Originally Posted By: BranShea
By-the-by:

" Note.- The text of the poems is taken from Dyce's edition and has been left unchanged exept for some minor spelling alterations in which some letters such as j.u,and v, have been adapted to present day use. I am grateful to Miss Joan Pye for her great help in this book."

"Present day"was 1949 when this booklet was Edited by a Roland Gant in London =, but Printed and bound by Mouton and Company in Holland (of all places) The hague. They are fragments of longer and some short poems. Only 64 pages thick.

What meaneth covered 'rugs'?

Bye-the-Bye Bye?



Well! If you must ask, rugs cover bare boards in which the absence of indicates the hard times at hand in John Skeleton's poem.

So many gay swordes, (here, the meaning of "swordes" is suspect.)

So many altered wordes, (here, wordes means words but doesn't rhyme with bordes.)

And so few covered bordes. (few could afford to cover their boards with de rigueur rugs.)

--Sawe I never (that's what he had seen never before.)

In the sweet by and by: You can find an in-text discussion of the meaning of John Skeleton's use of the term "bordes" in Dyce's edition which is used as an example beneath a poem which mentioned painting ship's "bordes" with pictures of the creatures as they boarded Noe's Ark.



Last edited by themilum; 11/26/07 11:14 PM.