The Poetical Works of John Skelton, Volume 2 (of 2)Skelton, John
General
The Poetical Works of John Skelton, Volume 2 (of 2)
Skelton, John
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
Page 325. v. 365. _Ye make monkes to haue the culerage, &c._] A passage
which I do not understand: but _culerage_ perhaps has here the meaning
which it conveys as the name of an herb, “Arse-smart. _Cul-rage._”
Cotgrave’s _Dict._
v. 373. _ouerthwarted_] Has been explained before (p. 211. v.
230)—cavilled, wrangled: but here it seems to mean—crossly, perversely
opposed or controlled.
v. 376. _fayne_] i. e. glad.
v. 379. _corum_] i. e. quorum.
v. 388. _apostataas_] See note, p. 212. v. 290.
Page 326. v. 391. _sely nonnes_] i. e. silly, simple, harmless nuns.
v. 392. _ronnes_] i. e. runs.
v. 396. _quere_] i. e. quire.
v. 397. _heuy chere_] “_Heavy chear_, Tristitia, Mœstitia.” Cole’s _Dict._
v. 399. _fucke sayles_] So in a copy of verses attributed to Dunbar;
“The dust upskaillis, mony fillok wiih _fuk saillis_.”
_Poems_, ii. 27. ed. Laing.
and in another by Sir R. Maitland;
“Of fynest camroche thair _fuk saillis_.”
_Anc. Scot. Poems from Maitland MSS._, ii. 326. ed. Pink.
_Focke_, a foresail, German. In the Expenses of Sir John Howard, first
Duke of Norfolk, we find, “Item, the same day my mastyr paid to the said
Clayson, for a _fuk_ maste for the said kervelle, iij_s._ iiij_d._”
_Manners and Household Expenses of England_, &c., p. 206. ed. Roxb.
v. 401. _shales_] See note, p. 97. v. 19.
v. 403. _The lay fee people_] i. e. the laity: see note, p. 234. v. 267.
v. 404. _fawte_] i. e. fault.
v. 409. _Boke and chalys_] i. e. Book and chalice.
Page 327. v. 417. _melles_] i. e. meddles.
v. 418. _tytyuelles_] This word occurs not unfrequently, and with some
variety of spelling, in our early writers. So Lydgate;
“_Tytyuylles_ tyrauntes with tormentoures.”
_Le Assemble de dyeus_, sig. c i. n. d. 4to.
and Heywood;
“There is no moe such _titifyls_ in Englandes ground,
To hold with the hare, and run with the hound.”
_Dialogue_, &c. sig. C,—_Workes_, ed. 1598.
Some have considered the word as derived from the Latin, _titivilitium_,
a thing of no worth. Jamieson “suspects that it is a personal
designation,” _Et. Dict. of Scot. Lang._ in v. _Tutivillaris_. In
_Juditium, Towneley Mysteries_, p. 310, _Tutivillus_ is a fiend; and in
the Moral Play of _Mankind_ he represents the sin of the flesh, _Hist. of
Engl. Dram. Poet._, ii. 297, by Mr. J.P. Collier, who says (ii. 223) that
“the name afterwards came to mean any person with evil propensities,”
and refers to the comedy of _Rauf Royster Doyster_, Skelton’s Works, and
the Enterlude of _Thersytes_: when he objected to the derivation of the
word from _titivilitium_ and proposed “the more simple etymology, _totus_
and _vilis_,” he was probably not aware that some writers (wrongly)
“_totivillitium_ volunt, quasi _totum vile_:” see Gronovius’s note on the
_Casina_ of Plautus, ii. 5, 39. ed. Var.
Page 327. v. 421. _Of an abbay ye make a graunge_] A proverbial
expression.
“Our changes are soch that _an abbeye turneth to a graunge_.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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