Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages

Gammer: No, Marry, sir, that 'Chi'll not!
Bailey: Will you confess her nee'le?
Chat: Will I? No sir, will I not!
Bailey: Then there lieth all the matter. 1
Gammer: Soft, Master, by the way!
Ye know she could do little and she could not say nay! 2
Bailey: Yeah, but he that made one lie about your cock-stealing
Will not stick to make another, what time lies be in dealing.
I ween 3 the end will prove this brawl did first arise
Upon no other grounds but only Diccon's lies.
Chat: Though some be lies, as you belike have espied them,
Yet other some be true – by proof I have well tried them!
Bailey: What other thing besides this, Dame Chat?
Chat: Marry, sir, even this:
The tale I told before, the self-same tale it was his;
He gave me, like a friend, warning about my loss,
Else had my hens been stolen, each one, by God's cross!
He told me Hodge would come, and in he came indeed;
But, as the matter chanced, with greater haste than speed.
This truth was said, and true was found, as truly I report.
Bailey: If Doctor Rat be not deceived, it was of another sort. 4
Gammer Gurton's Needle 54
D. Rat: By God's Mother, thou and he be a couple of subtle foxes!
Between you and Hodge I bear away the boxes. 5
Did not Diccon appoint the place where thou shouldst stand to meet him? 6
Chat: Yea, by the Mass; and, if he came, bade me not stick to spit him! 7
1
There lieth all the matter: That's that.
2
Ye know . . . nay: You know how easy it is for her to lie and say "no."
3
I ween: I believe
4
If Doctor…sort: If Doctor Rat isn't mistaken, that was a lie, too.
5
That is, "Because you thought Hodge was breaking in, you beat (boxed) me up!"
6
Him: Hodge
7
Spit him: beat him with the iron spit