Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages
Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages
Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages
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Hodge: Yes, that Ich dare.<br />
<strong>Gammer</strong> <strong>Gurton's</strong> <strong>Needle</strong> 52<br />
[Hodge goes to the bailiff and stoops over so he can<br />
examine Hodge's head and scalp]<br />
Bailey: By our Lady, here is no harm;<br />
Hodge's head is whole enough, for all Dame Chat's charm. 1<br />
Chat: By Gog's blessed, however the thing he cloaks or smolders,<br />
I know the blows he bore away either with head on shoulders!<br />
Camest thou not, knave, within this hour creeping into my pens,<br />
And there was caught within my house groping among my hens?<br />
Hodge: A plague both on thy hens and thee! A cart, whore, a cart! 2<br />
'Chould I were hanged as high as a tree, and 'Chwere as false as thou art!<br />
Give my <strong>Gammer</strong> again her what-ye-call-it thou stole away in thy lap!<br />
<strong>Gammer</strong>: Yea, Master Bailey, there is a thing you know not of, mayhap: 3<br />
This drab, she keeps away my goods – the devil he might her snare!<br />
Ich pray you that Ich might have a right action on her.<br />
Chat: Have I thy goods, old filth, or any such, old sow?<br />
I am as true, I would thou knew, as [the] skin between my brows!<br />
<strong>Gammer</strong>: Many a truer hath been hanged, though you escape the danger!<br />
Chat: Thou shalt answer, by God's pity, for this, thy foul slander!<br />
Bailey: Why, what can ye charge her withal? 4 To say so ye do not well.<br />
<strong>Gammer</strong>: Marry, a vengeance to her heart, the whore hath stolen my nee'le!<br />
Chat: Thy needle, old witch? How so? It were almost thy skull to knock! 5<br />
So didst thou say the other day that I had stolen thy cock!<br />
And roasted him for my breakfast – which shall not be forgotten.<br />
The devil pull out thy lying tongue and teeth that are so rotten!<br />
<strong>Gammer</strong>: Give me my nee'le! As for my Cocke, 'Chould be very loath<br />
That 'Chould here tell he should hang on thy false faith and troth!<br />
Bailey: Your talk is such that I can scarce learn who should be most in fault.<br />
1<br />
Charm: swearing<br />
2<br />
To shame them, whores were paraded through the streets in open carts when they were arrested.<br />
3<br />
Mayhap: maybe<br />
4<br />
Withal: with – "What charge can you bring against her?"<br />
5<br />
It were . . . knock: That's almost enough to make me hit you on the head!
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