Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 18

Then Lechery, that loathly corse, Came bearing like a bagged horse,[51]

And Idleness did him lead; There was with him an ugly sort[52]

And many stinking foul tramort,[53]

That had in sin been dead.

When they were enter'd in the dance, They were full strange of countenance, Like torches burning reid.

IX.

Then the foul monster Gluttony, Of wame[54] insatiable and greedy, To dance he did him dress; Him followed many a foul drunkart With can and collep, cop and quart,[55]

In surfeit and excess.

Full many a waistless wally-drag[56]

With wames unwieldable did forth drag, In creish[57] that did incress; Drink, aye they cried, with many a gape, The fiends gave them hot lead to laip,[58]

Their leveray[59] was no less.

X.

No minstrels play'd to them but[60] doubt, For gleemen there were holden out, By day and eke by night, Except a minstrel that slew a man; So till his heritage he wan,[61]

And enter'd by brief of right.

XI.

Then cried Mahoun for a Highland padyane,[62]

Syne ran a fiend to fetch Mac Fadyane,[63]

Far northward in a nook, By he the Correnoch had done shout,[64]

Ersch-men[65] so gather'd him about In h.e.l.l great room they took: These termagants, with tag and tatter, Full loud in Ersch began to clatter, And roup[66] like raven and rook.

The devil so deaved[67] was with their yell, That in the deepest pot of h.e.l.l He smored[68] them with smoke.

[1] 'Mahoun:' the devil.

[2] 'Gart:' caused.

[3] 'Shrewis:' sinners.

[4] 'Shrevin:' confessed.

[5] 'Graith:' prepare.

[6] 'Guise:' masque.

[7] 'Gamounts:' dances.

[8] 'Hautane:' haughty.

[9] 'Gecks:' mocks.

[10] 'Black-Belly and Bawsy-Broun:' names of spirits.

[11] 'Anis:' once.

[12] 'Wyld:' combed.

[13] 'Wasty weanis:' wasteful children.

[14] 'Kethat:' ca.s.sock.

[15] 'Nanis:' nonce.

[16] 'Trompour:' impostor.

[17] 'Girn'd:' grinned.

[18] 'Granis:' groans.

[19] 'Sturt:' violence.

[20] 'Barganeris:' bullies.

[21] 'Into pairis:' in pairs.

[22] 'Bodin in feir of weir:' arrayed in trappings of war.

[23] 'Chenyiet:' covered with chain-mail.

[24] 'Affeir:' aspect.

[25] 'Beft:' struck.

[26] 'Jaggit:' stabbed.

[27] 'Heft:' hilt.

[28] 'Freik:' fellows.

[29] 'Rowneris:' whisperers.

[30] 'Lesngs:' lies.

[31] 'Quite:' quit.

[32] 'Ockerars:' usurers.

[33] 'Hood-pikes:' misers.

[34] 'Fother:' quant.i.ty.

[35] 'Flaucht:' flake.

[36] 'Tumit:' emptied.

[37] 'Prent:' stamp.

[38] 'Syne:' then.

[39] 'Sweirness:' laziness.

[40] 'Midding:' dunghill.

[41] 'Grunyie:' grunt.

[42] 'b.u.mbard:' indolent.

[43] 'Belly-huddroun:' gluttonous sloven.

[44] 's.l.u.te daw:' slovenly drab.

[45] 'Duddroun:' sloven.

[46] 'Sounyie:' care.

[47] 'Chenyie:' chain.

[48] 'Rennyie:' rein.

[49] 'Lunyie:' back.

[50] 'Counyie:' apprehension.

[51] 'Bagged horse:' stallion.

[52] 'Sort:' number.

[53] 'Tramort:' corpse.

[54] 'Wame:' belly.

[55] 'Can and collep, cop and quart:' different names of drinking-vessels.

[56] 'Wally-drag:' sot.

[57] 'Creish:' grease.

[58] 'Laip:' lap.

[59] 'Leveray:' desire to drink.

[60] 'But:' without.

[61] 'Wan:' got.

[62] 'Padyane:' pageant.

[63] 'Mac Fadyane:' name of some Highland laird.

[64] 'By he the Correnoch had done shout:' by the time that he had raised the Correnoch, or cry of help.

[65] 'Ersch-men:' Highlanders.

[66] 'Roup:' croak.

[67] 'Deaved:' deafened.

[68] 'Smored:' smothered.