England's Antiphon, George MacDonald [ready to read books TXT] 📗

I think, what the French call feminine rhymes, as in the words "sleeping," "weeping." This I think it better not to attempt retaining, because the final unaccented syllable is generally one of those e 's which, having first become mute, have since been dropped from our spelling altogether.

[2] For the grammatical interpretation of this line, I am indebted to Mr. Richard Morris. Shall is here used, as it often is, in the sense of
must , and rede is a noun; the paraphrase of the whole being, " Son, what must be to me for counsel? " " What counsel must I follow? "

[3] "Do not blame me, it is my nature."

[4] Mon is used for man or woman : human being. It is so used in Lancashire still: they say mon to a woman.

[5] "They weep quietly and becomingly ." I think there must be in this word something of the sense of gently,-uncomplainingly .

[6] "And are shrunken ( clung with fear) like the clay." So here is the same as as . For this interpretation I am indebted to Mr. Morris.

[7] "It is no wonder though it pleases me very ill."

[8] I think the poet, wisely anxious to keep his last line just what it is, was perplexed for a rhyme, and fell on the odd device of saying, for "both day and night," "both day and the other."

[9] "All as if it were not never, I wis."

[10] "So that many men say-True it is, all goeth but God's will."

[11] I conjecture "All that grain (me) groweth green."

[12] Not is a contraction for ne wat, know not . "For I know not whither I must go, nor how long here I dwell." I think y is omitted by mistake before duelle .

[13] This is very poor compared with the original.

[14] I owe almost all my information on the history of these plays to Mr. Collier's well-known work on English Dramatic Poetry.

[15] Able to suffer , deserving, subject to, obnoxious to, liable to death and vengeance.

[16] The word harry is still used in Scotland, but only in regard to a bird's nest.

[17] Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best.

[18] Complexion.

[19] Ruddiness-complexion.

[20] Twig.

[21] Life (?).-I think she should be he .

[22] Field.

[23] "Carry you beyond this region."

[24] For the knowledge of this poem I am indebted to the Early English Text Society, now printing so many valuable manuscripts.

[25] The for here is only an intensive.

[26] Pref is proof . Put in pref seems to stand for something more than being tested . Might it not mean proved to be a pearl of price?

[27] A word acknowledged to be obscure. Mr. Morris suggests on the left hand , as unbelieved.

[28] "Except that which his sole wit may judge."

[29] "Be equal to thy possessions:" "fit thy desires to thy means."

[30] "Ambition has uncertainty." We use the word ticklish still.

[31] "Is mingled everywhere."

[32] To relish, to like. "Desire no more than is fitting for thee."

[33] For.

[34] "Let thy spiritual and not thine animal nature guide thee."

[35] "And I dare not falsely judge the reverse."

[36] A poem so like this that it may have been written immediately after reading it, is attributed to Robert Henryson, the Scotch poet. It has the same refrain to every verse as Lydgate's.

[37] "Mourning for mishaps that I had caught made me almost mad."

[38] "Led me all one:" "brought me back to peace, unity, harmony." (?)

[39] "That I read on (it)."

[40] Of in the original, as in the title.

[41] Does this mean by contemplation on it?

[42] "I paid good attention to it."

[43] "Greeted thee"- in the very affliction.

[44] "For Christ's love let us do the same."

[45] "Whatever grief or woe enslaves thee." But thrall is a blunder, for the word ought to have rhymed with make.

[46] "The precious leader that shall judge us."

[47] "When thou art in sorry plight, think of this."

[48] "And death, beyond renewal, lay hold upon their life."

[49] Sending, message: "whatever varying decree God sends thee."

[50] "Receives his message;" "accepts his will."

[51] Recently published by the Early English Text Society. S.L. IV.

[52] "Child born of a bright lady." Bird, berd, brid, burd , means
lady originally: thence comes our bride .

[53] In Chalmers' English Poets , from which I quote, it is
selly-worme; but I think this must be a mistake. Silly would here mean weak .

[54] The first poem he wrote, a very fine one, The Shepheard's Calender , is so full of old and provincial words, that the educated people of his own time required a glossary to assist them in the reading of it.

[55] Eyas is a young hawk, whose wings are not fully fledged.

[56] "What less than that is fitting?"

[57] For , even in Collier's edition, but certainly a blunder.

[58] Was , in the editions; clearly wrong.

[59] "Of the same mould and hand as we."

