When Adam was delvin and his madameen spinning watersilts

• When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman? a line taken from a sermon by the 14th century priest John Ball, who took a prominent role in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 → HCE and ALP
  • Wikipedia
  • That line is also the source of a discussion by the two graveduggers in Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act V Scene 1)."There is no ancient gentleman but gardners, ditchers and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession."

• Delvin: an old name for Dublin

• From thee, sweet Delvin, must I part: Gerald Nugent, Ode Written on Leaving Ireland

• delving: digging

• Madamina: Leporello's catalogue aria in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni opens with the line, Madamina, il catalogo è questo

• madam

• -een: (Anglo-Irish) diminutive suffix

• -ín: (Irish) diminutive suffix

• Madam, I’m Adam: (palindrome) a Biblical palindrome; a longer version, Madam, in Eden I'm Adam, is also palindromic

• Mavourneen (one of several references to the song ‘Come Back to Erin’ here → come back to my earin)

• spinnen: (German) to be mad ('Du spinnst!' = 'You're crazy!')

• watered silk: a type of silk fabric

• silt: fluvial deposit → ALP as a river

• Eve panning for gold

• spinning waterstilts: dowsing (?)

• spinning her wheels: i.e., doing nothing productive