Come into my parlour...

The Spider and the Fly (poem)

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The Spider and the Fly

by Mary Howitt

Subject(s)fable

Children's verse

Publication date1829

The Spider and the Fly

 

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,

'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;

The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,

And I've a many curious things to shew when you are there.”

 

“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,

For who goes up your winding stair

-can ne'er come down again.”

 

~By Mary Howitt, 1829

The Spider and the Fly is a poem by Mary Howitt (1799-1888), published in 1829. The first line of the poem is "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the Spider to the Fly." The story tells of a cunning Spider who ensnares a naive Fly through the use of seduction and flattery. The poem is a cautionary tale against those who use flattery and charm to disguise their true evil intentions. When Lewis Carroll was readying Alice's Adventures Under Ground for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song with a parody of Howitt's poem. The "Lobster Quadrille", in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is a parody of Howitt's poem; it mimics the meter and rhyme scheme, and parodies the first line, but not the subject matter, of the original.

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