What’s the French for “Fiddle de dee”?
Margaret of Scotland, Wife of Louis XI, provides an answer for Lewis Carroll
Here’s a question to explore,
A query Alice merely parried
When she was examined for
The right to wear the crown she carried,
And to be a pawn no more.
Perhaps the French for “fiddle de dee,”
And its meaning, may be seen
In those sad words that a dauphine,
Ever a pawn and never a queen,
Said on her deathbed: “Fie de la vie.”
If so, does “fiddle de dee”belittle
Life any less than it does a fiddle?
–Henry George Fischer