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--- Begin Message ---I am a serious amateur musician, but unlike Peter, do not really enjoy anything earlier than late baroque. I am also a word freak and this query sent me down some interesting linguistic and etymologic rabbit holes. It is only stating the obvious to observer that poetry is ipso facto ambiguous; a line or phrase can mean several things simultaneously or be incomprehensible to most (or all) people. It is also obvious that the language has evolved so something that was idiomatic in the 17th century may not make sense now. The full original text in English is: Amyntas with his Phyllis fair, In height of summer's sun, Graz'd arm in arm their snowy flock; And scorching heat to shun, Under a spreading elm sat down, Where Love's delightments done, 'Down, dillie down,' thus did they sing, There is no life like ours, No heav'n on earth to shepherd's cells, No hell to princely bow'rs. The first part is still relatively idiomatic in current English, although we can draw a discrete curtain over “love’s delightments” and wonder if there is some double entendre implied by “dillie dille down.” But the last two lines make sense to us only if the “to” is replaced with “like” as Peter suggested. The phrase “like to” is familiar to us from poetry but is no longer idiomatic. This is confirmed by the sense given to it by a German translation (thank you Google) Amyntas und seine schöne Phyllis hüteten, als die Sommersonne am höchsten stand, Arm in Arm ihre schneeweiße Herde, und um der brütenden Hitze zu entfliehen, ließen sie sich unter einer Schatten spendenden Ulme nieder. Dort, nachdem sie die Freuden der Liebe genossen, „Tra-la-la“, sangen sie: „Kein Leben könnte schöner sein als das unsrige, der Himmel auf Erden ist in der Hütte des Schafhirten, die Hölle in königlichen Gemächern. My German is weak but putting it back into contemporary English: There is no more beautiful life than ours Heaven on earth is in a shepherd's hut. Hell is in royal chambers. The word “bower” is interesting (thank you again Google) and comes from Old Norse like a lot of English does. It originally meant a room or chamber. It retained this sense in the 17th century when it more specifically meant a lady’s personal room or chamber in a hall or castle. I speculate that this sense must have been influenced by French “boudoir” which means exactly that but comes from “bouder” meaning “to pout”: literally a boudoir is a pouting room. By this time the Norman conquest had imprinted a heavy dose of French onto the Norse and Saxon middle English. The modern meaning of bower is a pleasant shady place under trees or vines so Amyntas and Phyllis were enjoying their delightments under the elm tree which could be called a bower. But the German translation, appropriately, kept the sense of “chambers.” So, to summarize: the original English does not quite make sense to a modern reader unless he just guesses that “to” means “like.” Jack Aubert From: sundial <sundial-boun...@uni-koeln.de> On Behalf Of Peter Mayer Sent: Friday, July 7, 2023 4:19 AM To: sundial@uni-koeln.de; R. Hooijenga <r.hooije...@ziggo.nl> Subject: Re: Off topic: English text explanation please Dear Rudolf, I share your interest in 17th century madrigals. (Although I'm a firm non-smoker, one of my favourites has the line "tobacco is like love..."). My interpretation is that this is a compressed form of poetical expression. Decompressed, I think, it would be: […] thus did they sing: ‘There is no life like ours, No heaven on earth [like] to shepherds' cells, no hell [like] to princely bowers’. That is, there is an assumed parallelism with the first phrase. best wishes, Peter On 7/07/2023 7:45:10, R. Hooijenga via sundial wrote: CAUTION: External email. Only click on links or open attachments from trusted senders. Diese Nachricht wurde eingewickelt um DMARC-kompatibel zu sein. Die eigentliche Nachricht steht dadurch in einem Anhang. This message was wrapped to be DMARC compliant. The actual message text is therefore in an attachment. --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial -- ----------- Peter Mayer Department of Politics & International Relations (POLIR) School of Social Sciences http://www.arts.adelaide.edu.au/polis/ The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Ph : +61 8 8313 5609 Fax : +61 8 8313 3443 e-mail: peter.ma...@adelaide.edu.au <mailto:peter.ma...@adelaide.edu.au> CRICOS Provider Number 00123M ----------------------------------------------------------- This email message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains information that may be confidential and/or copyright. 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