My daughter GILLIAN propoundeth:
GILL: Father, when you began this Geste, I thought
It was a poem of a sort.
MYSELF: A sort, Miss Pert! A sort, indeed?
GILL: Of course—the sort folks love to read.
But in the last part we have heard
Of poetry there's scarce a word.
MYSELF: My dear, if you the early Geste-books read,
You'll find that, oft as not, indeed,
The wearied Gestours, when by rhyming stumped,
Into plain prose quite often jumped.
GILL: But, father, dear, the last part seems to me
All prose—as prosy as can be—
MYSELF: Ha, prosy, miss! How, do you then suggest
Our Geste for you lacks interest?
GILL: Not for a moment, father, though
Sir Pertinax was much too slow.
When fair Melissa “laughing stood,”
He should have kissed—you know he
should—Because, of course, she wished him to.
MYSELF: Hum! Girl, I wonder if that's true?
GILL: O father, yes! Of course I'm right,
And you're as slow as your slow knight.
Were you as slow when you were young?
MYSELF: Hush, madam! Hold that saucy tongue.
You may be sure, in my young days,
I was most dutiful always.
Grown up, I was, it seems to me,
No slower than I ought to be.
And now, miss, since you pine for verse,
Rhyme with my prose I'll intersperse;
And, like a doting father, I
To hold your interest will try.
FYTTE 5
Which of Duke Joc'lyn's woeful plight doth tell,
And all that chanced him pent in dungeon cell.
In gloomy dungeon, scant of air and light,
Duke Joc'lyn lay in sad and woeful plight;
His hands and feet with massy fetters bound,
That clashed, whene'er he moved, with dismal sound;
His back against the clammy wall did rest,
His heavy head was bowed upon his breast,
But, 'neath drawn brows, he watched with wary eye
Three ragged 'wights who, shackled, lay hard by,
Three brawny rogues who, scowling, fiercely eyed him,
And with lewd gibes and mocking gestures plied him.
But Joc'lyn, huddled thus against the wall,
Seemed verily to heed them none at all,
Wherefore a red-haired rogue who thought he slept
With full intent upon him furtive crept.
But, ere he knew, right suddenly he felt
Duke Joc'lyn's battered shoe beneath his belt;
And falling back with sudden strangled cry,
Flat on his back awhile did breathless lie,
Whereat to rage his comrades did begin,
And clashed their fetters with such doleful din
That from a corner dim a fourth man sprang,
And laughed and laughed, until their prison rang.
“Well kicked, Sir Fool! Forsooth, well done!” laughed he,
“Ne'er saw I, Fool, a fool the like o' thee!”
Now beholding this tall fellow, Jocelyn knew him
for that same forest-rogue had wrestled with him
in the green, and sung for his life the “Song of
Roguery.” Wherefore he smiled on the fellow and
the fellow on him:
Quoth JOCELYN: I grieve to see
A man like thee
In such a woeful plight—
Quoth the ROGUE: A Fool in fetters,
Like his betters,
Is yet a rarer sight.
“Ha i' the clout, good fellow, for Folly in fetters is Folly in need, and Folly in need is Folly indeed! But, leaving folly awhile, who art thou and what thy name?”
Saith the ROGUE: Robin I'm named, Sir Fool,
Rob by the few,
Which few are right, methinks, for
so I do.
“Then, Rob, if dost rob thou'rt a robber, and being robber thou'rt perchance in bonds for robbing, Robin?”