The Narcissist’s Secret Pact With Death

Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!

There’s something about this nursery rhyme which has always fascinated me. Its origins remain unknown, with one long-standing interpretation linking it to the Great Plague of the 17th century.

There is no solid proof of the rhyme’s ‘bubonic’ roots, yet I don’t believe that matters very much. If the symbolism points to something deeper which helps us make sense of difficult truths, then all the better.

In the Plague interpretation, the ‘rosie’ alludes to the colour of the rash caused by the illness, while a ‘pocket of posies’ was what people carried around to ward off the ‘bad smell’ and keep them safe. ‘Ashes’ refers to the burning bodies, and ‘we all fall down’ symbolises the masses dying everywhere.

Needless to say, the Great Plague is long gone. Covid took many of our loved ones from us, yet it had vastly different characteristics to previous pandemics. We may need new nursery rhymes to symbolise our experience of forced vaccinations, haunting isolation with endless binge-watching, and eerily abandoned airports and city streets.

However, there is a context where I feel this nursery rhyme is still apt, and that is when describing a narcissist. So let’s reimagine this classic, and see if we can draw new meaning from it to serve us in the 21st century.

Ring Around The Target

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