(1) Llig, is Ludibrium,laughing to scorn. [11] So in S. Basil. Regul. 11, Hi hæfdon
him to glige halthende minegunge.Ludibrio habebant salutarem ejus admonitionem
(10). This sense of the word was perhaps not ill-founded; for as the sport of rude
uncultivated minds often arises from ridicule, it is not improbable but the old
Minstrels often indulged a vein of this sort, and that of no very delicate kind. So
again,
Llig-man was also used to signifyScurra, asaucy Jester. (Somn.)
Llig-georn.Dicax, Scurriles jocos supra quam par est amans. Officium Episcopale, 3.
Llithian.Scurrilibus oblectamentis indulgere: Scurram agere. Canon. Edgar, 58.
(2) Again, as the various attempts to please, practised by an order of men who owed
their support to the public favour, might be considered by those grave censors as
mean and debasing: Hence came from the same root,
Llither.Parasitus, Assentator;a Fawner, a Togger, a Parasite, a
Flatterer(Somn.)[12]
IV.
To return to the Anglo-Saxon word Llig; notwithstanding the various
secondary senses in which this word (as we have seen above) was so early applied:
yet
The derivativeGlee(though now chiefly used to express merriment and joy)
long retained its first simple meaning, and is even applied by Chaucer to signifymusic
andminstrelsy.--Vide Jun. Etym.
"For though that the best harper upon live
Would on the beste sounid jolly harpe
That evir was, with all his fingers five
Touch aie o string, or aie o warble harpe,
Were his nailes poincted never so sharpe
It shoulde makin every wight to dull
To hears is GLEE, and of his strokes ful."
Troyl. lib. ii. 1030.
Junius interprets Glees byMusica Instrumenta, in the following passages of
Chaucer's Third Boke of FAME:--
".. Stoden.. the castell all aboutin
Of all manner ofMynstrales
AndJestoursthat tellen tales
Both of wepyun and of game,
And of all that longeth unto fame;
There herde I play on a harpe
That sowned both well and sharpe
Hym Orpheus full craftily;
And on this syde fast by
Sate the harper Orion;
And Eacides Chirion;
And other harpers many one,
And the Briton Glaskyrion."
After mentioning these, the great masters of the art, he proceeds:
"And small Harpers with herGlees
Sat under them in divers sees."
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