John Skelton

Selected Poems

John Skelton, Gerald Hammond

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000143669
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book presents a collection of works of John Skelton, the first great modern English poet, who wrote in a vigorous vernacular, taking literary English out of the medieval world and enriching it with new forms and tones. It provides notes and glossary illuminating Skelton's works for the reader.

PHILIP SPARROW

Pia ce bo,
Who is there, who?
Di le xi,
Dame Margery,
Fa, re, my, my,
Wherefore and why, why?
For the soul of Philip Sparrow
That was late slain at Carrow,
Among the Nuns Black.
10 For that sweet soul's sake,
And for all sparrows' souls
Set in our bead-rolls,
Pater noster qui,
With an Ave Mari,
And with the corner of a Creed,
The more shall be your meed.

When I remember again
How my Philip was slain,
Never half the pain
20 Was between you twain,
Pyramus and Thisbe,
As then befell to me.
I wept and I wailed,
The tears down hailed,
But nothing it availed
To call Philip again,
Whom Gib our cat hath slain.
Gib, I say, our cat
Worrowed her on that
30 Which I loved best.
It cannot be expressed
My sorrowful heaviness,
But all without redress;
For within that stound,
Half slumbering, in a sound
I fell down to the ground.
Unneth I cast mine eyes
Toward the cloudy skies;
But when I did behold
40 My sparrow dead and cold,
No creature but that would
Have rued upon me
To behold and see
What heaviness did me pang:
Wherewith my hands I wrang,
That my sinews cracked
As though I had been racked,
So pained and so strained
That no life well nigh remained.
50 I sighed and I sobbed,
For that I was robbed
Of my sparrow's life.
O maiden, widow, and wife,
Of what estate ye be,
Of high or low degree,
Great sorrow then ye might see,
And learn to weep at me!
Such pains did me frete
That mine heart did beat,
60 My visage pale and dead,
Wan, and blue as lead:
The pangs of hateful death
Well nigh had stopped my breath.

Heu, heu, me,
That I am woe for thee!
Ad Dominum, cum tribularer, clamavi.
Of God nothing else crave I
But Philip's soul to keep
From the marees deep
70 Of Acherontes' well,
That is a flood of hell;
And from the great Pluto,
The prince of endless woe_;
And from foul Alecto,
With visage black and blue;
And from Medusa that mare,
That like a fiend doth stare;
And from Megaera's adders
For ruffling of Philip's feathers,
80 And from her fiery sparklings
For burning of his wings;
And from the smokes sour
Of Proserpina's bower;
And from the dens dark
Where Cerberus doth bark,
Whom Theseus did affray,
Whom Hercules did outray,
As famous poets say;
From that hell hound
90 That lieth in chains bound,
With ghastly heads three;
To Jupiter pray we
That Philip preserved may be.
Amen, say ye with me!
Do mi nus,
Help now sweet Jesus!
Levavi oculos meos in montes.
Would God I had Xenophontes,
Or Socrates the wise,
100 To show me their device
Moderately to take
This sorrow that I make
For Philip Sparrow's sake.
So fervently I shake,
I feel my body quake;
So urgently I am brought
Into careful thought.
Like Andromache, Hector's wife,
Was weary of her life,
110 When she had lost her joy,
Noble Hector of Troy;
In like manner also
Increaseth my deadly woe,
For my sparrow is go.
It was so pretty a fool,
It would sit on a stool,
And learned after my school
For to keep his cut,
With 'Philip, keep your cut.'
120 It had a velvet cap,
And would sit upon my lap,
And seek after small worms,
And sometime white bread-crumbs;
And many times and oft
Between my breasts soft
It would lie and rest;
It was proper and prest.
Sometime he would gasp
When he saw a wasp
130 A fly or a gnat,
He would fly at that,
And prettily he would pant
When he saw an ant.
Lord, how he would pry
After the butterfly!
Lord, how he would hop
After the gressop!
And when I said, 'Phip, Phip,'
Then he would leap and skip,
140 And take me by the lip.
Alas, it will me slo
That Philip is gone me fro
Si in i qui ta tes
Alas, I was evil at ease.
De pro fun dis da ma vi,
When I saw my sparrow die.

