[orangemonkies]

This line - stemming gold to make ends meet- means that the drunkard is taking gold coins and using a knife to shave arround the edges to remove small amounts of gold from the coin. This is the process known as stemming coins. It is the reason modern coins have a raised edge or rippled edge along them this is to prevent stemming - coins were originally copper gold or silver both silver coins and gold coins were stemmed and the resulting gold or silver shavings were sold to gold or silver smiths - this was an illegal act when coins were made of gold or silver - hence since the drunkard can see no other recourse he is comminging a crime which the penalty was death - it amounts to stealing gold from the king - in order to survive - stemming is still illegal hence the shape and profile of modern coinage. - is saying he is so poor and blows what little money he has on drink, he has to do this in order to - make ends meet - it has nothing to do with loading ships or gold panning. The whole song is about the problems of the society in question - Don Quixote- in the original novel was considered mad - but lightfoot is using his characture to paint the world itself as mad