JOHN SKELTON
The Introduction and Notes are at page 908
FROM Pithy, Pleasant, and Profitable Works, 1568
Who is there? Who? Di le xi, Dame Margery. Fa, re, mi, mi, Wherefore and why, why? For the soul of Philip Sparrow, That was late slain at Carow Among the Nunnës Blake, For that sweet soul's sake And for all sparrows' souls Set in our beadrolls, Pater noster qui With an Ave Mari,
And with the corner of a Creed, The more shall be your meed. When I remember again How my Philip was slain, Never half the pain Was between you twain, Pyramus and Thisbe, As then befell to me: I wept and I wailed, The tearës down hailed,- But nothing it availed To call Philip again, Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain.
Gib, I say, our cat Worrowed her on that Which I loved best. It cannot be expressed- My sorrowful heaviness, But all without redress;
For within that stound, Half slumb'ring, in a swound, I fell down to the ground. Unneth I cast mine eyes Toward the cloudy skies, But when I did behold My sparrow dead and cold, No creature but that wold Have rued upon me, To behold and see What heaviness did me pang; Wherewith my hands I wrang, That my sinews cracked As though I had been racked; So pained and so strained That no life well-nigh remained.
I sighed and I sobbed For that I was robbed
But Philip's soul to keep From the marees deep Of Acheronte's well, That is a flood of hell,
And from the great Pluto, The prince of endless woe;
And from foul Alecto
With visage black and blo; And from Medusa, that mare, That like a fiend doth stare; And from Megera's adders, For ruffling of Philip's feathers, And from her fiery sparklings For burning of his wings; And from the smokës sour Of Proserpina's bower; And from the dennës dark Where Cerberus doth bark, Whom Theseus did affray, Whom Hercules did outray, As famous poets say; From that hell-hound That lieth in chainës bound, With ghastly headës three, To Jupiter pray we That Philip preserved may be! Amen, say ye with me! Do mi nus,
Help now, sweet Jesus!
It was so pretty a fool, It would sit on a stool And learned after my school For to keep his cut, With, Philip, keep your cut! It had a velvet cap, And would sit upon my lap And seek after small worms And sometime white bread
And many times and oft Between my brestës soft It would lie and rest; It was propre and prest. Sometime he would gasp
And take me by the lip. Alas, it will me slo
That Philip is gone me fro!
Gave him his mortal wound,
Changed to a deer;
The story doth appear
Was changed to an hart:
So thou, foul cat that thou art,
The self-same hound
Might thee confound That his own lord bote,
Might bite asunder thy throat!
Or books to compile Of divers manner style,
Vice to revile
And sin to exile?
To teach or to preach As reason will reach?
Say this, and say that: His head is so fat
He wotteth never what
Nor whereof he speaketh; He crieth and he creaketh, He prieth and he peeketh, He chides and he chatters, He prates and he patters, He clitters and he clatters, He meddles and he smatters, He glozes and he flatters! Or if he speak plain, Then he lacketh brain, He is but a fool; Let him go to school. A three-footed stool! That he may down sit, For he lacketh wit! And if that he hit
The nail on the head, It standeth in no stead;
The devil, they say, is dead, The devil is dead.
It may well so be, Or else they would see Otherwise, and flee From worldly vanity, And foul covetousness And other wretchedness, Fickle falseness,
Variableness
With unstableness.
And if ye stand in doubt
Who brought this rhyme about,
My name is Colin Clout.
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