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} A fascinating question, because unwittingly you have stumbled across
} some of the most fascinating yet little-known works in the Oraculean
} Library, if only you had the letters in the right order:
}
} e.e. bingo (Collected Works, MS Orac 7 fl. 12-acme)
}
} An unrelated uncle of e.e. cummings, whose poetry is no less
} enchanting, readable, or meaningful, worse luck. A sample is
} appended:
}
} the dwarf that saved the ship
}
} the dwarf that saved the ship that night
} was banana, like a corfu flight
} he whiled his time as he tiled his wine
} and this'll make money in forty years' time
}
} I, Bengeo (MS Orac 9 fl. 15-vill)
}
} An autobiographical account of an unsung Hertfordshire village, from
} 976 AD to last Tuesday. Including an unalphabetical list of licenced
} floundry merchants and one of the first recorded swan songs, which
} because the village is unsung remained unheard, thought to have
} been written by a large duck who lived at the North Manor until one
} unfortunate Sunday:
}
} Winter is icumen in
} Lhude sing "Guffaw"
} Wringeth neck and stuff with sneck(1)
} To cook(2) at gasmark foure.
}
} (1) A type of watercress, or a package holiday.
} (2) To cook.
}
} Beni Ego (MS Orac 15b fl. 28-auto)
}
} Not, as one might expect, a psychiatrist's theory that all human
} emotion is derived ultimately from the skeleton (probably your
} father's), but very bad Latin for "I'm all right", written by the oil
} baron Solide Denarii (86-54 b.c.). It is impossible to appreciate the
} full beauty of the work in English, or indeed in Latin, so a French
} translation is just as good:
}
} Quand je suis retourne' a l'ouest, j'ai vu un grand cheval. "Mon
} Dieu", j'ai crie', "c'est mon oncle mort, qui est revenu des
} grandes vitrines vertes." J'ai mis les mans sur la te^te, fait une
} petite ------, et alle' tout de suite a' ma soeur, qui habite a'
} Limerick. "Mais c'est impossible", elle a dit, "parce-que ton oncle
} n'a aime' jamais le couleur vert. Peut-e^tre bleu?" Par exemple!
}
} - Chapter XVI, first words.
}
} Why he called his book "I'm all right" is a mystery, but not a very
} interesting one.
}
} Gibe One (MS Orac 12 fl. 87-sail)
}
} A beginner's guide to sailing, although I personally would recommend
} Michael Green's "Art of Coarse Sailing". Gibes, Forecastles, Masts
} and Oarsmanship are all explained in great detail with iambic
} pentameter and pop-up diagrams. Useful for plugging a leaky boat, if
} nothing else, which seems likely.
}
} So, if that doesn't answer your question, then
} I be gone.
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