Can anyone tell me what this says - or the parts I am missing?
Here is a link if you would like to see the whole book.
Billingsley
All that thine hand findeth to do
do it quietly for there is neither
Art Invention Knowledge
nor wisdom in Grave?
whither ?
And then - tell me what it means please.
And thank you.
It's not quietly, but I'm reading quickly. Look at the alphabet sampler at the bottom. After h i (and i would have been used as j, too) the next character is K. I'm not sure of the characters over the Y before Grave. I'm reading it as "thy" As to the meaning, whatever you have to do in life, do it quickly. You won't be doing anything in your grave.
ReplyDeleteThanks CJ -- I was trying to figure it out quickly. Clearly not taking time to look at the exemplar. I guess I'm not going to embrace the saying 100% - as I see a need to find some balance between speed and carefulness.
DeleteIt's Ecclesiastes 9;10... with the alphabet at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteThanks, mamabird. I had to Google - and there are several translations. This was the first one:
DeleteWhatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning.
So -- doing something with might is different from doing it quickly. I have no idea what it means to do something with might.
So further Googling offered this:
Solomon is teaching us that now is the time to work with care, energy, and purpose to get the most and the best from life and to prepare for the hereafter. His basic reason is that the clock is ticking. Time is running out.
Work with care, energy and purpose.
Yikes -- that's a very mixed bag. I frequently launch a project with care, energy and purpose and then find myself stuck. That just happened. I guess I agree that time is running - not sure about running out. Won't time continue after I am gone?
This is all too [too what?] for me. Maybe I'll ponder and write more after I finish my class today. I am teaching kids how to write like Harry Potter. Wish me luck.
The y with the e above it before grave is probably the archaic letter thorn, which looks a lot like a y, but represents the 'th' sound.
ReplyDeleteYou can still see this today when you have phrases such as 'Ye Olde Curiosity Shop', although this would have been 'The Olde Curiosity Shop' when said out loud in the past.