Ware the Hawk
Prologus Skeltonidis Laureati super Ware the Hawk
This work devised is
For such as do amiss;
And specially to control
Such as have cure of soul,
That be so far abused
They cannot be excused
By reason nor by law;
But that they play the daw,
To hawk, or else to hunt
From the altar to the font,
With cry unreverent,
Before the sacrament,
Within holy church's bound─ùs,
That of our faith the ground is.
That priest that hawk─ùs so
All grace is far him fro;
He seemeth a schismatic,
Or else an heretic,
For faith in him is faint.
Therefore to make complaint
Of such misadvised
Parsons and disguised,
This book we have devised,
Compendiously comprised,
No good priest to offend,
But such daws to amend,
In hope that no man shall
Be miscontent withal.
I shall you make relation,
By way of apostrophation,
Under supportation
Of your patient toleration,
How I, Skelton Laureate,
Devised and also wrate
Upon a lewd curate,
A parson beneficed,
But nothing well advised.
He shall be as now nameless,
But he shall not be blameless,
Nor he shall not be shameless;
For sure he wrought amiss
To hawk in my church of Diss.
This fond frantic falconer,
With his polluted pawtener,
As priest unreverent,
Straight to the sacrament
He made his hawk to fly,
With hugeous shout and cry.
The high altar he stripped naked;
Thereon he stood and craked;
He shook down all the cloth─ùs,
And sware horrible oath─ùs
Before the face of God,
By Moses and Aaron's rod,
Ere that he hence yede
His hawk should pray and feed
Upon a pigeon's maw.
The blood ran down raw
Upon the altar-stone;
The hawk tired on a bone;
And in the holy place
She dunged there a chase
Upon my corporas' face.
Such sacrificium laudis
He made with such gambad─ùs.
OBSERVATE
His second hawk waxed gery,
And was with flying weary;
She had flowen so oft,
That on the rood-loft
She perched her to rest.
The falconer then was prest,
Came running with a dow,
And cried " Stow, stow, stow!"
But she would not bow.
He then, to be sure,
Called her with a lure.
Her meat was very crude,
She had not well endued;
She was not clean ensaimed,
She was not well reclaimed:
But the falconer unfained
Was much more feebler brained.
The hawk had no list
To come to his fist;
She looked as she had the frounce;
With that he gave her a bounce
Full upon the gorge.
I will not feign nor forge —
The hawk─ù with that clap
Fell down with evil hap.
The church doors were sparred,
Fast bolted and barred,
Yet with a pretty gin
I fortuned to come in,
This rebel to behold,
Whereof I him controlled.
But he said─ù that he would,
Against my mind and will,
In my church hawk─ù still.
CONSIDERATE
On Saint John decollation
He hawked in this fashion,
Tempore vesperarum,
Sed non secundum Sarum,
But like a March harum
His brain─ùs were so parum .
He said he would not let
His hound─ùs for to fet,
To hunt there by liberty
In the despite of me,
And to halloo there the fox.
Down went my offering-box,
Book, bell, and candle,
All that he might handle —
Cross, staff, lectern, and banner,
Fell down in this manner.
DELIBERATE
With troll, citrace, and trovy,
They ranged Hankin Bovy
My church─ù all about.
This falconer then 'gan shout,
" These be my gospellers,
These be my epistolers,
These be my choristers
To help─ù me to sing,
My hawks to matins ring!"
In this priestly gyding
His hawk then flew upon
The rood with Mary and John.
Dealt he not like a fon?
Dealt he not like a daw?
Or else is this God's law,
Decrees or decretals,
Or holy synodals,
Or else provincials,
Thus within the walls
Of holy Church to deal,
Thus to ring a peal
With his hawk─ùs bells?
Doubtless such losels
Make the church to be
In small authority:
A curate in speciall
To snapper and to fall
Into this open crime!
To look on this were time.
VIGILATE
But whoso that look─ùs
In the official book─ùs,
There he may see and read
That this is matter indeed.
Howbeit, maiden Meed
Made them to be agreed,
And so the Scribe was feed,
And the Pharisay
Then durst nothing say,
But let the matter slip,
And mad─ù truth to trip;
And of the spiritual law
They mad─ù but a geegaw,
And took it out in drink,
And thus the cause doth shrink.
The Church is thus abused,
Reproached and polluted;
Correction hath no place,
And all for lack of grace.
DEPLORATE
Look now in Exodi
And de arca Domini ,
With Regum by and by
(The Bible will not lie),
How the Temple was kept,
How the Temple was swept,
Where sanguis taurorum ,
Aut sanguis vitulorum,
Was offered within the wall─ùs,
After ceremoniall─ùs;
When it was polluted
Sentence was executed,
By way of expiation
For reconciliation.
