The phrase is also used in Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), where the captain, confused as to what choices to make in his life, exclaims in the opening song of Act II, "Fair moon, to thee I sing, bright regent of the heavens, say, why is everything either at sixes or at sevens?"
At sixes and sevens, an English phrase and idiom, common in the United Kingdom
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