Nursery Rhymes
Here’s a challenge for my Mensa friend and others… perhaps the Mensa’s daughter. Who remembers high school French?
Fille…faille…faux …femme…
Aie! Smelle de blaude evanouie (ne glisse manne)
Bee y a l’ail-vore, bee y d’aid.
A la graille (ne dis ce beaune toute) Mecque, maille, brette.
The challenge: Tell me the English version.
Help? Some notes:
- Aie!…"Daughter…faille…imitation (fabrics)…ouch!"
The speaker is pained by his womenfolk’s preoccupation with clothes.
- "Mecque, maille, brette"
Mecca, chain mail, long sword. The speaker longs to abandon his family and
go off on a Crusade.
None of this wonderful exercise in wit is my own work.
Please see: N’Heures Souris Rames
The Coucy Castle Manuscript
Translated and Annotated by
Ormonde de Kay
Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. Publishers 1980
