RE:
Author: Taylor, John, 1580-1653.
Title: The nipping and snipping of abuses: or The woolgathering of vvitte.
STC# : STC 23779
VID: 18824
IMG: 16
Q. On this image, there are words aligned on the first column text on the margin headed by "Eccho" appearing on the left hand page. The last word on each line is repeated on the margin.
A. This is a kind of trick poem in which the last word of each line is "echoed" and forms a sort of reply to the rest of the line. We've met these before and have no really satisfactory way to tag them. In fact, one of the original sample pages that we put on the web contains one of these "echo" poems. Our strategy there was to do the simplest thing, and I recommend the same here: simply use "Eccho" as the <HEAD> of the <LG>, and record the doubled word as part of the verse line. See sample 1.8 on the samples page at http://www.lib.umich.edu/eebo/docs/dox/samples.html for a fully tagged example. I would tag the present book as follows:
<LG>
<HEAD>Eccho.</HEAD>
<L>May humane mischiefes be compar'd with mine? mine.</L>
<L>Thine babling Eccho, would thy tongue told true: rue.</L>
... etc.
Q. On the right hand page, there were also words aligned on the margin. Could we just tag each word as <note> and place it at the end of the line? Please advise.
A. I'm not sure *why* the right-most word of each line is pushed out to the right margin, but the words really do seem to belong to the line (i.e., they're not <NOTES> extraneous to the text flow). I suggest simply reducing the extra space to a single space character (except for the hyphenated words, for which the extra space should be removed altogether), like this, from the 2nd stanza:
<LG>
<L>Then since so scornefull is her high dis-daine.</L>
<L>Since all my loue is but bestow'd in vaine,</L>
<L>Curbe fancie then, with true discretions Reine,</L>
<L>Let reason cure my tor-tormenting paine.</L>
etc.