Poetry Codex

Chinese & Japanese

Anonymous Chinese nursery rhymes

traditional (collected in Peking, 1890s)

The rhymes gathered here are the nursery rhymes of Peking, recited by nurses and mothers to the children in their care. They are anonymous and orally transmitted, and the collection records what was current in the Chinese capital in the 1890s, in the last decades of the Qing dynasty.

They survive in English thanks to Isaac Taylor Headland (1859–1942), a missionary educator who taught at Peking University and who rendered them into rhymed English verse for Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1900). The English renderings are his; they follow the sense and spirit of the spoken originals rather than their Chinese wording.

Poems (140)

  1. Sweeter Than Sugar
  2. Little Small-Feet
  3. The Cricket
  4. The Butterfly
  5. Of What Use Is a Girl?
  6. The Fire-Fly
  7. Come and Play
  8. The Cow
  9. Grandpa Feeds Baby
  10. Sweet Pill
  11. The Bat
  12. The Little Baldhead
  13. A Little Girl's Wants
  14. Go to Sleep
  15. The Tall Man
  16. Baby Is Sleeping
  17. Little Fat Boy
  18. The Drum on the Ground
  19. Milky Way
  20. A Lullaby
  21. The Small Store Keeper
  22. Lady-Bug
  23. Go to Bed
  24. The Nervous Man
  25. The Snail
  26. The Waterman
  27. The Lamb
  28. Old Chang, the Crab
  29. The Mouse
  30. Coming from the Fair
  31. What the Old Cow Said
  32. What the Old Crow Said
  33. Beans
  34. The Slovenly Boy
  35. Grab the Knee
  36. The Pagoda
  37. The Little Orphan
  38. Mixed
  39. The Little Girl's Dream
  40. Pat a Cake
  41. The Great Wall
  42. A Dilemma
  43. Cruel Little Glutton
  44. Unfortunate
  45. The Bride
  46. A Bad Boy
  47. The Crows
  48. Friends of the House
  49. My Teacher and I
  50. Bump
  51. A Riddle
  52. The Cake Seller
  53. The Ungrateful Son
  54. Debtor
  55. The Mischievous Boy
  56. The Rice Seller
  57. Chicken Skin
  58. Grinding Flour
  59. The Farmer's Guide
  60. Pulling the Saw
  61. The Doctor's Prescription
  62. Little Bound Feet
  63. The Fat Merchant
  64. Kite Flying
  65. What Is It?
  66. Yellow Dog
  67. Get Up
  68. The Bald Old Woman
  69. The Clothes Vender
  70. Mama's Boy
  71. The Cake Seller (II)
  72. The Spider
  73. The Small Pug Dog
  74. The Little Boy
  75. The Magician
  76. Ride a Cock Horse
  77. The Little Sister
  78. A Riddle (II)
  79. The Bride (II)
  80. Pounding Rice
  81. Our Baby
  82. Bean Sprouts
  83. The Little Girl
  84. Visitors
  85. Shoe-Maker
  86. Two Wonders
  87. Do As You Ought
  88. My Nephew
  89. Red Pepper Flower
  90. Don't Be Cruel
  91. Flower Pot
  92. A New Baby
  93. The Dead Cicada
  94. Brother Wants Fruit
  95. The Old Woman
  96. Froggie
  97. The Lazy Woman
  98. The Tidy Woman
  99. E Ni Me Ni Mi Ni Mo
  100. Finger Test
  101. Ten Fingers
  102. Face Game
  103. The Flower Seller
  104. Making a Flower Pot
  105. Watering the Flowers
  106. Bald Head Lee
  107. The King Will Want You
  108. Don't Steal
  109. The Shrew
  110. A Mistake
  111. The Blind Man
  112. A Tragedy in Three Acts
  113. Pulling the Saw (II)
  114. Thistle-Seed
  115. The Little Student
  116. The Five Fingers
  117. The Five Fingers (II)
  118. Old Mother Wind
  119. Wash
  120. Eight Bald-Heads
  121. Turning the Mill
  122. Swallow's Nest
  123. The Locust Trees
  124. The Wedding
  125. The Pig-Stye
  126. The Camel-Back Bridge
  127. The Senses
  128. Cake Baking
  129. Wedding Feast
  130. Roast Pork
  131. Going to Town
  132. The Mischievous Sister-in-Law
  133. Buying a Lock
  134. Forcing the City Gates
  135. Home on the Mountain
  136. Family Needs
  137. My Boat
  138. Old Granny Chang
  139. Blind Man's Buff
  140. The Five Toes

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