Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages

Bailey: Belike then, Master Doctor, your stripes there ye got not! 1
D. Rat: Think you I am so mad 2 that where I was beat I wot not?
Will you believe this quean before she hath tried 3 it?
It is not the first deed she hath done and afterward denied it! 4
Chat: What, man, will you say I broke your head?
D. Rat: How canst thou prove the contrary?
Chat: Nay – how provest thou that I did the deed?
Gammer Gurton's Needle 48
D. Rat: Too plainly, by Saint Mary!
This proof, I trow, may serve though I no word spoke!
[He bends over and shows his bruised head]
Chat: Because thy head is broken, was it I that it broke?
I saw thee, Rat, I tell thee, not once within this fortnight! 5
D. Rat: No, marry, thou sawest me not. For why? Thou hadst no light!
But I felt thee, for all the dark, beshrew 6 thy smooth cheeks!
And thou groped me – this will declare 7 any day this six weeks.
[Bends over to show his head again]
Bailey: Answer me to this, Master Rat: when caught you this harm of yours?
D. Rat: A while ago, sir, God he knoweth, within these last two hours.
Bailey: Dame Chat, was there none with you – confess, in faith – about that season? 8
What, woman! Let it be known what it will, 'tis neither felony nor treason.
Chat: Yes, by my faith, Master Bailey, there was a knave not far
Who caught one good fillip 9 on the brow with a door bar –
And well was he worthy, as it seemed to me.
But what is that to this man, since this was not he?
Bailey: Who was it, then? Let's hear.
1
Belike then . . . not: Maybe, then Doctor, you didn't get your scratches and bruises here!
2
Mad: insane
3
Tried: proved
4
That is, "Beating me isn't the first time she's done something and then turned around and lied about it!"
5
Fortnight: fourteen nights, or two weeks
6
Beshrew: curse
7
Declare: prove it, testify to it
8
Season: time
9
Fillip: glancing blow