Further, in MS. Lansdowne 762 (v. Reliquiae Antiquae I. 260), under the heading Terram terra tegat, occur these lines:—
First to the erthe I bequethe his parte,
My wretched careyn is but fowle claye,
Like than to like, erthe in erthe to laye;
Sith it is, according by it I wolle abide,
As for the first parte of my wille, that erthe erthe hide.
In this case the English words are evidently based upon the Latin phrase, but this does not disprove an English origin for the poem Erthe upon Erthe, since any verses of the kind must ultimately have been based on the idea that man is dust, and the idea itself must have been first presented and have become widely known through such Latin elegiac phrases as Memento homo quod cinis es et in cinerem reverteris, or De terra plasmasti me, both of which so frequently accompany Erthe upon Erthe, or as the above cited Terram terra tegat. The verse in MS. Lansdowne might rather be considered as supplying further proof of the popular tendency to replace such phrases by English verses, expressing the same idea, but themselves English, not Latin in origin, and making the most of the possible word-play. Such word-plays were evidently popular between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Cf. the well-known passage in Piers Plowman, c. xxi. 389.
So lyf shal lyf lete ther lyf hath lyf anyented,
So that lyf quyte lyf, the olde lawe hit asketh.
Ergo, soule shal soule quyte and synne to synne wende.