DEVINATE
Then much more, by the rood,
Where Christ─ùs precious blood
Daily offered is,
To be polluted thus;
And that he wished withall
That the doves dung down might fall
Into my chalice at Mass,
When consecrated was
The blessed Sacrament.
O priest unreverent!
He said that he would hunt
From the altar to the font.
REFORMATE
Of no tyrant I read
That so far did exceed,
Neither Diocletian,
Nor yet Domitian,
Nor yet crooked Cacus,
Nor yet drunken Bacchus;
Neither Olibrius,
Nor Dionysius,
Neither Phalary
Rehearsed in Valery;
Nor Sardanapall,
Unhappiest of all;
Nor Nero the worst,
Nor Claudius the curst;
Nor yet Egeas,
Nor yet Sir Ferumbras;
Neither Zorobabel,
Nor cruel Jezebel;
Nor yet Tarquinius,
Whom Titus Livius
In writing doth enroll;
I have read them poll by poll;
The story of Aristobel,
And of Constantinople,
Which city miscreants won
And slew many a Christian man;
Yet the Soldan, nor the Turk,
Wrought never such a work,
For to let their hawk─ùs fly
In the Church of Saint Sophy;
With much matter more,
That I keep in store.
PENSITATE
Then in a table plain
I wrote a verse or twain,
Whereat he made disdain:
The peckish parson's brain
Could not reach nor attain
What the sentence meant.
He said, for a crooked intent,
The word─ùs were perverted:
And thus he overthwarted.
Of the which process
Ye may know more express,
If it please you to look
In the residue of this book.
Hereafter followeth the table.
Look on this table,
Whether thou art able
To read or to spell
What these verses tell.
Sicculo lutur eis est colo būraarā
Nixphedras visarum caniuter tuntantes
Raterplas Nat─übrian umsudus itnugenus.
18. 10. 2. 11. 19. 4. 13. 3. 3. 1. ten valet .
Chartula stet, precor, haec nullo temeranda petulco:
Hos rapiet numeros non homo, sed mala bos.
Ex parte rem chartae adverte asperte, pone Musam Arethusam hanc.
Whereto should I rehearse
The sentence of my verse?
In them be no schools
For brain-sick frantic fools.
Construas hoc,
Domine Dawcock!
Ware the hawk!
Master sophista ,
Ye simplex syllogista ,
Ye devilish dogmatista ,
Your hawk on your fista,
To hawk when you lista
In ecclesia ista,
Domine concupisti,
With thy hawk on thy fisty?
Nunquid sic dixisti?
Nunquid sic fecisti?
Sed ubi hoc legisti,
Aut unde hoc,
Doctor Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Doctor Dialetica ,
Where find you in Hypothetica ,
Or in Categoria ,
Latina sive Dorica,
To use your hawk─ùs forica
In propitiatorio,
Tanquam diversorio?
Unde hoc,
Domine Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Say to me, Jack Harris,
Quare aucuparis
Ad sacramentum altaris?
For no reverence thou spar─ùs
To shake thy pigeon's feather─ùs
Super arcam foederis:
Unde hoc,
Doctor Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Sir Dominus vobiscum ,
Per aucupium
Ye made your hawk to come
Desuper candelabrum
Christi Crucifixi
To feed upon your fisty:
Dic, inimice crucis Christi,
Ubi didicisti
Facere hoc,
Domine Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Apostata Julianus,
Nor yet Nestorianus,
Thou shalt nowhere read
That they did such a deed,
To let their hawk─ùs fly
Ad ostium tabernaculi,
In que est corpus Domine:
Cave hoc,
Doctor Dawcock!
Ware the hawk!
Thus doubtless ye raved,
Diss church ye thus depraved;
Wherefore, as I be saved,
Ye are therefore beknaved:
Quare? quia Evangelia,
Concha et conchylia,
Accipter et sonalia,
Et bruta animalia,
Caetera quoque talia
Tibi sunt aequalia:
Unde hoc,
Domine Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Et relis et ralis,
Et reliqualis,
From Granada to Galis,
From Winchelsea to Wal─ùs,
Non est brain-sick tal─ùs,
Nec minus rationalis,
Nec magis bestialis,
That sing─ùs with a chalice:
Construas hic,
Doctor Dawcock!
Ware the hawk!
Mazed, witless, smeary smith,
Hampar with your hammer upon thy stith,
And make hereof a sickle or a saw,
For though ye live a hundred year, ye shall die a daw.
Vos valete,
Doctor indiscrete!
