Quotation Marks--Which Is The Correct Oral Use?

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to show when you are there.”

Or

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
"'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
"The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
"And I've a many curious things to show when you are there.”

Or just leave out the quotation marks entirely?

mccardey said:

Still, I gotta say I wouldn't be going anywhere with that spider...

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Heh. My MC is the spider.

blacbird said:

None of the above. Punctuationally correct would be:

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
"'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to show when you are there.”

caw

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Thanks you!

Al X. said:

I also agree with blacbird, but I was initially thrown by the contraction apostrophe, thinking it was an embedded quote at first. Grammatically correct yes, but slightly awkward to me as a reader. - 'tis - would have been more clear but then there is the capitalization issue.

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I didn't write the poem. Mary Howitt published it in 1829. It's in the public domain.

Maryn said:

May I ask what the point was in questioning the punctuation of a work published so long ago by someone else?

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Except for the obvious, the quotation marks are mine. I should have made that plain. I have several such oral verses and songs from long ago and some that I have written myself placed between blank spaces, and I wanted to make sure my quotations were correct. I have seen some in published works that bore no quotation marks.

I wouldn't begin to criticize a published author's grammar, let alone start a thread about it--if that was your thinking.

I just found one in John Jakes Love and war that someone was singing. It had quotation marks before the first sentence and after the very last sentence, like the first version in the OP, which I find looks better. Lol.