Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There and in a nursery rhyme by an anonymous author. The names originally came from a John Byrom poem.

John Byrom's poem

Its first appearance in print is in a poem by John Byrom (1692-1763):

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: Some say, that Signor Bononcini,

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: Compared to Handel's a mere ninny;

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: Others aver, to him, that Handel

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: Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.

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: Strange! That such high dispute should be

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: 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

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:: —John Byrom, On the Feuds Between Handel and Bononcini

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In Byrom's poem the words are clearly onamatopoeic representations of similar musical phrases.

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