[60] There was no contempt in the use of this word then.

[61] Simple-hearted, therefore blessed; like the German selig .

[62] A shell plentiful on the coast of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims to show that they had visited that country.

[63] Evil was pronounced almost as a monosyllable, and was at last contracted to ill .

[64] "Come to find a place." The transitive verb stow means to put in a place: here it is used intransitively.

[65] The list of servants then kept in large houses, the number of such being far greater than it is now.

[66] There has been some blundering in the transcription of the last two lines of this stanza. In the former of the two I have substituted doth for dost , evidently wrong. In the latter, the word cradle is doubtful. I suggest cradled , but am not satisfied with it. The meaning is, however, plain enough.

[67] "The very blessing the soul needed."

[68] An old English game, still in use in Scotland and America, but vanishing before cricket.

[69] Silly means innocent , and therefore blessed ; ignorant of evil, and in so far helpless. It is easy to see how affection came to apply it to idiots. It is applied to the ox and ass in the next stanza, and is often an epithet of shepherds.

[70] See Poems by Sir Henry Wotton and others. Edited by the Rev. John Hannah .

[71] "Know thyself."

[72] "And I have grown their map."

[73] The guilt of Adam's first sin, supposed by the theologians of Dr. Donne's time to be imputed to Adam's descendants.

[74] The past tense: ran.

[75] Their door to enter into sin-by his example.

[76] He was sent by James I. to assist an embassy to the Elector Palatine, who had married his daughter Elizabeth.

[77] He had lately lost his wife, for whom he had a rare love.

[78] "If they know us not by intuition, but by judging from circumstances and signs."

[79] "With most willingness."

[80] "Art proud."

[81] A strange use of the word; but it evidently means recovered , and has some analogy with the French repasser .

[82] To understood: to sweeten .

[83] He plays upon the astrological terms, houses and schemes . The astrologers divided the heavens into twelve houses ; and the diagrams by which they represented the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, they called schemes .

[84] The tree of knowledge.

[85] Dyce, following Seward, substitutes curse .

[86] A glimmer of that Platonism of which, happily, we have so much more in the seventeenth century.

[87] Should this be " in fees;" that is, in acknowledgment of his feudal sovereignty?

[88] Warm is here elongated, almost treated as a dissyllable.

[89] "He ought not to be forsaken: whoever weighs the matter rightly, will come to this conclusion."

[90] The Eridan is the Po .-As regards classical allusions in connexion with sacred things, I would remind my reader of the great reverence our ancestors had for the classics, from the influence they had had in reviving the literature of the country.-I need hardly remind him of the commonly-received fancy that the swan does sing once-just as his death draws nigh. Does this come from the legend of Cycnus changed into a swan while lamenting the death of his friend Phaeton? or was that legend founded on the yet older fancy? The glorious bird looks as if he ought to sing.

[91] The poet refers to the singing of the hymn before our Lord went to the garden by the brook Cedron.

[92] The construction is obscure just from the insertion of the to before breathe , where it ought not to be after the verb hear . The poet does not mean that he delights to hear that voice more than to breathe gentle airs, but more than to hear gentle airs (to) breathe. To hear , understood, governs all the infinitives that follow; among the rest, the winds (to) chide .

[93] Rut is used for the sound of the tide in Cheshire. (See
Halliwell's Dictionary .) Does rutty mean roaring? or does it describe the deep, rugged shores of the Jordan?

[94] A monosyllable, contracted afterwards into bloom .

[95] Willows.

[96] Groom originally means just a man . It was a word much used when pastoral poetry was the fashion. Spenser has herd-grooms in his
Shepherd's Calendar . This last is what it means here: shepherds .

[97] Obtain, save.

[98] Equivalent to "What are those hands of yours for?"

[99] He was but thirty-nine when he died.

[100] To rhyme with pray in the second line.

[101] Bunch of flowers. He was thinking of Aaron's rod, perhaps.

[102] To correspond to that of Christ.

[103] Again a touch of holy humour: to match his Master's predestination, he will contrive something three years beforehand, with an if .

[104] The here in the preceding line means his book ; hence the thy book is antithetical.

[105] Concent is a singing together, or harmoniously.

[106] Music depends all on proportions.

[107] The diapason is the octave. Therefore "all notes true." See note 2, p. 205.

[108] An intransitive verb: he was wont .

[109] The birds called halcyons were said to build their nests on the water, and, while they were brooding, to