THE DISCOVERY OF AN OLD POEM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18939, 9 December 1929, Page 15

THE DISCOVERY OF AN OLD POEM.

An old poem, entitled “ Mum and has been acquired by the ' Manuscript Department of the British Museum, and is to be published by the Early English Text Society. The existence of the poem was known for some time, and it was thought that'probably this title was the original one of the poem Richard the Redeles already published in connection with Piers Plowman. Both of them deal with the times and, the character of Richard the Second, much as Shakespeare did in his play. “Mum and Sothsegger ” (Silence and Truth-telling) is a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of keeping a quiet tongue in one’s head or of letting the heart and tongue speak frankly what is felt to be the truth. Like all books of that period it wanders widely in its' tale-telling and its pictures of life. It is the middle part of a bound volume from which the earlier and later parts have disappeared. It preserves 1748 lines of alliterative verse.