[Bg-dance] If all the world were paper

[Charlene Charette]

tmcd at panix.com wrote:
> If all the world were paper
> And all the seas were ink
> If all the trees were bread and cheese
> What would we do for drink?
> 
> If all the bottles leak{'e}d
> And none but had a crack
> If Spanish apes ate all the grapes
> What would we do for sack?
> 
> Danel Lincoln

Those are the two verses usually sung in the SCA.  Here are the rest:

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Ault, Norman; Seventeenth Century Lyrics
Wit's Recreations, 1641

If all the world were paper,
	And all the sea were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese
	What should we do for drink?

If all the world were sand-o,
	Oh, then what should we lack-o?
If, as they say, there were no clay,
	How should we take tobacco?

If all our vessels ran-a,
	If none but had a crack-a;
If Spanish apes ate all the grapes,
	How should we do for sack-a?

If friars had no bald pates,
	Nor nuns had no dark cloisters;
If all the seas were beans and beans,
	How should we do for oysters?

If there had been no projects,
	Nor none that did great wrongs,
If fiddlers shall turn players all,
	How should we do for songs?

If all things were eternal,
	And nothing their end bringing;
If this should be, then how should we
	Here make an end of singing?

Note:  This nonsense rhyme is entitled 'Interrogativa Cantilena' in the 
text.  It was probably inspired by the following little song of an 
earlier date which has survived in British Museum Add. MS. 22601, [c. 1603]:

	If all the Earthe were paper white
		and all the sea were incke
	'Twere not inough for me to write
		as my poore hart doth thinke.
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Not quite enough lyrics to sing the whole dance.

--Perronnelle

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America is addicted to wars of distraction.  -- Barbara Ehrenreich