This work devised is
For such as do amiss;
And specially to control
Such as have cure of soul,
That be so far abused
They cannot be excused
By reason nor by law;
But that they play the daw,
To hawk, or else to hunt
From the altar to the font,
With cry unreverent,
Before the sacrament,
Within holy church's bound─ùs,
That of our faith the ground is.
That priest that hawk─ùs so
All grace is far him fro;
He seemeth a schismatic,
Or else an heretic,
For faith in him is faint.
Therefore to make complaint
Of such misadvised
Parsons and disguised,
This book we have devised,
Compendiously comprised,
No good priest to offend,
But such daws to amend,
In hope that no man shall
Be miscontent withal.
I shall you make relation,
By way of apostrophation,
Under supportation
Of your patient toleration,
How I, Skelton Laureate,
Devised and also wrate
Upon a lewd curate,
A parson beneficed,
But nothing well advised.
He shall be as now nameless,
But he shall not be blameless,
Nor he shall not be shameless;
For sure he wrought amiss
To hawk in my church of Diss.
This fond frantic falconer,
With his polluted pawtener,
As priest unreverent,
Straight to the sacrament
He made his hawk to fly,
With hugeous shout and cry.
The high altar he stripped naked;
Thereon he stood and craked;
He shook down all the cloth─ùs,
And sware horrible oath─ùs
Before the face of God,
By Moses and Aaron's rod,
Ere that he hence yede
His hawk should pray and feed
Upon a pigeon's maw.
The blood ran down raw
Upon the altar-stone;
The hawk tired on a bone;
And in the holy place
She dunged there a chase
Upon my corporas' face.
Such sacrificium laudis
He made with such gambad─ùs.
OBSERVATE
His second hawk waxed gery,
And was with flying weary;
She had flowen so oft,
That on the rood-loft
She perched her to rest.
The falconer then was prest,
Came running with a dow,
And cried " Stow, stow, stow!"
But she would not bow.
He then, to be sure,
Called her with a lure.
Her meat was very crude,
She had not well endued;
She was not clean ensaimed,
She was not well reclaimed:
But the falconer unfained
Was much more feebler brained.
The hawk had no list
To come to his fist;
She looked as she had the frounce;
With that he gave her a bounce
Full upon the gorge.
I will not feign nor forge —
The hawk─ù with that clap
Fell down with evil hap.
The church doors were sparred,
Fast bolted and barred,
Yet with a pretty gin
I fortuned to come in,
This rebel to behold,
Whereof I him controlled.
But he said─ù that he would,
Against my mind and will,
In my church hawk─ù still.
CONSIDERATE
On Saint John decollation
He hawked in this fashion,
Tempore vesperarum,
Sed non secundum Sarum,
But like a March harum
His brain─ùs were so parum .
He said he would not let
His hound─ùs for to fet,
To hunt there by liberty
In the despite of me,
And to halloo there the fox.
Down went my offering-box,
Book, bell, and candle,
All that he might handle —
Cross, staff, lectern, and banner,
Fell down in this manner.
DELIBERATE
With troll, citrace, and trovy,
They ranged Hankin Bovy
My church─ù all about.
This falconer then 'gan shout,
" These be my gospellers,
These be my epistolers,
These be my choristers
To help─ù me to sing,
My hawks to matins ring!"
In this priestly gyding
His hawk then flew upon
The rood with Mary and John.
Dealt he not like a fon?
Dealt he not like a daw?
Or else is this God's law,
Decrees or decretals,
Or holy synodals,
Or else provincials,
Thus within the walls
Of holy Church to deal,
Thus to ring a peal
With his hawk─ùs bells?
Doubtless such losels
Make the church to be
In small authority:
A curate in speciall
To snapper and to fall
Into this open crime!
To look on this were time.
VIGILATE
But whoso that look─ùs
In the official book─ùs,
There he may see and read
That this is matter indeed.
Howbeit, maiden Meed
Made them to be agreed,
And so the Scribe was feed,
And the Pharisay
Then durst nothing say,
But let the matter slip,
And mad─ù truth to trip;
And of the spiritual law
They mad─ù but a geegaw,
And took it out in drink,
And thus the cause doth shrink.
The Church is thus abused,
Reproached and polluted;
Correction hath no place,
And all for lack of grace.
DEPLORATE
Look now in Exodi
And de arca Domini ,
With Regum by and by
(The Bible will not lie),
How the Temple was kept,
How the Temple was swept,
Where sanguis taurorum ,
Aut sanguis vitulorum,
Was offered within the wall─ùs,
After ceremoniall─ùs;
When it was polluted
Sentence was executed,
By way of expiation
For reconciliation.
