A Common-place book of the fifteenth century, containing a religious play and poetry, legal forms and local accounts. Printed from the original ms. at Brome Hall, Suffolk, by Lady Caroline Kerrison. Edited with notes by Lucy Toulmin Smith.

                                  
                                    Be mver [I.e. demure.]  and sad of vysage,
                                  
                                    Tyll men the requere kepe mekely þi sylens,
                                  
                                    Be war thow have no gret langage,
                                  
                                    Wher þu syttyst with þi souereyns in presens.

                                  
                                    Yff thow hast lost thy good,
                                  
                                    Loke thow takyt with myld mood,
                                  
                                    And sowrow not to sore;
                                  
                                    Make joy, suffer and a-byd,
                                  
                                    For yt may so be-tyde
                                  
                                    That thow schall have mych more.

FORTUNE IN LIFE TOLD BY THE CASTING OF DICE.

I do not know any other version of these lines, save one in Sloane MS. 513, fo. 98 v^o. (the only English thing in a volume of Latin pieces) though they probably exist in other miscellaneous books. The first line is wanting in the Brome MS. and is supplied from the Sloane; this latter, on the other hand, is not perfect, being cut off at line 70 of the Brome MS. The numerals of each cast are set in figures in the margin of the Sloane, and are transferred here to the left side of the page; they are pictured in red like red dice, on the side of one page of the Brome MS. The curiosity of the poem, otherwise without merit, lies in the combination of two favourite pastimes of our fathers—nay, they are hardly extinct yet.

666

[þou þat hast y-cast tre syses here] Schall haue ȝowr dessyer y^e same ȝer, [folio 2a] How ȝow stabyll and ware nowt, For ȝe shall haue after ȝowr thowt. 4

665

ȝe that haue to sysyttes and a synke, Closse ȝowr hart and on god thynke, And so be godes grace ȝe schall fulffyll That ȝe dessyer, with hart and wyll. 8

About this Item

Title: A Common-place book of the fifteenth century, containing a religious play and poetry, legal forms and local accounts. Printed from the original ms. at Brome Hall, Suffolk, by Lady Caroline Kerrison. Edited with notes by Lucy Toulmin Smith.
Canvas: Page 15
Publication: London,: Trübner,; 1886.
Subject terms: Commonplace-books

Technical Details

Collection: Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
Link to this Item: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ajd3529.0001.001
Link to this scan: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/ajd3529.0001.001/27:4

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DPLA Rights Statement: No Copyright - United States

IIIF

Manifest: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/api/manifest/cme:ajd3529.0001.001

Cite this Item

Full citation: "A Common-place book of the fifteenth century, containing a religious play and poetry, legal forms and local accounts. Printed from the original ms. at Brome Hall, Suffolk, by Lady Caroline Kerrison. Edited with notes by Lucy Toulmin Smith." In the digital collection Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ajd3529.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 22, 2025.