Gammer Gurton's Needle - Faculty & Staff Web Pages

Diccon: Yea, marry, sir, thus much I can say: Well, the needle is lost!
Bailey: Nay, canst thou not tell which way that needle may be found?
Diccon: No, by my faith, sir, though I might have an hundred pound.
Hodge: Thou liar, lick-dish! 1 Didst not say the nee'le would be gitten? 2
Diccon: No, Hodge, by the same token you were that time beshitten
For fear of Hobgoblin – you wot well what I mean,
As long as it is since, I fear me yet you be scarce clean! 3
Bailey: Well, Master Rat, you must both learn and teach us to forgive.
Since Diccon hath confession made and is so clean[ly] shrive, 4
If ye to me consent, to amend this heavy chance,
I will enjoin him here some open kind of penance –
On this condition: where ye know my fee is twenty pence,
For the bloodshed, I am agreed with you here to dispense.
Ye shall go quit, so that ye grant the matter now to run
To end with mirth among us all, even as it was begun. 5
Chat: Say yea, Master Vicar, and he shall sure confess to be thy debtor,
And all we that be here present will love you much the better.
D. Rat: My part is the worst; but, since you all hereon agree,
Go even to, Master Bailey, let it be so for me.
Bailey: Then mark ye well: to recompense this former action,
Because thou hast offended all, to make them satisfaction,
Before their faces here kneel down, and [do] as I shall thee teach;
For thou shalt take on oath, by Hodge's leather breech:
First, for Master Doctor, upon pain of his curse,
Where he will pay for all thou never drew thy purse,
And when ye meet at one pot, he shall have the first pull,
And thou shalt never offer him the cup but it be full;
To goodwife Chat thou shalt be sworn even on the same wise,
If she refuse thy money once, never to offer it twice –
Thou shalt be bound by the same here, as thou dost take it,
When thou mayst drink free of cost, thou never forsake it;
For Gammer Gurton's sake, again sworn shall thou be,
To help her to her needle again, if it do lie in thee – 6
Gammer Gurton's Needle 58
1 Lick-dish: beggar
2 Gitten: Hodge's mispronunciation of "gotten"
3 I fear. . . clean: I'm afraid you still aren't clean
4 Shrive: shriven, absolved of sin
5 The Bailey says, "If you will agree to let me fix this matter up, I'll sentence Diccon to some kind of public penance, on one
condition. My fee is twenty pence, but since you've been hurt, I will agree with you not to charge you – you shall all go quit
(be released from having to pay my fee) if you will let this matter drop and end everything up cheerfully."
6 If it do lie in the: if you are able to do it