download PDF version: 47.1MB - Global Grey

76 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
To shallow Ruiers (Rivers ?) to whose falls
: melodious
Birds sing Madrigalls
: There will we make our Peds of Roses :
and a thousand fragrant posies. To shallow :
'Mercy on
mee, I have a great dispositions to cry. Melodious birds sing
Madrigalls : - - When as I sat in Papilon : and a
thousand vagrant Posies. To shallow, &c.
(From the Folio Edition of 1623.)
The words in italics are verses, and are now printed
as such in modern editions. And yet the editors have
all of them overlooked the fact that in the second
stanza of the
little song, where the long dash occurs,
a line is omitted. We produce the lines in verse-form,
indicating the omitted line by a long dash and we
;
would draw the reader's attention to the colon at the
end of each rhymed line, a peculiarity which we have
frequently had occasion to remark upon :
To shallow Rivers to whose falls :
melodious Birds sing Madrigalls
:
There will we make our Peds of Roses :
and a thousand fragrant posies.
To shallow :
'Mercy on me, I
have a great dispositions to cry.
Melodious birds sing Madrigalls :
When as I sat in Papilon :
and a thousand vagram Posies.
To shallow, &c.
Tieck translates:
Am stille Pach, zu tesse Fall
Ertont der Vokel Matrikal,
Lass uns ein Pett von Rosen streun,
Und tausend wiirz'ge Plume fein,
Am stille Pach, . . .
Ach Kott, ach Kott ich !
pin sehr lustig zu weine !