| "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" | |
|---|---|
 John Tenniel's illustration, fromThrough the Looking-Glass (1871), chapter 4 | |
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | 1805 |
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in an Englishnursery rhyme and inLewis Carroll's 1871 bookThrough the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from anepigram written by poetJohn Byrom. The nursery rhyme has aRoud Folk Song Index number of 19800. The names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people whose appearances and actions are identical.
Common versions of the nursery rhyme include:
The words "Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum" make their first appearance in print as names applied to the composersGeorge Frideric Handel andGiovanni Bononcini in "one of the most celebrated and most frequently quoted (and sometimes misquoted)epigrams", satirising disagreements between Handel and Bononcini,[2] written byJohn Byrom (1692–1763):[3] in his satire, from 1725.
Although Byrom is clearly the author of the epigram, the last two lines have also been attributed toJonathan Swift andAlexander Pope.[1] While the familiar form of the rhyme was first printed inOriginal Ditties for the Nursery (c. 1805), Byrom may have drawn on an existing rhyme.[5]
The characters are perhaps best known fromLewis Carroll'sThrough the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There (1871). Carroll, having introduced two fat little men named Tweedledee and Tweedledum, quotes the nursery rhyme, which the two brothers then go on to enact. They agree to have a battle, but never have one. When they see a monstrous black crow swooping down, they take to their heels. The Tweedle brothers never contradict each other, even when one of them, according to the rhyme, "agrees to have a battle". Rather, they complement each other's words, which ledJohn Tenniel to portray them as twins in his illustrations for the book.
