The Shepheard's Calender: Twelve Aeglogues Proportionable to the Twelve Monethes :: MAY

MAY - AEGLOGA QUINTA

may

MAY. ÆGLOGA QUINTA. ARGUMENT.

In this fifth Æglogue, under the person of two shepheards, Piers and Palinode, be represented two forms of Pastors or Ministers, or the Protestant and the Catholic; whose chief talk standeth in reasoning, whether the life of the one must be like the other; with whom having shewed, that it is dangerous to maintain any fellowship, or give too much credit to their colourable and feigned good-will, he telleth him a tale of the Fox, that, by such a counterpoint of craftiness, deceived and devoured the credulous Kid.

PALINODE. PIERS.

PALINODE.

Is not thilk the merry month of May,

When love-lads masken in fresh array?

How falls it, then, we no merrier bene,

Alike as others, girt in gaudy green?

Our bloncket liveries be all too sad

For thilk same season, when all is yclad

With pleasance; the ground with grass, the woods

With green leaves, the bushes with blooming buds.

Youth's folk now flocken in every where,

To gather May-buskets and smelling brere;

And home they hasten the posts to dight,

And all the kirk-pillars ere day-light,

With hawthorn buds, and sweet eglantine,

And garlands of roses, and sops-in-wine.

Such merrimake holy saints doth queme,

But we here sitten as drown'd in dream.

PIERS. For younkers, Palinode, such follies fit,

But we tway be men of elder wit.

PAL. Sicker this morrow, no longer ago,

I saw a shoal of shepheards outgo

With singing, and shouting, and jolly cheer:

Before them yode a lusty tabrere,

That to the many a horn-pipe play'd,

Whereto they dancen each one with his maid.

To see those folks make such jovisance,

Made my heart after the pipe to dance:

Then to the green wood they speeden them all,

To fetchen home May with their musical;

And home they bringen in a royal throne,

Crowned as king; and his queen attone

Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend

A fair flock of faeries, and a fresh bend

Of lovely nymphs. (O that I were there,

To helpen the ladies their Maybush bear!)

Ah! Piers, be not thy teeth on edge, to think

How great sport they gainen with little swink?

PIERS. Perdie, so far am I from envy,

That their fondness inly I pity:

Those faitours little regarden their charge,

While they, letting their sheep run at large,

Passen their time, that should be sparely spent,

In lustihed and wanton merriment.

Thilk same be shepheards for the devil's stead,

That playen while their flocks be unfed:

Well it is seen their sheep be not their own,

That letten them run at random alone:

But they be hired for little pay

Of other, that caren as little as they,

What fallen the flock, so they have the fleece,

And get all the gain, paying but a piece.

I muse, what account both these will make;

The one for the hire, which he doth take,

And th' other for leaving his Lord's task,

When great Pan account of shepheards shall ask.

PAL. Sicker, now I see thou speakest of spite,

All for thou lackest somdele their delight.

I (as I am) had rather be envied,

All were it of my foe, than fonly pitied;

And yet, if need were, pitied would be,

Rather than other should scorn at me;

For pitied is mishap that n'as remedy,

But scorned be deeds of fond foolery.

What shoulden shepheards other things tend,

Than, sith their God his good does them send,

Reapen the fruit thereof, that is pleasure,

The while they here liven at ease and leisure?

For, when they be dead, their good is ygoe,

They sleepen in rest, well as other moe:

Then with them wends what they spent in cost,

But what they left behind them is lost.

Good is no good, but if it be spend;

God giveth good for none other end.

PIERS. Ah! Palinode, thou art a world's child:

Who touches pitch, must needs be defil'd;

But shepheards (as Algrind7 used to say)

Must not live alike as men of the lay.

With them it sits to care for their heir,

Enaunter their heritage do impair:

They must provide for means of maintenance,

And to continue their wont countenance:

But shepheard must walk another way,

Sike worldly sovenance he must for-say.

The son of his loins why should he regard

To leave enriched with that he hath spar'd?

Should not thilk God, that gave him that good,

Eke cherish his child, if in his ways he stood?

For if he mislive in lewdness and lust,

Little boots all the wealth, and the trust,

That his father left by inheritance;

All will be soon wasted with misgovernance:

But through this, and other their miscreance,

They maken many a wrong chevisance,

Heaping up waves of wealth and woe,

The floods whereof shall them overflow.

