PERSEVERANCE.
Now, brother Contemplation, let us go our way.
FREEWILL.
Aware, fellows, and stand a-room:
How say you? am not I a goodly person?
I trow, you know not such a guest:
What, sirs, I tell you, my name is Freewill,
I may choose whether I do good or ill;
But for all that I will do, as me list:
My conditions ye know not, perdè,
I can fight, chide, and be merry;
Full soon of my company ye would be weary,
And ye knew all.
What, fill the cup, and make good cheer!
I trow I have a noble here:
Who lent it me? By Christ, a frere;
And I gave him a fall.
Where be ye, sir? be ye at home?
Cock's passion, my noble is turned to a stone.
Where lay I last? Beshrew your heart, John;
Now, by these bones, she hath beguiled me:
Let see; a penny my supper, a piece of flesh ten-pence;
My bed right nought: let all this expense—
Now, by these bones, I have lost a halfpenny.
Who lay there? my fellow Imagination;
He and I had good communication
Of Sir John and Sybil,
How they were spied in bed together;
And he prayed her oft to come hither,
For to sing lo, le, lo, lowe.
They twain together had good sport;
But at the stews' side I lost a groat:
I trow I shall never i-the.[114]
My fellow promised me here to meet,
But I trow the whoreson be asleep
With a wench somewhere.
How, Imagination, come hither,
And you thrive, I lose a feather;
Beshrew your heart, appear.
IMAGINATION.
What, how, how, who called after me?
FREEWILL.
Come near, ye shall never i-the,
Where have ye be so long?
IMAGINATION.
By God, with me it is all wrong,
I have a pair of sore buttocks,
All in irons was my song,
Even now I sat gyved in a pair of stocks.