Through which I wot, that I must nedis dien, That men hem wrien* with ASHIN‡ pale and ded." "Now ben the Priestes pokes § so wide, Men must enlarge the vestiment, And wollin men crepe to the crouch †† With mede §§ and money thus thei monche ||||, IDEM. * I take both these words to be grounded in a metathesis of weyren, weeren, weren [to protect, to shelter, to cover up] and thus to wryen; and to be in the first case as "I dare not shelter [cover] myself by getting out of her sight,” and in the second as, they cover up the glowing brands with ashes to keep them alight. Ashes; and as asschen. Pockets. Appended, hung. T Faith, gospel. ** Will ask, will demand. tt To receive the priest's benediction, when he makes the receiver of it crouch [crook, bend the body in sign of prostration]. #Ashes, but spelt in that manner merely for the sake of rhyming with the foregoing askeis, a common manœuvre with our older poets; the term is here used as the refuse of the articles employed in popish communions. §§ Bribe, pay. Munch, eat, live. OBS.-When cinis [cinder] is used in Latin as the trope of the corpse, it is, because it was customary with the Romans to burn their dead; -a custom which can have no relation to us [man in general]. In the expression cinis et umbra; cinis is as corpse, remains; and umbra, soul, spirit, that which has left the body, its shade, ghost. Suprema ferre cineri, is to attend the corpse to the funeral pile [to see it reduced to a cinder]. In this sense it could never have been employed as ashes is in ashes to ashes; cinis in cinerem, cinder into cinder, is repulsive to sense. A BURNING SHAME. As some improper [unbecoming, disorderly, offensive] act [appearance]; a departure from decorum [decency]. Er behooren in scheé 'em; q.e. here [in this affair] he has departed from that which was proper [decent, becoming, right]. By the falling of the term burning into the travestied phrase, from analogy of sound with behooren in, the expression of its present form is exaggerated and burlesque. Behooren, to become, to be proper for, to suit, decere, is here used substantively. Schee, schede, as the potential form of scheeden, scheijden, to depart from, to separate from. 'Em, hem, him, to him. Scheé 'em sounds shame. SHAME, in old Dutch schaeme [now schaemte] is, I suspect grounded in the thema scha-en, to diminish, to lessen, to take off, and thus, to deprive, to injure; whence shade, shadow, as that which takes off from that over which it extends, and the Dutch schemer, twilight, as well as our old to scathe (to scotch?) in the sense of to injure, to take off from, and the Italian scemare, to diminish. So that shame (schaem) would then be as the substantive contraction of scha-ing, an injuring, a lessening, which is in fact the import of the term, subaudito character, personal perception, or some other word; and it should not be forgotten, all substantives are necessarily ellipsises, and that no noun in itself expresses more than one adjective quality [idea]. To cast a shade upon the character, is to lessen and so to take from, to injure, to blacken, the character. The funds are a shade lower, the funds are a single lessening lower, the first degree in diminution [taking off] and so the least possible. Scha-en, sche-en, are a same thema, hence the ancient scheem [now schemel] a shade [appearance, apparition]. Ic vlie nu onder den scheem uwer vulgelen; q. e. I compose myself under the shadow of your wings. Hence also schaeden, to injure, the same word with our to scathe. "A gode wife there was also beside Bathe But she was somdele defe, and that was SCATHE *.” Thei would eft sonis do you scathe "Thou rote of false loviris, duke Jason, CHAUCER. IDEM. (The beginning of a sort of duetto-scolding, from Hypsipele and Medea to their old lover, Jason.) IDEM. SHAM. Pretence, appearance, something merely in appearance, unreality. I believe it to be the same word with the Dutch schem, antiently scheme, sceme, as the contraction of schieing, the participle present of the thema schien, in the sense of to pass away, to fleet as shadow does, and thus a temporary [fugitive, passing] appearance and no more: what else is sham? We say a sham appearance and mean a passing [temporary] appearance. A sham sickness, is one in appearance only, not in reality. Hence to sham, to put on an appearance, to pretend, that is, to put before. Reeht als de SCEME van d' sonne lijt "Also gaen wi heen al onse tijd;” q. e. “just as the shadow from the light of the sun, so pass we away all the time we live." JOHNSON tells you sham is as shommi, * An injury, defect, as the Dutch schaede. Soon, quickly, as the Dutch raede, citò, confestim, Crammed. the Welsh for to cheat.—He must have been hoaxed. Mr. THOMPSON, in his Etymons, is much nearer the mark. The co-relative stock of words deriving from the thema scha-en, sche-en, schi-en, scho-en, schu-en, is endless; shade, our old shene now shine, sky, shoe, shove, shun, shy, all belong here. "And as the birdis, when the sonne SHENE Right so the wordis, that thei spake ifere t TOOTH. I believe to be as teeth in the collective sense; the set [formerly tothe]. Toe u's; q. e. to is you; to, is yourself; without to, you are nothing; to and you are one; to, is you all. Toe, has the sense of ended, finished, closed, as when we say the door is to, that is, shut; and also that of entrance, approach; as when we say he is gone to London; so that, it is as that which shuts out and as that which lets in; that which lets in our means of living and that which lets out what we have to say (you can't speak with your teeth shut) and we should do ill without these means; gums and lips are but shifts and substitutes, at best in these respects. Toe and te are the same word and account for both the o and the e in tooth and teeth. The feminizing terminal s of the Dutch [old form of our language] shades off into th; groes and growth are the same word. It is not impossible, but the word is as To, The [thee]; that is to is thee (thyself): which comes to the same thing. Thee was formerly spelt The. And to th', to the, rhymed with soth. "So fare we, if that I shall say the soth *Shines, appears, shows. + Together. To thee. Sooth, sothe, truth, certainty, is, I suspect, in the same way so is, that is, is so, andthus a thing certain, a thing as it is [itself]; and thus a truth [a reality]. JOHNSON tells us tooth is the A. S. toth, and sooth the A. S. soth; but what are they, except the same words? and it is no more than telling us tooth is tooth, that is true, but it is of no use, because no explanation of the words and self evident. Horne Tooke tells you tooth is as the gothic taugith, and thus as tuggeth; but that would do better for the drawer out of them than for the source; and is a groundless conceit. Besides he don't even hint how taugith, tuggeth [if there ever could be such a word] becomes either tooth or teeth. And how would such a source be brought to bear in the familiar. expression, he [she] has a SWEET-TOOTH, meaning a propensity to dainties; to choice feeding; to delicacies? A sweet tug, would never do here. But in the sense of self or selfishness, as above explained, it comes nearer the mark; and, I should say the phrase was as; er sie wie hiet toe u's; q. e. there see! that which has the command of you is no other than self [within yourself, in you]; implying a self abandonment, a resigned [given up] controul over self, and thus an undue [unfit] inclination [propensity]; and sounds precisely a sweet tooth. Toothsome is as toe u's saeme and thus as that which you like, suits you. Saeme, whence our some and same, being as the participle present of saemen, to assemble, to collect, to bring together, and the sense as that which suits, agrees, likes with each other. Sie, look! see! Wie, how, who, which the which. Hieten, heeten, to command. 'S, is, i is "For I wold, sell my I couth walkin as freshe as any rose, Pleasure, inclination, appetite, propensity. CHAUCER. |