Sike men's folly I cannot compare

Better than to the ape's foolish care,

That is so enamoured of her young one,

(And yet, God wot, such cause had she none,)

That with her hard hold, and strait embracing,

She stoppeth the breath of her youngling.

So oftentimes, whenas good is meant,

Evil ensueth of wrong intent.

The time was once, and may again retorn,

(For ought may happen, that hath been beforn,)

When shepheards had none inheritance,

Ne of land nor fee in sufferance,

But what might arise of the bare sheep,

(Were it more or less) which they did keep.

Well ywis was it with shepheards then:

Nought having, nought feared they to forego;

For Pan himself was their inheritance,

And little them served for their maintenance.

The shepheards' God so well them guided,

That of nought they were unprovided;

Butter enough, honey, milk, and whey,

And their flocks' fleeces them to array:

But tract of time, and long prosperity,

(That nurse of vice, this of insolency,)

Lulled the shepheards in such security,

That, not content with loyal obeisance,

Some gan to gape for greedy governance,

And match them self with mighty potentates,

Lovers of lordship, and troublers of states:

Then gan shepheards' swains to look aloft,

And leave to live hard, and learn to ligg soft:

Then, under colour of shepheards, somewhile

There crept in wolves, full of fraud and guile,

That often devoured their own sheep,

And often the shepheards that did them keep:

This was the first source of shepheards' sorrow,

That now nill be quit with bail nor borrow.

PAL. Three things to bear be very burdenous,

But the fourth to forbear is outrageous:

Women, that of love's longing once lust,

Hardly forbearen, but have it they must:

So when choler is inflamed with rage,

Wanting revenge, is hard to assuage:

And who can counsel a thirsty soul,

With patience to forbear the offer'd bowl?

But of all burdens, that a man can bear,

Most is, a fool's talk to bear and to hear.

I ween the giant has not such a weight,

That bears on his shoulders the heaven's height.

Thou findest fault where n'is to be found,

And buildest strong work upon a weak ground:

Thou railest on right withouten reason,

And blamest them much for small encheason.

How shoulden shepheards live, if not so?

What? should they pinen in pain and woe?

Nay, say I thereto, by my dear borrow,

If I may rest, I nill live in sorrow.

Sorrow ne need be hastened on,

For he will come, without calling, anon,

While times enduren of tranquillity,

Usen we freely our felicity;

For, when approachen the stormy stowres,

We must with our shoulders bear off the sharp showers;

And, sooth to sayn, nought seemeth sike strife,

That shepheards so witen each other's life,

And layen their faults the worlds beforn,

The while their foes do each of them scorn.

Let none mislike of that may not be mended;

So contest soon by concord might be ended.

PIERS. Shepheard, I list no accordance make

With shepheard, that does the right way forsake;

And of the twain, if choice were to me,

Had lever my foe than my friend he be;

For what concord have light and dark sam?

Or what peace has the lion with the lamb?

Such faitours, when their false hearts be hid,

Will do as did the Fox by the Kid.8

PAL. Now, Piers, of fellowship, tell us that saying;

For the lad can keep both our flocks from straying.

PIERS. Thilk same Kid (as I can well devise)

Was too very foolish and unwise;

For on a time, in summer season,

The Goat her dam, that had good reason,

Yode forth abroad unto the green wood,

To brouze, or play, or what she thought good:

But, for she had a motherly care

Of her young son, and wit to beware,

She set her youngling before her knee,

That was both fresh and lovely to see,

And full of favour as kid might be.

His velvet head began to shoot out,

And his wreathed horns gan newly sprout;

The blossoms of lust to bud did begin,

And spring forth rankly under his chin.

"My son," (quoth she, and with that gan weep;

For careful thoughts in her heart did creep;)

"God bless thee, poor orphan! as he might me,

And send thee joy of thy jollity.

Thy father," (that word she spake with pain,

For a sigh had nigh rent her heart in twain,)

"Thy father, had he lived this day,

To see the branch of his body display,

How would he have joyed at this sweet sight?

But ah! false Fortune such joy did him spite,

And cut off his days with untimely woe,

Betraying him into the trains of his foe.

Now I, a wailful widow behight,

Of my old age have this one delight,

To see thee succeed in thy father's stead,

And flourish in flowers of lustihead;

For even so thy father his head upheld,

And so his haughty horns did he weld."

Then marking him with melting eyes,

A thrilling throb from her heart did arise,

And interrupted all her other speech

With some old sorrow that made a new breach;

Seemed she saw in her youngling's face

The old lineaments of his father's grace.