Now, after my doom,
Dame Sulpicia at Rome,
Whose name registered was
150 For ever in tables of brass,
Because that she did pass
In poesy to indite
And eloquently to write,
Though she would pretend
My sparrow to commend,
I trow she could not amend
Reporting the virtues all
Of my sparrow royal.
For it would come and go,
160 And fly so to and fro;
And on me it would leap
When I was asleep,
And his feathers shake,
Wherewith he would make
Me often for to wake,
And for to take him in
Upon my naked skin.
God wot, we thought no sin:
What though he crept so low?
170 It was no hurt, I trow;
He did nothing, perdee,
But sit upon my knee.
Philip, though he were nice,
In him it was no vice.
Philip had leave to go
To pick my little toe:
Philip might be bold
And do what he would;
Philip would seek and take
180 All the fleas black
That he could there espy
With his wanton eye.
O pe ra,
La, sol, fa, fa,
Confitebor tibi, Domine, in toto corde meo.
Alas, I would ride and go
A thousand mile of ground;
If any such might be found
It were worth an hundred pound
190 Of King Croesus' gold,
Or of Attalus the old,
The rich prince of Pergame,
Whoso list the story to see.
Cadmus, that his sister sought,
And he should be bought
For gold and fee,
He should over the sea
To weet if he could bring
Any of the offspring,
200 Or any of the blood.
But whoso understood
Of Medea's art,
I would I had a part
Of her crafty magic.
My sparrow then should be quick
With a charm or twain,
And play with me again.

But all this is in vain
Thus for to complain.
210 I took my sampler once
Of purpose, for the nonce,
To sew with stitches of silk
My sparrow white as milk,
That by representation
Of his image and fashion
To me it might import
Some pleasure and comfort,
For my solace and sport.
But when I was sewing his beak,
220 Methought my sparrow did speak,
And opened his pretty bill,
Saying, 'Maid, ye are in will
Again me for to kill,
Ye prick me in the head!'
With that my needle waxed red,
Methought, of Philip's blood;
Mine hair right upstood,
And was in such a fray
My speech was taken away.
230 I cast down that there was,
And said, 'Alas, alas,
How cometh this to pass?'
My fingers dead and cold
Could not my sampler hold;
My needle and thread
I threw away for dread.
The best now that I may
Is for his soul to pray:
A porta inferi,
240 Good Lord, have mercy
Upon my sparrow's soul,
Written in my bead-roll.
Au di vi vo cem,
Japhet, Ham, and Shem,
Ma gni fi cat,
Show me the right path
To the hills of Armony,
Wherefore the boards yet cry
Of your father's boat,
250 That was sometime afloat,
And now they lie and rot:
Let some poets write
Deucalion's flood it hight.
But as verily as ye be
The natural sons three
Of Noah the patriarch,
That made that great ark,
Wherein he had apes and owls,
Beasts, birds, and fowls,
260 That if ye can find
Any of my sparrow's kind-
God send the soul good rest!
I would have yet a nest
As pretty and as prest
As my sparrow was.
But my sparrow did pass
All sparrows of the wood
That were since Noah's flood,
Was never none so good.
270 King Philip of Macedony
Had no such Philip as I,
No, no, sir, hardely!
That vengeance I ask and cry,
By way of exclamation,
On all the whole nation
Of cats wild and tame:
God send them sorrow and shame!
That cat specially
That slew so cruelly
280 My little pretty sparrow
That I brought up at Carrow.

O cat of curlish kind,
The fiend was in thy mind
When thou my bird untwined:
I would thou hadst be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Woefully Arrayed
• My Darling Dear, My Daisy Flower
• The Ancient Acquaintance, Madam, Between Us Twain
• Mannerly Margery Milk And Ale
• Womanhood, Wanton, Ye Want
• from The Bouge of Court
• Philip Sparrow
• The Tunning of Elinour Rumming
• Speak, Parrot
• from The Garland of Laurel
• Notes
• Glossary