Op te laede er! End doe hou aen de wal! End wie el haev er put in, in half een ouwe-heer. Bondsmen and boors (rustics) come quick to the tithe-audit and pay your servile rates! It is thus the demon (the rector or clerical lord) domineers as of right over his people! Do then love your lord with the shaved crown (the priest)! Love your lurking assassin (the priest)! Come on, and look as if your audit-dues were a pleasure to you! Come as if you strove for a prize! Come as still as whey parts from the curd! Come with all the humility of a destitute slave! Come, shew that you are there with all your heart! Obey the summons to a tittle! Come up to the pay-table there! And do all homage to the voracious leviathan! Or else every one of you will have to repent of it sorely. Give a good sop (bribe) to the fiend, and you will see him fawn and grow gentle. He that has a mortgage (a lawful claim) upon another's fortune, is half its proprietor already; (when you feel you are in another's power, dont set him at defiance, but coax him, for you can't help yourself.) Bereght, orders about, sounds bright. Plee val u 's, duty which is pleasant to you, sounds play-fellows. Huy stil; (see article " as clean as a whistle;" page 48). Ouwe-heer, proprietor, landlord, sounds hour. Doe hou aen, do homage to, sounds down. Er pvt in, has a finger in, a claim to sounds pudding. 26.-Little Tommy Tucker Sings for his supper: How will he cut it Without ee'r a knife? Without ee'r a wife. Lette Hel t' Oom je; t' Huyck er Wyt bereed aen Bot er; Wijst houde hier aen huif; Wijst houde hier aen wy-alf. To cousin Cloddy hell is a trouble. To the man of the cowl [the friar] it serves as a filtre; there's meat and drink in it for him. Wherever there is a provision store; in he comes filtre in hand; and begins to reproach the dolt of a Cloddy with every kind of sin. But let him chicane it as well as he can, he can't keep clear of bringing up something of which the lawyer is, one time or other, as guilty as the Cloddy. Let him make the best story he can of it, it will, in spite of him, include here and there, the conduct of the holy incubus as well as that of the Cloddy. Lette, as let with us in the sense of impediment, obstacle, something in the way of. Oom, is as the cozening title with which the holy ones used to address the Cloddies, and thus as the token of that class. Huyck, a cowl, and thus the trope for the Friar. Sijgh, a strainer, that by which the good is strained off and the trash left behind. In, for, by way of; and sijghen sounds sing. Voer, voeder, provender. Hangh, a place where flesh meat was formerly hung to dry for winter store; and aets hangh is a flesh magazine, preserve, larder. Wo aets hangh, where meat is hung, where there is a drying house [a larder] for meat; sounds what song. Aets hang answers in one sense to carnis carnarium. Deturbavit totum cum carne carnarium-he turned the whole larder, meat and all, upsy down. Wyten, to reproach, to throw in the teeth. Bot, the dolt, dupe, homo baoticus, and the same word with the Spanish boto a stupid dull-headed fellow. Bereeden, to prepare, put in order, arrange, trump up. Huif, the coif, and so the lawyer. Wy-alf, the holy incubus, i. e. the rector or vicar. That the judge (then a member of the clerical order, should favour the two branches of his own profession, was a thought likely enough to enter into the head of the lay-people, who were then treated as the refuse of society. Alf, the same word VOL. I T with our elf, a demon, a sprite, a fairy, an incubus, has considerable relation in point of sound to alve, surplice, and metaphorically the priest; so that wye-alf (holy incubus) becomes a sort of quibble or pun upon alve by this resemblance, and sounds wife. Aen-huif, sounds a knife, for the k is not uttered by us in this word. 27.-Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, To see an old lady on a white horse, Ryd er Ghack-horse! Toe ban by wreê kruys! Ride your Cock-horse (your people, parishioners)! Bestow upon them the curse of cruel vexation! Take care, however, they don't reproach the wafercraft (priesthood, parsons) with the horses its members ride on, the fine rings they wear on their fingers, and the rich dresses on the images of their saints. See; he who enriches himself out of other men's property must quickly submit to take public odium for his partner (must go shares with envy). Ghack-horse, now cock-horse, literally, fool-horse, in the sense of one who lets another ride him. The cock-horse, among school-boys, is the one who is fool enough to carry another astride on his back. And the term was formerly used as the symbol of the populace, who are fools enough to suffer others more cunning than themselves to ride them; to use them as slaves. Ouwel-led is here as the churchman; literally, a member of the wafer-people's guild or society. Ouwel is the holy wafer or host; and led, lid, member. Weer eyver schie gae's, is in return a partner with public hatred, sounds wherever she goes. Toys, jewels, finery, and the same word at bottom with our toys. Gae, gade, a partner, equal sharer. 28.-There was an old woman, and what do you think? She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink. Daer wo aes een Ouwel-wije-hummend, end wo aet toe die hincke, Sij luidt op aen nutting Bot. Vied t'els, handteringh! Vied t'els handteringh! Wie Heer die kijf af haer die haeye heet; End je wet dies Ouwel-wije-hummend keije houdt nijver; Bije quae heet. Wherever there is provision in store, there you always find a buzzing chantry [a church establishment]; wherever there are victuals and drink this always limps after them. The burthen of the Chantry song is how to make the most of the Clodhoppers. Itself an enemy to all handicraft; essentially hostile to all industry in others. As chief [upper hand] it brazens out those who call it the shark of the community; and you know these buzzing bodies hold honest diligence to be no better than madness [folly]; and that they term the honest labourer, who works for all-rubbish [mean stuff]. Ouwel-wije, the wafer-consecrator; i. e. the host-maker or priest. Hummen, to mumble, to mutter in a drawling indistinct hoarse tone; and thus to make the kind of noise the priest did while rehearsing or chaunting his Latin churchoffices; and it was this peculiar kind of buzz or humming sound that is here alluded to, as one never heard but it reminded the hearer of the purposes for which it was then used; viz. imposition and extortion. The lines are meant to imply that the same voice which conjures the bread out of the mouths of the industrious, is equally employed in mocking them for their folly and for their pains. Handteringh, vocation, business, profession, handicraft, trade, call, and sounds and drink. Bot, dolt, and thus the clerical cognomen for the peasant and his class. Wie heer, as ruler, where he can lord it. Vied, curse, bane. T'els, te els, to anothers. Haer, her. Haeye, haai, shark. Heeten, to name, to call; and once used in the same sense with us. Keye, folly, insanity. Houden, to hold, to deem. Nijver, zeal, diligence. Bije, bee, the token of the working class of the laity. Quae, kwaede, kwaet, quaet, filth, trash, vile stuff, 29.-There was an old woman lived under a hill, And if she is not gone she lives there still. Daer wasse een ouwel-wije hummend luid aen der Heer hilde: End of sij is nauwt gaê aen, sij lief's daer still. There you hear rise a holy-wafer-humming noise in honour of the Lord Pantry. And if it is not well paid for, the holy wafer-chaunters would rather be quiet (not give themselves the trouble of mumbling over their church-office for nothing). The point of this distich seems to be to reproach the friars with their mass-chanting and other solemnities, as carried on for the means of filling their bellies; and implies if they were not well paid they would not be at the trouble of performing merely from religious or conscientious motives. Ouwel-wijehummen, a muttering or mumbling noise made by the waferblesser; q. e. the priest or mass-man, and sounds old woman. Wij-brood, is consecrated wafer. Heer hilde, Lord Pantry, is as the means of supplying with provisions, and sounds a hill. Sij is nauwt gaé aen, if she is pinched in regard to profit, and sounds she is not gone. Sij lief's, she had leave, and sounds she lives. 30.-Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's man. Pat it and prick it, and mark it with T; Bat er keck, bat er keck, Bekers-man, End so Hye t'u meê aes daer als vast als Hye kan, Put a bold face on it, be assuming in your claims, my man of the cup; by so acting you will impose upon the clod-hoppers, and make them more ready in bringing you their stores, and they will hurry to you as fast as they can. Be brazen, be arrogant, comport yourself with pride and insolence; shower |