Talk:Casabianca (poem)

Joke versions
I recall this from some book of humorous poems I read many times in my early youth:

The boy stood on the burning deck, His feet were full of blisters; The flames licked up and burned his pants, And now he wears his sister's.

--FOo 17:13, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC) I heard a similar version (as a verse of "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More").

In this, the third line was

He tore his pants on a rusty nail

Kostaki mou (talk) 02:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Another one... The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; Twit. Average Earthman 10:41, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * That's Casabazonka by Spike Milligan. BTW the punctuation at the end of the second line should be an em-dash, not a semicolon. -- 217.171.129.71 (talk) 11:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

And slightly longer...


 * The boy sat in the dining hall
 * Whence all but he had fled.
 * His trousers were unbuttoned
 * For he was full of bread.


 * "This is my fifteenth cup of tea"
 * He cried in accents wild.
 * "Another crust and I shall burst!"
 * He was a vulgar child!


 * There was a bang, a loud report!
 * The boy -- ah, where was he?
 * Ask of the maid who swept him up
 * The breadcrumbs and the tea!

... which I memorised at the feet of my elderly great aunt while a child. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The boy stood on the burning deck

His pockets full of crackers

A flame shot up between his legs

And blew off both his …

As I recall it. ~ cygnis insignis 09:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Re: Parodies
Generations of mothers may have matched the parodies created by generations of schoolchildren with


 * The boy stood on the burning deck,
 * Selling peas, a penny a peck,
 * And did 'e wash 'is dirty neck,
 * No, no, did 'e 'eck.

Frequently heard. No citation source known. Philh-591 (talk) 18:55, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Why are British and English being used interchangeably?
I thought Wikipedia was trying to do away with its image as a terrible resource. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.178.192 (talk) 01:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks like this has been fixed since. You can be WP:BOLD and fix obvious errors rather than just tutting at them. --McGeddon (talk) 09:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Retains meaning
Casabianca may have been taught for over a century, but that does not deprive it of meaning. "So often memorized and recited as to lose any shred of meaning or emotion" is meaningless, for each child only learned it once, and for the first time.Royalcourtier (talk) 07:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed, this seems an odd and subjective statement, I've cut it. --McGeddon (talk) 09:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Meaning
The poem "Casabianca" proves that the son did not love his father. Because a son never wants to leave his father in dying condition. The lines of the poem "Say father say if my job if yet my task is done?" and "speak father, if I may yet be gone?" clearly prove that the boy wnated to leave his father in dying condition....and a son could never leave his father in such a condition..... However, he might be an obedient servant to the commands of his Captain. Because a loyal soldiers never disobey his commander and never leave a post without permission of commander. ' AKHTAR SUROSH TEACHER, AUTHOR, WRITER — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.5.143.124 (talk) 16:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The boy was given an order by his father, and obeys it. He wants his father to give him new orders, but stays at his post in obedience to his original orders. Certainly he does not want his father to die, nor does he want to die himself, but he is obedient to his father. Of course, this shows the stupidity of thoughtlessly obeying orders even if circumstances change. Casabianca's death serves no one, especially not himself. It was probably a good thing that he died at such an early age: If he had grown up and been in similar circumstances at a later age, he might have caused others to die uselessly, not just dying uselessly himself. Mindless obedience to orders is not necessarily a good thing. (Adolf Eichmann anyone?) JHobson3 (talk) 12:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I would argue the reverse of that. After all, what sort of loving parent abandons their terrified child on a burning ship? Perhaps it was considered noble at the time to leave him, rather than have him captured by the enemy. Maybe the father truly believed that his son would be safe where he left him for the short time needed to prepare his escape. We are only able to speculate.
 * However, what the poem does show, is that the child clearly loved and trusted his father so much that he placed his own life in his father's hands in the misguided belief that that would keep him safe.LordSandwichII (talk) 21:51, 11 March 2020 (UTC)