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A Mumming at Hertford:
Trinity R.3.20 Verses

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f.21 verso
Folio 20 Verso (Page 40)Folio 21 Recto (Page 41)Folio 21 Verso (Page 42)Folio 22 Recto (Page 43)Folio 22 Verso (Page 44)Folio 23 Recto (Page 45)Folio 23 Verso (Page 46)Folio 24 Recto (Page 47)Folio 24 Verso (Page 48)

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Folio 21 Verso (Page 42)
Compare Witnesses: •
ɲ
A desguysinge to fore þe kyng •
ɲ
And for heed aache witħ pepir and gynger •
Dronk dolled ale / to make hir throte cleer •
And kemeþe1 hir hoome / whane hit draweþe to eve •
And þanne Robynn þe cely poure Reeve •
ffynde noone amendes / of harome ne damage •
But leene growełł / and soupeþe colde potage •
And of his wyf haþe noone oþer cheer •
But Cokkrowortes vn to his souper •
Þis is his servyce sitting at þe borde •
And cely Robynn / yif he speke a worde •
ɲ
Beautryce of him / dooþe so lytel rekke •
Þat witħ hir distaff she hitteþe him in þe nekke •
ffor a medecyne to chawf witħ his bloode •
Witħ suche a metyerde / she haþe shape him an hoode •
ɲ
And Colyn Cobeller folowing his felawe •
haþe hade his part of þe same lawe •
ffor by þe feytħ þat þe preost him gaf •
His wyff haþe taugħt him to pleyne at þe staff •
Hir quarter strooke / were so large and rounde •
Þat on his rigge / þe towche was alwey founde •
demonstrando •
pictaciarium •
ɲ
Cecely sourechere / his owenn precyous spouse •
Kowde him reheete / whane he came to house •
yif he ougħt spake whanne he felt peyne •
Ageyne oon worde / alweys he hade tweyne •
Sheo qwytt him ouer / þer was no thing to seeche •
Six for oon / of worde and strookes eeche •
þer was no meen / bytweene hem for to goone •
What euer he wan clowting olde shoone2 •
Þe wykday pleynly þis is no tale •
Sheo wolde on sondayes drynk it at þe nale •
His part was noon / he sayde not oonys nay •
Hit is no game / but an hernest play •
ffor lack of wit a man his wyf to greeve •
Þeos housbondemen who so wolde hem leeve •
Notes
  1. MacCraken has "komeþe" here, but it lacks the box form of the "o" elsewhere and is similar to the scribe's "e" form, so I have rendered it "kemeþe" here. ↩
  2. The next to last glyph here looks like a transitional glyph between "n" and "m" based on "goone" in the line above and "game" in line twelve. Rendering it as "m" breaks the rhyming couplets and Occam's Razor would suggest that the extra minim is a mistake. ↩

The work on this manuscript witness was generously sponsored by a ZKS-Lendrum Fellowship in the Scientific Study of Manuscripts and Inscriptions at the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Durham University. The transcription of this work is owned by the editor and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The images are owned by the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge and are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.