The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #55523   Message #866908
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
14-Jan-03 - 04:25 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: When Silly Bees Could Speake
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When Silly Bees could Speake
Cute; but a fairly recent invention, I suspect! An atomy meant just any very small creature; a mite or pigmy. Shakespeare and others used it in its contemptuous sense as applied to a person who is worthless or of no account; which I think is intended here. It was also used it to mean a skeleton or someone skeletally thin, but that won't be the meaning in this case.