“The great Patrimonies that wealthy men leave their children after their death, make them rich: but vice and other marthriftes happening into their companies, never leave them until they bee at the beggers bush, where I can assure you they become poore.”
Usage
This is one of the earliest recorded literary uses of the phrase. It is used in a literary sense of falling into poverty, in this instance by one’s own folly. The author did not feel any need to elaborate or explain it. This suggests it was already in common use. The usage is similar to the earlier alternative beggarly attributes – Isabel Plumpton’s Beggars Staffe and William Bullein’s Beggars Barne. There is no suggestion that it was a real location.
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Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Isabel Plumpton, Jane Anger, Literary, William Bullein, proverb | No Comments »
“Fellowes are so braine sicke now adaies if thei haue but tenne shillynges, yea, though thei doe borowe it, will be twoo or three times a yere at Westminster haule ; let wife or children begge ; & in the ende thei go home many miles, by foolam crosse, by weepyng cross, by beggers Barne, and by knaues Acre, &c. This commeth of their lawing ; then thei crie, might doe ouer come right, would I had knowen as muche before, I am undone, &c. “
Usage
The text includes classical references, items from morality plays, and early usages of popular turns of phrase. The phrase”to go home by” is identical with early examples of the Beggars Bush phrase. The alternative places are all proverbial. This shows that the usage with Beggars Bush is only a variation of a proverbial phrase. The context is almost identical to the circumstances of the Plumpton Correspondence using the similar Beggar Staff.
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Posted: March 10th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Ditchling, Isabel Plumpton, Literary, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, William Bullein, proverb | No Comments »
” . . . almost brought to beggars bush . . .”
Usage
The usage is consistent with the literary use. We know the phrase was in use in Oxford before 1623 from the Twyne Correspondence. It seems likely to have to originated with Mabbe, who was a faithful but not literal translator. The phrase does not appear in an edition of 1706 described as being newly “done into English”. In Mabbe’s translation of La Celestina (as The Spanish Bawd) by Fernando de Rojas he uses the similar phrase, “She was as well known to them all, as the begger knows his dish”.
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Posted: March 1st, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Ben Jonson, Brian Twyne, Izaak Walton, Literary, Oxford, dish, proverb | No Comments »
| wes from Jack Begger under the Bushe |
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Posted: February 24th, 2011 | Filed under: | Tags: Literary | No Comments »
