The Babees Book

The Babees Book, or the Lytyl Reporte of how young people should behave, is a collection of treatises on the manners and meals of the medieval English edited by F. J. Furnivall for the Early English Text Society in 1838. Edith Rickert translated Furnivall's text into modern English in 1908.

Quotes

How the Wise Man Tauȝt His Sonne

Lambeth MS. 853, ab. A.D. 1430, p. 186
  • And loke þou paye weel þat þou doost owe,
    And bi oþir richesse sette no greet price,
    For deeþ wole take boþe hiȝe and lowe,
    And þan fare-weel al þat þere is.
    • And look you pay well what you owe, and set no great store by other riches, for death takes both high and low, and then — farewell, all that there is!
    • 125
  • Sonne, sette not bi þis worldis weele,
    For it fariþ but as a cherie faire.
    • Son, set nought by this world's weal, for it fares as a ripe cherry.
    • 143

See also

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