My mother often used to quote the last line of this extract from Shakespeare and it always sounded rather unpleasant and made us all pull faces! How sad to have been 'Joan' and come down through the centuries as 'greasy Joan' - I wonder if she really existed?
The rest of it is so appropriate tonight as we go through another long winter of so much snow and cold...I love the line: 'when coughing drowns the parson's saw' since, wherever you go nowadays there is so much sniffing and coughing and ruddy cheeks in the cold!
When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
No comments:
Post a Comment