I am nothinge acolde:
“I stuffe my skyn so full within
of joly good Ale and olde.
Back and syde go bare, go bare,
both foote and hand go colde:
But, belly, God send thee good ale inoughe
whether it be new or olde”:—
and so on for four clinking verses. The thing is a triumph; it sings itself. Out of its rollicking rhythm a kind of haze of romance has piled up, which select spirits like Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton still see as a rosy cloud. I suppose it is all right.
But the language of those “merrie” people! There was only one injurious thing for woman to call woman: it was reflected in man’s accusation of man. If you named a woman the thing—and you always did—you named a man the thing’s son. The impact varied according to the temper of the accuser. It pricked you to madness if anger lay behind it; often it was a term of affection. Gammer Gurton so called Tib her maid, Dame Chat her girl Doll; but that was to coax them. When the beldams belaboured each other with the imputation they made the fur to fly. Exactly that impotence of expression, even in moods of malice, is observable to-day—but in towns, not in the country. I have lived twenty years in a village and never heard the taunt so much as whispered by one to another. But then nobody gets drunk out here now. Is there a holding link between ale and sterility of language? I suppose there must be.
Religion provides the only other expletives there are in Gammer Gurton, and that makes the date of it an interesting matter. No earlier edition appears to be known than that of 1575; but a play called Dyccon of Bedlam was licensed to be printed in 1562, and one by the presumed author of Gammer Gurton was acted at Christ’s College in 1553-4. However all that may fit in, there are internal evidences very much to the point. In the fifth act the bailiff is charged by the priest with Dick of Bedlam’s arrest. “In the King’s name, Master Bayly, I charge you set him fast,” he says. That might be Edward VI if the Prologue had not an allusion directly in conflict with it: