Leap Year: A Most Ingenious Paradox!

PIRATE KING:
For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I’ve no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority, I don’t know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and-twenty.
Through some singular coincidence — I shouldn’t be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy–
You [Fredric] are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you’ll easily discover,
That though you’ve lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays, you’re only five and a little bit over! RUTH and KING:

Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ho! ho! ho! ho!

FREDERIC:

Dear me!
Let’s see! (counting on fingers)
Yes, yes; with yours my figures do agree! ALL:

Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

FREDERIC:

(more amused than any) How quaint the ways of Paradox!
At common sense she gaily mocks!
Though counting in the usual way,
Years twenty-one I’ve been alive,
Yet, reck’ning by my natal day,
Yet, reck’ning by my natal day,
I am a little boy of five!

RUTH and KING:

He is a little boy of five!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

ALL:

A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
A paradox,
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
A curious paradox,
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
A most ingenious paradox!
 

The Pirates of Penzance from The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive

 

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."