Erthe Upon Erthe

on below. A scroll proceeding from the knight has the words: Festina tempus et memento finis, while one proceeding from the skeleton runs: In omni opere memorare nouissima et in eternum non peccabis. Printed by Heuser, Kildare-Gedichte, p. 213.

THE #A# VERSION.

The A version exists in two forms, one a short popular stanza of four lines (MS. Harl. 2253), apparently of the nature of a riddle, the other a longer poem of seven English and seven Latin stanzas (MS. Harl. 913), each English verse being followed by its Latin equivalent. The metrical form of the Latin verses is one often used in Latin poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a six-lined stanza, rimed aaaabb, with the rhythm of the well-known

méum ést propósitúm | ín tabérna móri.

The English verses are also in the form of a six-lined stanza aaaabb, but the first four lines have the s