Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages

D. Rat: Help, Diccon! Out, alas! I shall be slain among them!
Diccon: If they give you not the nee'le, tell them that ye will hang them!
'Ware that! 1 How, my wenches? Have ye caught the fox
That used to make revel among your hens and cocks?
Save his life yet for his order, though he sustain some pain – 2
Gog's bread, I am afraid they will beat out his brain!
Gammer Gurton's Needle 45
[Diccon exits down the street, staggering with
laughter. Dr. Rat scrambles out through the hole,
soaking wet, his clothes torn, and his face bruised]
D. Rat: Woe worth 3 the hour that I came here!
And woe worth him that wrought this gear! 4
A sort of drabs and queans have me blest! 5
Was ever creature half so evil[ly] dressed?
Whoever it wrought and first did invent it,
He shall, I warrant him, ere long repent it!
I will spend all I have, without my skin, 6
But he shall be brought to the plight I am in!
Master Bailey, I trow, and he be worth his ears,
Will snaffle 7 these murderers and all that them bears. 8
I will surely neither bite nor sup 9
Till I fetch him hither, this matter to take up.
[Dr. Rat exits down the street. End of Act 4.]
1
'Ware that!: Make them afraid of that!
2
Save his . . . pain: Beat him up, but don't kill him – after all, he's a priest.
3
Woe worth: Nothing but sorrow came from
4
And woe . . . gear: And I intend to make the one who played this trick on me suffer.
5
A sort . . . blest: A bunch of sluts and whores have beaten me up!
6
Without: except
7
Snaffle: arrest
8
All that them bears: Everyone who supports their side of the fight.
9
Bite nor sup: eat nor drink