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, George Herbert, “Avarice”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green,, →OCLC, page 69:
Money, thou bane of bliſſe, & ſourſe of wo, / Whence com'ſt thou, that thou art ſo freſh and fine? / I know thy parentage is baſe and low: / Man found thee poore and dirtie in a mine.
1961 September, B. Perren, “The Tilbury Line serves industrial North Thameside”, in Modern Railways, page 556:
At Barking, previously the bane of L.T.S. operating staff, the new works have now simplified the working of traffic from four converging routes in the area.
f now again intoxicated and moaped with theſe royal, and therefore ſo delicious becauſe royal rudiments of bondate, the cup of deception, ſpiced and tempered to their bane, they ſhould deliver up themſelves to theſe glozing words and illuſions of him, whoſe rage and utmoſt violence they have ſuſtained, and overcome ſo nobly.
The word can be regarded as a reborrowing from Old Swedish mediaeval literature. It is not attested in writing in the 16th and 17th centuries, but was reinforced due to its usage in the mediaeval Swedish country laws, which were in use until the 18th century. During the 17th century its usage is usually accompanied by a definition explaining the meaning. It was revived in the late 17th century due to the resurging interest in the middle ages and the Icelandic sagas, cf. other Icelandic loans from the same era, e.g. idrott, skald, dyrd. Already in SAOB (1899) it is regarded as archaic or literary and mostly used in a few set phrases.
The word survived in the compound baneman(“slayer, murderer”), which is attested from the 16th and 17th centuries, and dialectally in the southern Swedish word hönsbane(“henbane, Hyoscyamus niger”), in standard Swedish bolmört.
1830, Fredrika Bremer, translated by Mary Howitt, Familjen H*** [The H— family]:
Din egen passionerade själ — se där draken, mot vilken du bör strida, vars eld skall förtära dig och bliva andras bane, om den ej kväves.
thy own impassioned soul! Behold the dragon with which thou oughtest to contend—whose fire will consume thee, and be the bane of others, if thou do not subject it.
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 24