Thy stomach, pump'd to fling on me,
Gro unreveng'd, though I am free:[1]
Thou down the same throat shalt devour 'em765
Like tainted beef, and pay dear for 'em.
Nor shall it e'er be said, that wight
With gauntlet blue and bases white,[2]
And round blunt dudgeon by his side,[3]
So great a man at arms defy'd,770
With words far bitterer than wormwood,
That would in Job or Grizel stir mood.[4]
Dogs with their tongues their wounds do heal;
But men with hands, as thou shalt feel.
This said, with hasty rage he snatch'd775
His gun-shot, that in holsters watch'd;
And bending cock, he levell'd full
Against th' outside of Talgol's skull;
Vowing that he should ne'er stir further,
Nor henceforth cow or bullock murther.780
But Pallas came in shape of rust,[5]
And 'twixt the spring and hammer thrust
Her gorgon-shield, which made the cock
Stand stiff, as if 'twere turn'd t' a stock.
Meanwhile fierce Talgol gath'ring might,785
With rugged truncheon charg'd the Knight;
But he with petronel[6] upheav'd,
Instead of shield, the blow receiv'd.[7]
- ↑ Free, that is, untouched by your accusations, as being free from what you charge me with. So Shakspeare, "We that have free souls," &c., Haml. III. 2.
- ↑ Meaning a butcher's blue sleeves and white apron. Gauntlets were gloves of plate-mail; bases were mantles which hung from the middle to about the knees or lower, worn by knights on horseback.
- ↑ The steel on which a butcher whets his knife, called humorously a
"dudgeon," or dagger. Some editions put truncheon. - ↑ The patience of Grisel is celebrated by Chaucer in the Clerke's Tale. The story is taken from Petrarch's "Epistola de historia Griselidis," and was the subject of a popular English Chap-book in 1619, often reprinted.
- ↑ A banter upon Homer, Virgil, and other epic poets, who have always a deity at hand to protect their heroes. See also lines 864-5.
- ↑ A horseman's pistol.
- ↑ These lines were changed to the following in 1674, and restored in 1704.
And he his rusty pistol held.
To take the blow on, like a shield.
