 Malotte: "pecked"
Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Singt das Lied vom Sixpence", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Bertram Kottmann , Garrett Medlock
[Guest Editor] This text was added to the website: 2015-01-26
Line count: 16
Word count: 79
Singt das Lied vom Sixpence
Language: German (Deutsch)  after the English
Singt das Lied vom Sixpence,
´nen Roggensack stellt hin.
Vierundzwanzig Amseln
war’n im Kuchen drin.
Als man diesen aufschnitt,
da sang es überall;
war dies nicht ´ne leck´re Speis
für des Königs Mahl?
Der König war im Schatzhaus,
zählte dort sein Geld;
die Königin war im Salon
aufs Naschen eingestellt.
Die Dienstmagd mit der Wäsche
ins Freie sich begab;
da flog `ne Amsel auf sie zu,
zwickt’ ihr die Nase ab.
Authorship:
Based on:
This text was added to the website: 2015-01-26
Line count: 16
Word count: 71