World Rhymes›Arroz con leche
Arroz con leche
“Rice with milk”
SpanishCircle game chantPublic domain
A Spanish ring game in which one child stands in the middle and chooses a partner by singing the verses. Children have played it in Spain and across Latin America, and parents sing the tune at home too.
The rhyme
Arroz con leche
me quiero casar
con una chica
de este lugar,
que sepa coser,
que sepa bordar
y hacer camisolas
a lo militar.
Rosa, por rosa
escojo esta,
por chiquita
y por hermosa.
Good to know
What it means
Rice with milk: I want to marry a girl from this place, one who can sew, who can embroider and who can make shirts in the military style. Rose by rose, I choose this one, because she is small and beautiful.
How to play
Children hold hands in a ring and walk round while one child stands inside. At the choosing verse the child in the middle picks a partner, who then swaps places.
History
About this rhyme
Arroz con leche is a circle game: the children walk round while one child, in the middle, chooses a partner with the verses. The words shown here are the oldest printed form we could open, from Asturias in 1895. Across Spain and Latin America the verses differ, and many versions add a nationality or a city; we do not show them. The verses reflect ideas about marriage from long ago, which is worth remembering when you sing them with children today. Stories online say it is a medieval French song; we found no source for that, so its age is simply unknown.
Sources & rights
- The rhyme is anonymous and traditional. We show the text printed in Braulio Vigón, Juegos y rimas infantiles recogidos en los concejos de Villaviciosa, Colunga y otros (1895), in modern spelling; we read it in the scan of the book on the Internet Archive.
- The meaning, the game instructions and the background text are written by us in our own words.
- There is no recording or tune on this page: we do not claim any.
Spotted a mistake or know a better source? Tell us. How we work · Get in touch
More rhymes from around the world
Counting rhymes, clapping games and little verses from many countries, in one place.
← All World Rhymes Lullaby Encyclopedia