Speccie 'Set Text' Competition by 2nd May
 

Prizes for Bill Greenwell and George Simmers this week, with a near-miss for Frank Osen.

Here's the next comp: a kind of bouts-rimé sonnet.

Jayne (standing in for John this week, while he's in New York)

No. 2746: set text

You are invited to submit a sonnet using the following rhymes: pig, bat, cat, wig, jig, hat, rat, fig; lie, red, sob, die, bed, rob.

This is a rerun of a competition that was set back in the 1950s, and the rhymes are those given as an illustration of the verse form by the Concise Oxford Dictionary of that time. Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 2 May.

Plunging right in:


There's nothing that I hate more than a pig,
Unless it be a flying rodent bat.
I'm also not a big fan of the cat,
The best of which can make me flip my wig
With happiness and dance a lively jig
Merely by departing. Grab my hat,
I'm leaving if the room contains a rat!
You beg me stay, but I don't give a fig.
I'm phobic, don't you see? I will not lie.
Allergic, too. My eyes swell up, turn red,
And one who does not know might think I sob,
Or maybe that I'm getting set to die.
I hear some mice squeak as I lie in bed
And curse to think of all the sleep they rob.

Who knew you were as gracious as a pig?
As warm and tender as a baseball bat?
As pure and faithful as an alley cat?
As genuine as Mozart's powdered wig?
I've learned the hard way, buddy. Now the jig
is up. So take your toothbrush and your hat,
your aftershave that masks the smell of rat,
and find the exit. I don't give a fig
whose lips you kiss, with whom and where you lie.
I'm sick of turning green, of seeing red.
Go find another victim who will sob
and wring her hands and swear that she will die
if you betray her. Find another bed
to violate, another heart to rob.

That's great, Marion.


The Trip


On acid once, I thought I was a pig
Cavorting in a cavern with a bat
Who bore an odd resemblance to a cat
And wore, I don't know why, a purple wig.
He answered, when I asked what's up, "The jig."
"Your hair's too bright, " I said, "put on this hat."
He sulked, "Without my wings, I'm just a rat."
"And I'm a pig," I said. "Who gives a fig?
The life we lead is just a big fat lie
That's blended out of yellow, blue and red
To yield a rainbow. Laugh at it, or sob,
Your choice. It's up to you before you die.
Strap on those wings and fly, or stay in bed.
There's nothing you will gain that time won't rob."

By the way, I searched these end words and found that they go back at least as far as 1954, where they are cited in a journal here:I believe the New Yorker quotes this same definition in 1935, but I don't subscribe to the archive and can see only the little squib that shows up in the list of search results on Google.

EIEIO

Let's face it. Though we often dine on pig,
No normal soul would nosh upon a bat
Or willingly consume a dog or cat,
A fact which makes the poor pig flip its wig
As bats and cats relax or dance a jig
As Old MacDonald smiles and doffs his hat,
For when it comes to dinner, they're like rat,
Not pork loin chops with onion sauce and fig.
The swine resent this fact. Indeed, why lie?
Like us, their blood is precious, warm and red.
While rolling in the mud, they often sob.
There is no mud, they realize, once you die.
If only Old MacDonald stayed in bed!
Why can't he find another life to rob?

It doesn’t pay to be a greedy pig.
Pity the fools who choose to swing the bat!
Rejoice your room’s too small to swing a cat,
your purse too small to buy a stupid wig!
As long as you’re still free to do a jig,
you’ll see some pennies fall into your hat.
Ignore the glossy ads, and leave the rat
race fast! In truth you needn’t care a fig.
While others guard their treasure, you can lie
in clover, confident you’re in the red.
Your friends and family are bound to sob
real tears of grief for you the day you die.
And every night when you go off to bed
there’s not a single penny they can rob.

Consider, if you will, the lowly pig,
Or if you will, the blind and lowly bat.
They'll never be as handsome as a cat
No matter what the makeup or the wig,
No matter what the witch's brew or jig,
The magic wand, the broom or pointy hat.
The pig's a pig, the bat's a flying rat.
And when they die, nobody gives a fig.

So which is man? Be honest. Do not lie.
Our lives are just a budget in the red.
We are not laughing cats, but pigs that sob,
Or bats that crash the cavern walls and die.
And in the end, we can't get out of bed.
Our bed's a grave the lowly worm will rob.

That last one is your best so far, Roger! It has a naive charm about it.

Duncan

Oh good – a chance to rant! Why should a ‘pig’
mean someone nasty? Likewise, how come ‘bat’
equates to ‘daft old woman’, or a ‘cat’
a spiteful one? When someone wears a wig
it’s NOT ‘a syrup’. Why must people jig
around with words, like this? ‘I’ll eat my hat’
is ludicrous, and so is ‘smell a rat’.
Whatever’s meant by ‘couldn’t give a fig’?
It’s meaningless, that’s what, the same as ‘lie’
in ‘through his teeth’! Get mad – but why ‘see red’?
Such language mangling causes me to sob.
However did expressions like ‘to die
for’ come to be? Why does ‘they went to bed’
mean ‘they had sex’? Just who said ‘mug’ means ‘rob’?