[98.]
¶ Certaine Table Lessons.
1
Friend, eat lesse, and drinke lesse,[1] and buie thee a knife,
else looke for a caruer not alway too [rife].
Some [kniueles] their daggers for brauerie weare,
that often for surfetting neede not to feare.[E472]
2
At dinner and supper the table doth craue
good fellowly neighbour good manner to haue.
Aduise thee well therefore, ere tongue be too free,
or [slapsauce] be noted too saucie to bee.
3
If anything wanteth or seemeth amis,
to call for or shew it, good maner it is.
But busie fault finder, and saucie withall,
is [roister like] [ruffen], no manner at all.
4
Some cutteth the napkin, some trencher will [nick],
some sheweth like follie, in many a trick.
Let such apish[2] bodie so toieng at meate,
go toie with his [nodie], like ape in the streate.[E473]
5
Some commeth vnsent for, not for thy good cheere,
but sent[3] as a spiall, to listen and heere.
Which being once knowne, for a knaue let him go,
for knaue will be knauish, his nature is so.
[1] eateles and drinkles. 1577.
[2] Let apishle. 1577.
[3] bent. 1577.