Johnny and the Plum Tree

Here is another post, by poet Eleanor Brown, about the Dutch nursery rhymes which our reader Julia Banks (b. 1939) learned with her children in The Netherlands in the 1960s.

For Sheffield’s 2019 Off the Shelf Festival, on 21 October, Eleanor and Imtiaz Dharkar are reading from their latest collections of poems, published by Bloodaxe Books. Eleanor’s poems, White Ink Stains, draw in part on the Reading Sheffield interviews. Click here for more information.

Here is the Dutch original:

Jantje zag eens pruimen hangen
O! als eieren zo groot
‘t Scheen, dat Jantje wou gaan plukken
Schoon zijn vader ‘t hem verbood
Hier is, zei hij, noch mijn vader
Noch de tuinman, die het ziet
Aan een boom, zo vol geladen
Mist men vijf, zes pruimen niet
Maar ik wil gehoorzaam wezen
En niet plukken; ik loop heen
Zou ik om een hand vol pruimen
Ongehoorzaam wezen? Neen!
 
Voort ging Jantje, maar zijn vader
Die hem stil beluisterd had
Kwam hem in het lopen tegen
Vooraan op het middenpad
Kom mijn Jantje, zei de vader
Kom mijn kleine hartedief
Nu zal ik u pruimen plukken
Nu heeft vader Jantje lief
Daarop ging Papa aan ‘t schudden
Jantje raapte schielijk op
Jantje kreeg zijn hoed vol pruimen
En liep heen op een galop.

From the wall hanging which Julia made at the time

And here is Eleanor’s ‘mainly accurate translation’:

Johnny sees the ripe plums hanging
Oh! As big as eggs they are.
How he longs to grasp and pluck
The fruit forbidden by Papa!
“But,” he ponders, “neither Father
Nor the gardener’s here to see:
Who would miss just five or six
From such a heavy-laden tree?
Yet I want to be obedient…
Mustn’t pick them…better go.
Shall I, for a ripe sweet handful,
Disobey my father? No!”
 
Off goes Johnny: but his father,
Who has overheard it all,
Catches up as he walks homeward,
Stops him by the garden wall.
“Come, my Johnny,” says the father,
“Come, my darling little lad,
Now shall you have plums aplenty,
Now you’ve pleased your watchful Dad!”
Father gives the tree a shaking.
Followed, eavesdropped-on, policed,
Johnny fills his hat with plums,
And gallops off to have his feast.

Honesty or policy? Johnny’s under surveillance from a parent who rewards obedience with approval (and plums) – if he sees it for himself. That’s why Johnny does his moral cogitating aloud, in stage soliloquy. There’s no trust here.

Here are other Dutch nursery rhymes and Eleanor’s versions in English.

A, B, C, The Cat Comes with Me
In The Hague There Lives a Count
Sinterklaas
Onder moeders paraplu. Or, Under Mother’s Umbrella