The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #42245   Message #4207890
Posted By: Lighter
03-Sep-24 - 03:10 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Cruising round Yarmouth
Subject: RE: Origins: Cruising round Yarmouth
Fire-ship aficionados may find diversion in the following riddle, found in" The Merry Andrew: Being the smartest collection ever yet published, of elegant repartees, brilliant jests, ridiculous bulls, comical tales, [etc.], by "Fernando Funny" (1759).

Here the literal fire-ship is personified as, er, non-binary:


                                
        They who first form’d me, were within my Womb,
        In Fight I’m vanquish’d when I overcome.
        The Mistresses I court are very shy,
        And, Parthian like, would kill me as they fly.
        Yet ne’er was Swain so constant as I am,
        No Breast e’er harboured so unfeign’d a Flame;
        For the End of my Pursuit and my Desire
        Is, clasp’d in their Embraces to expire;
        And then Life from me does in Transports fly;
        For I ne’er truly live, but when I die.


Just as interesting is the pre-Cockney (?) rhyme of "I am" with "flame."