O ye that to our kirk have done subscryve,
These Achans try alsweill traist I may,
If ye do not, the time will come, belyve,
That God to you will raise some Iosuay;
Whilk shall your bairnis gar sing Wallaway,
And ye your selvis be put down with shame;
Remember on the awesome latter day,
When ye reward shall receive for your blame.
I ken right well ye knaw your duty,
Gif ye do not purge you ane and all,
Then shall I write in pretty poetry,
In Latin laid in style rhetorical;
Which through all Europe shall ring like ane bell,
In the contempt of your malignity.
Fye, flee fra Clynemnestra fell,
For she was never like Penelope.
With Clynemnestra I do not fain to fletch,
Who slew her spouse, the great Agamemnon;
Or with any that Ninus' wife doth match,
Semiramis quha brought her gude lord down.
Quha do abstain fra litigation,
Or from his paper hald aback the pen?
Except he hate our Scottish nation,
Or then stand up and traitors deeds commend?
Now all the woes that Ovid in Ibin,
Into his pretty little book did write,
And many mo be to our Scottish Queen,
For she the cause is of my doleful dyte.
Sa mot her heart be fillet full of syte,
As Herois was for Leander's death;
Herself to slay for woe who thought delyte,
For Henry's sake to like our Queen was laith.
The dolours als that pierced Dido's heart,
When King Enee from Carthage took the flight;
For the which cause unto a brand she start,
And slew herseif, which was a sorry sight.
Sa might she die as did Creusa bright,
The worthy wife of douty Duke Jason;
Wha brint was in ane garment wrought by slight
Of Medea through incantation.
Her laughter light be like to true Thisbe,
When Pyramus she found dead at the well,
In languor like unto Penelope,
For Ulysses who long at Troy did dwell.
Her dolesome death be worse than Jezebel,
Whom through an window surely men did thraw;
Whose blood did lap the cruel hundis fell,
And doggis could her wicked bainis gnaw.
Were I an hound—oh! if she an hare,
And I an cat, and she a little mouse,
And she a bairn, and I a wild wod bear,
I an ferret, and she cuniculus.
To her I shall be aye contrarius—
When to me Atropos cut the fatal thread,
And fell deithis dartys dolorous,
Then shall our spirits be at mortal feid.
My spirit her spirit shall douke in Phlegethon,
Into that painful filthy flood of hell,
And then in Styx, and Lethe baith anone—
And Cerberus that cruel hound sa fell,
Sall gar her cry with mony gout and yell,
O Wallaway! that ever she was born,
Or with treason by ony manner mell,
Whilk from all bliss should cause her be forlorn.