DEVINATE
Then much more, by the rood,
Where Christ─ùs precious blood
Daily offered is,
To be polluted thus;
And that he wished withall
That the doves dung down might fall
Into my chalice at Mass,
When consecrated was
The blessed Sacrament.
O priest unreverent!
He said that he would hunt
From the altar to the font.
REFORMATE
Of no tyrant I read
That so far did exceed,
Neither Diocletian,
Nor yet Domitian,
Nor yet crooked Cacus,
Nor yet drunken Bacchus;
Neither Olibrius,
Nor Dionysius,
Neither Phalary
Rehearsed in Valery;
Nor Sardanapall,
Unhappiest of all;
Nor Nero the worst,
Nor Claudius the curst;
Nor yet Egeas,
Nor yet Sir Ferumbras;
Neither Zorobabel,
Nor cruel Jezebel;
Nor yet Tarquinius,
Whom Titus Livius
In writing doth enroll;
I have read them poll by poll;
The story of Aristobel,
And of Constantinople,
Which city miscreants won
And slew many a Christian man;
Yet the Soldan, nor the Turk,
Wrought never such a work,
For to let their hawk─ùs fly
In the Church of Saint Sophy;
With much matter more,
That I keep in store.
PENSITATE
Then in a table plain
I wrote a verse or twain,
Whereat he made disdain:
The peckish parson's brain
Could not reach nor attain
What the sentence meant.
He said, for a crooked intent,
The word─ùs were perverted:
And thus he overthwarted.
Of the which process
Ye may know more express,
If it please you to look
In the residue of this book.
Hereafter followeth the table.
Look on this table,
Whether thou art able
To read or to spell
What these verses tell.
Sicculo lutur eis est colo būraarā
Nixphedras visarum caniuter tuntantes
Raterplas Nat─übrian umsudus itnugenus.
18. 10. 2. 11. 19. 4. 13. 3. 3. 1. ten valet .
Chartula stet, precor, haec nullo temeranda petulco:
Hos rapiet numeros non homo, sed mala bos.
Ex parte rem chartae adverte asperte, pone Musam Arethusam hanc.
Whereto should I rehearse
The sentence of my verse?
In them be no schools
For brain-sick frantic fools.
Construas hoc,
Domine Dawcock!
Ware the hawk!
Master sophista ,
Ye simplex syllogista ,
Ye devilish dogmatista ,
Your hawk on your fista,
To hawk when you lista
In ecclesia ista,
Domine concupisti,
With thy hawk on thy fisty?
Nunquid sic dixisti?
Nunquid sic fecisti?
Sed ubi hoc legisti,
Aut unde hoc,
Doctor Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Doctor Dialetica ,
Where find you in Hypothetica ,
Or in Categoria ,
Latina sive Dorica,
To use your hawk─ùs forica
In propitiatorio,
Tanquam diversorio?
Unde hoc,
Domine Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Say to me, Jack Harris,
Quare aucuparis
Ad sacramentum altaris?
For no reverence thou spar─ùs
To shake thy pigeon's feather─ùs
Super arcam foederis:
Unde hoc,
Doctor Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Sir Dominus vobiscum ,
Per aucupium
Ye made your hawk to come
Desuper candelabrum
Christi Crucifixi
To feed upon your fisty:
Dic, inimice crucis Christi,
Ubi didicisti
Facere hoc,
Domine Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Apostata Julianus,
Nor yet Nestorianus,
Thou shalt nowhere read
That they did such a deed,
To let their hawk─ùs fly
Ad ostium tabernaculi,
In que est corpus Domine:
Cave hoc,
Doctor Dawcock!
Ware the hawk!
Thus doubtless ye raved,
Diss church ye thus depraved;
Wherefore, as I be saved,
Ye are therefore beknaved:
Quare? quia Evangelia,
Concha et conchylia,
Accipter et sonalia,
Et bruta animalia,
Caetera quoque talia
Tibi sunt aequalia:
Unde hoc,
Domine Dawcock?
Ware the hawk!
Et relis et ralis,
Et reliqualis,
From Granada to Galis,
From Winchelsea to Wal─ùs,
Non est brain-sick tal─ùs,
Nec minus rationalis,
Nec magis bestialis,
That sing─ùs with a chalice:
Construas hic,
Doctor Dawcock!
Ware the hawk!
Mazed, witless, smeary smith,
Hampar with your hammer upon thy stith,
And make hereof a sickle or a saw,
For though ye live a hundred year, ye shall die a daw.
Vos valete,
Doctor indiscrete!
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.