Sleeping in the spare bedroom/library of someone who has a great many more books than I have, I recently came across something which you all may know already, but I didn't and I loved it
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this is when my uneducated neanderthal boor come out. I look at this and go oh, wow, pretty and fun and I can't read more than one word in ten. I did wonder if "mum" is silent? Oddly the psitlaco I got because psittacosaurus are parrot-beacked dinosaurs and I knew that psittaciformes are parrots. Is Peerless Pomegranate Australian slang? Or is it something else in the poem?
Truly, I can't imagine anyone less like an uneducated neanderthal boor!
And yes, I bet you're right about "mum", and I'm guessing that "mum chaire" is an old form of "mumchance", and that the phrase means "who made the parrot non-speaking?"
And now I've looked up "mumchance", and found that it relates to mummers, play-acting to entertain without words...so the parrot dancing on its perch is maybe being compared to them. Terrific,Ruth -- thank you for that lead! :D
And not to be more of a nuisance with old forms of words, I will hastily put the excerpt in readable spelling.
My name is Parrot,a bird of paradise by nature devised of a wondrous kind daintily dieted with diverse delicate spice till Euphrates,that flood, drives me into Inde where men of that country by fortune me find and send me to great ladies of estate then... Parrot must have an almond, or a date! a cage curiously carved, with a silver pin properly painted, to be my covering! a mirror of glass, that I may toot (I don't know this word!) therein
( ... )
Ok, the latin is from Aulus Persius Flaccus, and the problem is that it's not pure latin to start with: "quis expedivit psittaco suum χαιρε [chaire, chaere, chaira; depending on the transliteration]"
the most literal rendering I can come up with out of that is: Who has made ready the parrot in his "hello"?
As for 'toote' this from an article about place-names: "The word derives from the Old English totian, 'to peep, look out, spy', or Middle English toten, 'to project, stick out'. But 'to tote' in Middle English is 'to watch, to look out'. The word has also evolved into modern English 'tout', which (until recently, at least) meant a spy or lookout man."
I love checking LJ and not only finding long passages of charming Middle English poetry but discussions thereon and translations of the Latin and etymologies going back to Greek and Old English. Thanks for the happification!
Thank you, Songsmith!! I'm especially happy to get the link to "tout" which I do sort of know, though it's not in my day-to-day vocabulary. I love seeing languages link and change. :) And the Latin, too -- to quote Trufflehunter, "It is a good thing we have a learned [Songsmith] among us." :)
The use of 'tout' for 'spy' is interesting, given the better known usage is to talk up. That's a strong difference there, with one being secretive and the other public.
oh, by the by, the wonderful thing about Middle English (and Middle-transforming-to-Modern) is that it's really, really phonetic so if you just say it out loud (or pretend you're being drunk-texted, but that might be a generational reference?) things make sense. For future reading of old poetry. :)
The parrot voice is delightful
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And yes, I bet you're right about "mum", and I'm guessing that "mum chaire" is an old form of "mumchance", and that the phrase means "who made the parrot non-speaking?"
And now I've looked up "mumchance", and found that it relates to mummers, play-acting to entertain without words...so the parrot dancing on its perch is maybe being compared to them. Terrific,Ruth -- thank you for that lead! :D
And not to be more of a nuisance with old forms of words, I will hastily put the excerpt in readable spelling.
My name is Parrot,a bird of paradise
by nature devised of a wondrous kind
daintily dieted with diverse delicate spice
till Euphrates,that flood, drives me into Inde
where men of that country by fortune me find
and send me to great ladies of estate
then... Parrot must have an almond, or a date!
a cage curiously carved, with a silver pin
properly painted, to be my covering!
a mirror of glass, that I may toot (I don't know this word!) therein ( ... )
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the most literal rendering I can come up with out of that is: Who has made ready the parrot in his "hello"?
As for 'toote' this from an article about place-names:
"The word derives from the Old English totian, 'to peep, look out, spy', or Middle English toten, 'to project, stick out'. But 'to tote' in Middle English is 'to watch, to look out'. The word has also evolved into modern English 'tout', which (until recently, at least) meant a spy or lookout man."
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I was trying to reply to you one at a time, but the layout looked messy, so it's both together!
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