A thought from my friend Paul of Diabolus in Musica who knows a lot About early English, and even speaks it when required Nick
Dear Nick, I think these are simple plurals. They're just idiomatic - probably drawn from a dialect usage. I'm sure there are a number of modern dialects (eg. Cockney, Gloucester) where "tears kills the heart" would be the normal form - probably with a dropped h in "heart", which was also common among the higher orders of society in the Elizabethan period. There were no standardised and codified rules of grammar in that period - at least, none that met with anything like universal acceptance. Ralegh spoke broad Devon at court, and wasn't mocked for it. If you wanted to establish your linguistic rank, you did it in French or Latin. Best wishes, Paul -----Original Message----- From: Ed Durbrow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 17 March 2006 10:30 To: LGS-Europe; lute list Subject: [LUTE] Re: I saw my lady weep We are talking about 400 year old English here. It is difficult for many native speakers. The lute songs are not just normal English but sometimes very deep. The syntax often blows my mind, - very hard to hang on to sometimes. I wouldn't worry at all about such a detail. If you can understand it, you are ahead of the game. I heard that Shakespeare spelled his name 17 different ways or something like that! I am not an expert, maybe someone else has deep thoughts. cheers, On Mar 17, 2006, at 6:20 AM, LGS-Europe wrote: > third verse: > > ..joyful looks excells. > Tears kills the heart... > > What's with the s-es after the verbs? 'Looks' and 'tears' (noun, > for sure in > the contaxt) are plural, so I would expect 'excell' and 'kill'. > Someone told me these could 'abstract nouns' and have singelur > verb. I can > imagine something like that with the 'teares'. They are not just > the salty > drops > coming from the eyes, but are an abstract image of sadness, and as > such > singular. But with the 'looks' it doesn't quite feel natural. Just > early > spelling, or sloppiness thereof? But an 's' behind both verbs... > Any deep thoughts out there? I wish Bob Spencer was still around to > ask. > Sigh. > > David > > > > ************************************ > David van Ooijen > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Http://www.davidvanooijen.nl > ************************************ > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
