Listen to me ye Roman lads, who are seated in the straw about the fire, and I will tell how we poison the porker, I will tell how we poison the porker.
We go to the house of the poison monger (i.e. the apothecary), where we buy three pennies’ worth of bane, and when we return to our people we say, we will poison the porker; we will try and poison the porker.
We then make up the poison, and then we take our way to the house of the farmer, as if to beg a bit of victuals, a little broken victuals.
We see a jolly porker, and then we say in Roman language, “Fling the bane yonder amongst the dirt, and the porker soon will find it, the porker soon will find it.”
Early on the morrow, we will return to the farmhouse, and beg the dead porker, the body of the dead porker.
And so we do, even so we do; the porker dieth during the night; on the morrow we beg the porker, and carry to the tent the porker.
And then we wash the inside well, till all the inside is perfectly clean, till there’s no bane within it, not a poison grain within it.
And then we roast the body well, send for ale to the ale-house, and have a merry banquet, a merry Roman banquet.
The fellow with the fiddle plays, he plays; the little lassie sings, she sings an ancient Roman ditty; now hear the Roman ditty.
SONG OF THE BROKEN CHASTITY. [{265}]
By Ursula.Penn’d the Romany chi ké laki dye
“Miry dearie dye mi shom cambri!”
“And savo kair’d tute cambri,
Miry dearie chi, miry Romany chi?”
“O miry dye a boro rye,
A bovalo rye, a gorgiko rye,
Sos kistur pré a pellengo grye,
’Twas yov sos kerdo man cambri.”
“Tu tawnie vassavie lubbeny,
Tu chal from miry tan abri;
Had a Romany chal kair’d tute cambri,
Then I had penn’d ke tute chie,
But tu shan a vassavie lubbeny
With gorgikie rat to be cambri.”
“There’s some kernel in those songs, brother,” said Mr Petulengro, when the songs and music were over.
“Yes,” said I, “they are certainly very remarkable songs. I say, Jasper, I hope you have not been drabbing baulor [{266}] lately.”
“And suppose we have, brother, what then?”
“Why, it is a very dangerous practice, to say nothing of the wickedness of it.”
“Necessity has no law, brother.”
“That is true,” said I, “I have always said so, but you are not necessitous, and should not drab baulor.”
“And who told you we had been drabbing baulor?”
“Why, you have had a banquet of pork, and after the banquet Mrs. Chikno sang a song about drabbing baulor, so I naturally thought you might have lately been engaged in such a thing”
“Brother, you occasionally utter a word or two of common sense. It was natural for you to suppose, after seeing that dinner of pork, and hearing that song, that we had been drabbing baulor; I will now tell you