<P> As presented above and as presented in the accompanying published images, the rhyme is made up of six - line stanzas with a rhyming scheme of aabccb and a trochaic rhythm (with the stress falling on the first of a pair of syllables). Alternatively, if these stanzas were viewed as quatrains with internal rhymes, this would be an example of ballad form, a common form for nursery rhymes . The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (1870). The Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogues folk songs and their variations by number, classifies the song as 10266 . </P> <P> The phrase "Jack and Jill" was in use in England as early as the 16th century to indicate a boy and a girl . A comedy with the title Jack and Jill was performed at the Elizabethan court in 1567 - 68, and the phrase was used twice by Shakespeare: in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which contains the line, "Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill" (III: ii: 460 - 2), and in Love's Labour's Lost, which has the lines, "Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill" (V: ii: 874--5). These lines suggest that it was a phrase which indicated a romantically attached couple, as in the proverb "a good Jack makes a good Jill". </P> <P> The earliest known printed version comes from a reprint of John Newbery's Mother Goose's Melody, thought to have been first published in London around 1765 . The rhyming of "water" with "after" was taken by Iona and Peter Opie to suggest that the first verse may date from the first half of the 17th century . A musical arrangement by Charles Burney was published in 1777 . </P> <P> Several theories have been advanced to explain its origins and to suggest meanings for the lyrics . </P>

What is jack and jill went up the hill about