Igenlode Wordsmith’s Reviews > Robert Herrick > Status Update

The choice of words to gloss here (after listing some very obvious usages at the startof the book) is really rather odd. They explain that "nailed onto the tree" means Christ's Cross, but don't gloss "starve thy sin, not bin" (corn-bin?) or the meaning of "tetter", surely obscure to almost anybody... (The OED says it is a generic term for skin diseases such as ringworm or impetigo.)

Why on earth do the notes gloss "margents" (margins), yet not "purfling" ("Here in green meadows sits eternal May, purfling the margents")?
Apparently it refers to elaborate border patterning (according to the OED) - but surely the editor can't assume that his readers are familiar with purfled margins! (Even my vocabulary doesn't encompass that one...)

"Fair daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon", "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" - I hadn't realised these famous (and parodied by an earlier generation) 'quotes' were also Herrick!

Oops - I dozed off in the bath, and got water all along the spine of this...

I didn't realise that Herrick wrote Cherry-ripe!
I was just thinking that a lot of his lyrics are reminiscent of madrigals...