[102] It is worth while to quote Gray's praise of this ballad:--"I have got the old Scotch ballad on which 'Douglas' [the well-known tragedy by Home] was founded. It is divine.... Aristotle's best rules are observed in a manner which shows the author never had heard of Aristotle."--Letter to Mason, in 'Works,' ed. Gosse, ii. 316.
[103] That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly in German popular lyric.
[104] Let (desist) is an infinitive depending on bid.
[105] Went, walked.
[106] Certainly.
[107] Stopped.
[108] Protect.
[109] These, of course, are tokens of the Childe's identity.
[110] Clothes.
[111] Leash.
[112] That one = the one. That is the old neuter form of the definite article. Cf. the tother for that other.
[113] Brown, used in this way, seems to mean burnished, or glistening, and is found in Anglo-Saxon.
[114] He, John Steward.
[115] Lived.
[116] John Steward.
[117] Compare the similar swiftness of tragic development in 'Babylon.'
[102] It is worth while to quote Gray's praise of this ballad:--"I have got the old Scotch ballad on which 'Douglas' [the well-known tragedy by Home] was founded. It is divine.... Aristotle's best rules are observed in a manner which shows the author never had heard of Aristotle."--Letter to Mason, in 'Works,' ed. Gosse, ii. 316.
[103] That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly in German popular lyric.
[104] Let (desist) is an infinitive depending on bid.
[105] Went, walked.
[106] Certainly.
[107] Stopped.
[108] Protect.
[109] These, of course, are tokens of the Childe's identity.
[110] Clothes.