Songs and Lyrics (Lehrer)/There's a Delta for Every Epsilon

by Thomas Andrew Lehrer

THERE'S A DELTA FOR EVERY EPSILON
(Calypso)

words and music by Tom Lehrer (1949)

 

There's a delta for ev'ry epsilon,
It's a fact that you can always count upon.
There's a delta for ev'ry epsilon --
And now and again
There's also an N.

But one condition I must give:
The epsilon must be positive.
A lonely life all the others live,
In no theorem
A delta for them.

How sad, how cruel, how tragic!
How pitiful, and other adjec -
Tives that I might mention.
The matter merits our attention.
If an epsilon is a hero
Just because it is greater than zero,
It must be mighty discouragin'
To lie to the left of the "uragin."

This rank discrimination is not for us.
We must fight for an enlightened calculus,
Where epsilons all, both minus and plus,
Have deltas
To call their own.