Note 60 — AMARYLLIS: OR, THE THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS, PARAPHRASED.[59]
Reading edition
To swerve, as the word is here used, means to draw one's self up a tree by clinging round it with the legs and arms. It occurs in the old ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, where he sends one of his men aloft:
Then Gordon swarved the maine-mast tree, He swarved it with might and main.
Reliques of Ancient Poetry, Vol. II. p. 192