The Digital Index of Middle English Verse
Found Records:London, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library Dyce 25.F.40 (MS Dyce 45)
Number 5571-1
1. ff. 15
v-16
There is a saying both old and trueA moral poem on honest mirth — six six-line stanzas and a four-line
pseudo-burden: ‘Nowe will ye be mery & can ye be merye / I pray you be mery
mery mery mery / Be as mery as yowe cane / So shall yow please bothe god &
man’.
Number 5686-1
Number 1670-1
Number 994-1
Number 2455-1
Number 5066-1
Number 2516.5-1
7. ff. 22-23
v In Holy Church of Christs foundationClergy’s place in the three estates — sixteen 5-line stanzas
(including a 2-line refrain) and burden: ‘In towne a god wolde hyt were
layde downe a’
Number 907-1
8. ff. 23
v-25
But if that I may have trulyA drinking song — sixteen 6-line stanzas (aabccb), with 4-line burden:
‘back and syde goo bare goo bare / bothe hand & fote goo colde / but belly god
sende the good ale I nowghe / whether hyt be newe or holde’
Number 6673-1
Number 4794-2
10. ff. 41
v-42
Say well is a worthy thingVerses advocating that Do well is preferable to Say well — nine quatrains
and burden, or 42 lines in couplets with burden: ‘Saye well & do well þey
are thynges twayne / thryse happy ys he in whome bothe dothe rayne’.