At last her sullen silence she broke,

And gan his new-budded beard to stroke.

"Kiddie," (quoth she,) "thou kenst the great care

I have of thy health and thy welfare,

Which many wild beasts liggen in wait

For to entrap in thy tender state:

But most the Fox, master of collusion;

For he has vowed thy last confusion.

Forthy, my Kiddie, be rul'd by me,

And never give trust to his treachery;

And, if he chance come when I am abroad,

Sperr the gate fast, for fear of fraud;

Ne for all his worst, nor for his best,

Open the door at his request."

So schooled the Goat her wanton son,

That answer'd his mother, all should be done.

Then went the pensive dam out of door,

And chanc'd to stumble at the threshold floor;

Her stumbling step somewhat her amazed,

(For such, as signs of ill luck, be dispraised;)

Yet forth she yode, thereat half aghast;

And Kiddie the door sperred after her fast.

It was not long, after she was gone,

But the false Fox came to the door anone;

Not as a fox, for then he had be kend,

But all as a poor pedlar he did wend,

Bearing a truss of trifles at his back,

As bells, and babes, and glasses, in his pack:

A biggen he had got about his brain,

For in his headpiece he felt a sore pain:

His hinder heel was wrapt in a clout,

For with great cold he had got the gout:

There at the door he cast me down his pack,

And laid him down, and groaned, "Alack! alack!

Ah! dear Lord! and sweet Saint Charity!

That some good body would once pity me!"

Well heard Kiddie all this sore constraint,

And long'd to know the cause of his complaint;

Then, creeping close behind the wicket's clink,

Privily he peeped out through a chink,

Yet not so privily but the Fox him spied;

For deceitful meaning is double-eyed.

"Ah! good young master," (then gan he cry,)

"Jesus bless that sweet face I espy,

And keep your corpse from the careful stounds

That in my carrion carcase abounds."

The Kid, pitying his heaviness,

Asked the cause of his great distress,

And also who, and whence that he were.

Then he, that had well yconn'd his lere,

Thus medled his talk with many a tear:

"Sick, sick, alas! and little lack of dead,

But I be relieved by your beastlyhead.

I am a poor sheep, albe my colour dun,

For with long travel I am brent in the sun;

And if that, my grandsire me said, be true,

Sicker, I am very sib to you;

So be your goodlihead do not disdain

The base kindred of so simple swain.

Of mercy and favour then I you pray,

With your aid to forestall my near decay."

Then out of his pack a glass he took,

Wherein while Kiddie unwares did look,

He was so enamoured with the newell,

That nought he deemed dear for the jewel:

Then opened he the door, and in came

The false Fox, as he were stark lame:

His tail he clapt betwixt his legs twain,

Lest he should be descried by his train.

Being within, the Kid made him good glee,

All for the love of the glass he did see.

After his cheer, the pedlar gan chat,

And tell many leasings of this and that,

And how he could shew many a fine knack;

Then shewed his ware and opened his pack,

All save a bell, which he left behind

In the basket for the Kid to find;

Which when the Kid stooped down to catch,

He popt him in, and his basket did latch;

Ne stayed he once the door to make fast,

But ran away with him in all hast.

Home when the doubtful dame had her hied,

She might see the door stand open wide;

All aghast, loudly she gan to call

Her Kid; but he nould answer at all:

Then on the floor she saw the merchandice

Of which her son had set too dear a price.

What help! her Kid she knew well was gone:

She weeped, and wailed, and made great moan.

Such end had the Kid, for he nould warned be

Of craft, coloured with simplicity;

And such end, perdie, does all them remain,

That of such falsers' friendship be fain.

PAL. Truly, Piers, thou art beside thy wit,

Furthest fro the mark, weening it to hit.

Now, I pray thee, let me thy tale borrow

For our Sir John,9 to say to-morrow

At the kirk when it is holiday;

For well he means, but little can say.

But, and if foxes be so crafty as so,

Much needeth all shepheards them to know.

PIERS. Of their falsehood more could I recount,

But now the bright sun ginneth to dismount;

And, for the dewy night now doth nigh,

I hold it best for us home to hie.

PALINODE'S EMBLEME.
?as e? ap?st?s ap?ste?
(Every one without faith is suspicious.)

PIERS, HIS EMBLEME.
??s d' a?a p?st?s ap?stÒ
What faith, then, in the faithless?)

palinode's emblem pier's emblem

Clyx.com