January 15, 2006

What day of the week were you born?

I was at a dinner party last week and someone started reciting this nursery rhyme. This rhyme says your character will be determined partly based on what day of the week you were born.

Here is one version of it. The author is unknown:

Monday's Child is fair of face
Tuesday Child is full of grace
Wednesday's Child is full of woe
Thursday's Child has far to go
Friday's Child is loving and giving
Saturday's Child works hard for a living
But Sunday's Child is fair and wise
and good and gay

It seems that Sunday's child has the best luck in life. I was a Tuesday child so I don't take offense to this poem but it's not very kind to those of us born on Wednesday. I guess the 'woe' refers to undue mental stresses from an overactive Mercury.

Astrology consisted of only seven traditional 'planets' until just a century ago. These were each thought to represent one day of the week. The Sun was Sunday, Moon was Monday, Mars ('mardi' in French for Tuesday) was Tuesday, Mercury (Mercredi in french for Wednesday) was Wednesday, Jupiter (Jeudi in french for Thursday) was Thursday, Venus (vendredi in French for Friday) was Friday and Saturn was Saturday.

What day of the week were you born? Does this poem hold any meaning for you personally?