"Why, where be oi?  And what be oi a-doin'?" etc...

It only remains to note that English composers who have dispensed with librettists and written their own have usually ended-up in a pickle of even greater proportions...

Hm!  I leapt out of bed yesterday to watch "Lohengrin" on Sky Arts.  What a let down.  Modern dress. Lohengrin in a silver lounge suit with sword, somehow fitted to his jacket without any form of belt, defending Elsa in the "trial by combat" 21st century style.  Vocally the cast were fine though L himself was too light a tenor for the role.   In scene 1 the military costumes gave an aura of Nazism to the references to German empire, war etc.   All in all, if operas are to be "modernised", then there should, at least, be some reality involved in presenting historical happenings and occasions.   In Act 1, poor Ortrud had something on her head that resembled the headgear of Colonel Davy Crockett.  Weird.  Wagner's music bore little connection with the production.
I'm lying late in bed for a week.
Cheers
S'wave.

There are some very critical things being said on this thread about early English lyrics! Some of them are often perhaps too sophisticated to be properly understood.

I came across the following piece by William Ellis published in 1652 - it appears to be in the form of a 2-voice canon with a repeating Bass. I don't know whether any skilled linguists would care to translate (or even explain) the meaning of the texts to me. They appear (as you can see below) to be as follows:

UPPER VOICES
My lady and her Mayd
Upon a merry pin,
They made a match at farting,
Who should the wager win.

Jone lights three Candles then,
And sets them bolt upright,
With the first fart she blew them out,
With the next she gave them light.

BASS
In comes my Lady then
With all her might and maine,
And blew them out, and in, and out, and in, and out againe.

My Lady, etc.

Baz 

Phew! Glad to see message #21. I thought for a moment that I might inadvertently have killed off yet another thread!

Baz

Is this your way of asking, nicely, for a cunning linguist?

As for elucidating the meaning of the texts, perhaps ignorance is bliss?

I have just noticed it! Act II of The Sorcerer indeed, specially written for its first revival after Princess Ida closed, and so not featured in the original vocal score. For anyone interested in these things,  Cramer have recently published a score with an appendix showing the variations between the original production and current practices.

This is an example of excellent lyrics, an example of when WS Gilbert beats Tennyson! The whole scene is very well depicted in the film Topsy-Turvy.

You may be right Kittybriton! Much as it is against my instinct to wish to remain ignorant, the thought of beginning to understand what is clearly some kind of profane celebration of a kind of "candlemas" is too much to bear. I'm all for simplicity.

Baz