Salve, dulce decus cuculus per saecula, salve!
Comparison of the fragments, however, shows this suspicion to be groundless, and it is thoroughly discredited by Uhland, Kl. Schr., III. 24. See also Ebert, Christ. Lat. Lit., II. 69.
[765]. Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. 2.
[766]. Ritson, Ancient Songs, 3d ed., pp. 113 ff. The text is a sort of dramatic description. See also T. Wright, Songs and Carols; and Brand, under “Morris Dancers.” The refrains are unfortunately seldom recorded, but they are the foundation of the little drama.
[767]. Used as refrain in ballads; see Child, I. 19 f., e.g.:—
Sing ivy, sing ivy ...
Sing holly, go whistle, and ivy ...
Sing green bush, holly, and ivy.
[768]. Deutsche Volkslieder aus Oberhessen, p. xi. His list of references is valuable.
[769]. At a harvest-home at Selborne, 1836, Bell (pp. 46 ff.) heard two countrymen recite a “Dialogue between the Husbandman and the Servingman”; “it was delivered in a sort of chant or recitative,” though the rhythm is good for such doggerel; what suggests the older refrain is that the rime (second and fourth lines of each stanza) has to be either with “husbandman” or with “servingman” throughout. The odd lines have interior rime.