Jack and Jill: Tragedy Encoded In Nursery Rhyme

 

Jack and Jill: Tragedy Encoded In Nursery Rhyme 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXgmHNY-53I

 

 

The video concludes that the rhyme's ascent-fall structure universally encodes human fragility: achievement followed by destruction, with later "mending" verses (vinegar, brown paper) softening the blow. It's a multigenerational echo of fears, from godly wrath to mortality.Transcript snippets highlight the eerie tone: "They look like they're about to face judgment" (on the illustration); "His lunar radiance freezing the children... forever carrying their burden" (cosmic tale); "Jack died first... his skull cracking like an egg" (local tragedy). 

The earliest reliable printed version appears in John Newbery's Mother Goose's Melody (London, 1765), with the core lines: "Jack and Jill went up the hill, / To fetch a pail of water, / Jack fell down and broke his crown, / And Jill came tumbling after." This edition included the now-familiar woodcut illustration. Earlier fragments exist in oral tradition (possibly 16th century), but 1765 marks the first full publication in England. Some sources cite a 1795 chapbook variant, but Newbery's is the consensus "first."Author:. Newbery was born March 6, 1713, in Waltham St. Lawrence, Berkshire (now Reading area), England. He died in 1767, leaving a legacy as the "father of children's literature." The melody we know today was composed by James William Elliott in 1870 

The rhyme's "original" meaning is debated and likely polyvalent—no single interpretation dominates, as it evolved as oral folklore before print. Scholars view it as a cautionary tale layered with historical satire, moral warnings, and mythic archetypes. Common theories include:Political Satire on Taxation (Most Widely Accepted for 17th-Century Version): "Jack" and "gill" referred to altered ale measures under Charles I (1625–1649), who reduced volumes to raise revenue without parliamentary approval. "Went up the hill to fetch a pail of water" symbolized the hike in costs; "Jack fell down and broke his crown" the repeal of the tax (breaking the king's "crown" authority); "Jill came tumbling after" the market chaos. This fueled anti-monarchy sentiment leading to the English Civil War. 

French Revolution Allegory (Popular but Later Interpretation): Jack = King Louis XVI (guillotined, "broke his crown"); Jill = Marie Antoinette (followed to the scaffold, "tumbling after"). This emerged in 19th-century retellings but isn't "original." 

Moral Warning on Sexuality and Pregnancy: A didactic tale for young women—climbing the hill = seeking privacy for sex; the fall = consequences like abandonment, STDs, or death in childbirth. Jack flees after "breaking God's law" (lust), leaving Jill to suffer. This aligns with 18th-century Puritan sermons.

 

Author: John Newbery (1713–1767), the London bookseller who popularized it, is often credited as the publisher but not creator. Newbery was born March 6, 1713, in Waltham St. Lawrence, Berkshire (now Reading area), England. He died in 1767, leaving a legacy as the "father of children's literature."

In the period around 1765, John Newbery’s prog Sun [5-9 ta] ----> radix Psyche [5sc] - Orpheus [9aq] - "head wounds as a cause of death" 

Saturn tr. [22-27 ta] square Saturn [23le] - Jup [26aq] - Merc [27aq] 

Saturn (t): Algol [22ta10]

Saturn (n) Adhafera - Alphard [23le] 

Fixed Star Interpretations: Saturn Transit Conjunct Al Jabbah, Adhafera, and Alphard Near Regulus. Fixed star astrologers, drawing from classical sources like Ptolemy, Vivian Robson, and Reinhold Ebertin, as well as modern interpreters like Bernadette Brady and the Astrology King team, view transits like Saturn's conjunction to these stars as periods of intense karmic testing, restriction, and potential downfall—especially when clustered near Regulus, the archetypal "King" star. This configuration (tropical Leo 26°–30° zone) evokes the Sickle of Leo's mane, symbolizing a "royal blade" that can either elevate or decapitate authority. Saturn, as the planet of structure, limitation, and harsh lessons, amplifies the malefic undertones of these stars, often manifesting as scandals, isolation, or structural collapse in leadership or power dynamics.While no single source addresses all these stars in exact Saturn transit detail (as fixed star work focuses more on natals), the consensus synthesizes their natures: Alphard (Hydra's heart) brings venomous undercurrents and moral peril; Adhafera and Al Jabbah (Leo's mane) add Saturnine deceit, self-sabotage, and anxious ambition; Regulus provides the "throne" that's now under siege. The result? A collective or personal "trial of the king," where hubris meets accountability, echoing ancient omens of regicide or imperial decline. 

Historical Hits – Saturn–Algol square late  Leo1792–93 (Saturn in Taurus square Regulus): Execution of Louis XVI (literal guillotine)

1938–39 (Saturn retrograde over Algol square Regulus): Height of European monarchies collapsing into war; assassination attempts on Hitler (failed, but the pattern activated)  

Leo is a sign not only associated with the King but also with children and pregnancy. Saturn in Leo would be a warning from authority figures (Saturn) to children (Leo) to not take sex casually 

John Newbery — the man who, in 1765, first printed the modern version of Jack and Jill with its terrifying woodcut of two boys at the bottom of a menacing hill — died only two years later, in December 1767, at age 54. The transits were almost operatically literal.Let’s lay it out clearly:1765 – 1767 Transits at the Moment He Publishes & Then Dies Transiting Saturn 22° → 27° Taurus (1765–67) Conjunct Algol (22°10′ Taurus in 1760s) → the Demon Star, literal “loss of head” 

Exactly square his natal Saturn 23° Leo (in the Adhafera–Alphard zone)

→ Saturn  + Algol square = the classic “decapitation of the King” configuration we just discussed 

Progressed Sun 5°–9° Taurus (secondary progression for 1765 ≈ age 52) Sitting directly on his natal Psyche 5° Scorpio opposite Orpheus 9° Aquarius

→ Martha Lang-Wescott’s delineation for Psyche–Orpheus contacts: “head wounds as a cause of death”

 

The Symbolic Punchline: Leo rules children, play, creativity, the heart of the child — and the King. Saturn in Leo had always been interpreted (since Abu Ma’shar) as “the old king warning/afflicting the young” or “restriction placed on royal offspring”. 

Newbery’s natal Saturn in Leo (23° Leo, on Adhafera–Alphard) made him the very embodiment of the stern paternal/authority figure who publishes cautionary tales for children. When transiting Saturn returned square to his natal Saturn from Taurus and sat on Algol, the warning he had encoded in Jack and Jill (don’t go up the hill alone, sex/death awaits, the crown will be broken) came back to claim his own head just two years later when Saturn transited square his radix Sun.

He literally published the rhyme that carried the Saturn–Algol–Regulus “lose your head” signature while the same configuration was killing him. Bonus Layer: The Rhyme Itself as Moral Saturn-in-Leo Sermon 

Leo = children + play + romance + creativity

Saturn = the forbidding elder, consequence, restriction, “no”. The 1765 woodcut shows two frightened boys (not a boy and girl yet) at the foot of the hill — an unmistakable Saturn-in-Leo image of male authority terrifying the young. The later softening to “Jack and Jill” still keeps the core message: “Do not take youthful passion lightly — the crown (head, virginity, reputation, life) will be broken.” Newbery himself, under the same transit that took his life, became the instrument that delivered that grim Saturnian sermon to generations of children.So — the chart and the rhyme are a closed astrological loop: 

The man with Saturn in Leo on the malefic mane stars publishes a rhyme about falling and broken crowns while transiting Saturn on Algol squares his Saturn and kills him. It’s almost as if the sky used him as the living footnote to its own symbolism.