Who was then the gentleman?
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/a115-when-adam-delved.htm
I did not know the origin of the rhyme until I found
this.
So as well as the Biblical, Reformation and
war/massacre references, it also directs us to the
Black Death and subsequent Peasants' Revolt.
This again fits in with GWs recurring theme of the
gradual extension of emancipation through history.
I have just had a mad splurge on Amazon and ordered
all the Wolfe works I could find, that I do not
already own.
I've also ordered Borski's Solar Labyrinth' and
Francis Stevens 'The heads of Cerberus'
33 quoted lines
But I then thought "shovel", do you dig with a
shovel?
And then a picture came repeatedly into my mind of
the "Adam Delving" stained
glass window at Canterbury (it survived the
Reformation because it was too
high for the stones"). I put "Adam delving" into a
search engine, and up it
came. It shows Adam after the Fall digging with a
pointed ended shovel-like
implement (and there's a red ribbon like area in
front of him too).
So I think that (amongst all the other references)
this is to do with the
suggestion that the abos were prelapsarian humans:
Adam only started delving
after and in consequence of the Fall and perhaps he
also couldn't as well as
didn't use tools before then. See also David in the
debate in the library "Humanity
implies descent from what we may conveniently call
Adam, that is, the
original terrestrial stock", and, at the end of "A
story" : "Three men with their
limbs wrapped in leaves".
Thats all for now.
Judith