A Scottish Poem

Gotta love Google!  I was writing an email to a good friend of mine, wherein I used the phrase “woe is me” in one of my not too infrequent whines.  Anyhow, it then occured to me that I did not have the slightest inkling where the phrase came from and how old the phrase was.  So, being the fan of Google that I am, I hopped onto that particular search engine and typed in the phrase.  I was surprised to see that it was used as far back as the late 1700s by the famous Scottish (yes, Scottish!) poet, Robert Burns.  Here the cool-sounding poem: 

Ah, Woe Is Me, My Mother Dear

Paraphrase of Jeremiah, 15th Chap., 10th verse
1771-1779
Type: Poem

Ah, woe is me, my mother dear! A man of strife ye’ve born me: For sair contention I maun bear; They hate, revile, and scorn me. I ne’er could lend on bill or band, That five per cent. might blest me; And borrowing, on the tither hand, The deil a ane wad trust me. Yet I, a coin-denied wight, By Fortune quite discarded; Ye see how I am, day and night, By lad and lass blackguarded!

The poem is courtesy of a nifty website where the uncommon words are linked to a pop up with some modern equivalents in various languages.  The link to the site is:

http://www.robertburns.org/works/7.shtml 

~ by antipretzel on October 24, 2007.