T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Ballad of Villon and Muckle Meg
By François Villon (14311463?)(Translated by John Payne) BECAUSE I love and serve a whore sans glose,I. | |
Think not therefore or knave or fool am I: | |
She hath in her such goods as no man knows. | |
For love of her, target and dirk I ply: | |
When clients come, I hend a pot therenigh | 5 |
And get me gone for wine, without word said: | |
Before them water, fruit, bread, cheese, I spread. | |
If they pay well, I bid them “Well God aid! | |
Come here again, when you of lust are led, | |
In this the brothel where we ply our trade.” | 10 |
II. But surely before long an ill wind blows | |
When, coinless, Margot comes by me to lie. | |
I hate the sight of her, catch up her hose, | |
Her gown, her surcoat and her girdle-tie, | |
Swearing to pawn them, meat and drink to buy. | 15 |
She grips me by the throat and cuffs my head, | |
Cries “Antichrist!” and swears by Jesus dead, | |
It shall not be; till I, to quell the jade, | |
A potsherd seize and score her nose with red, | |
In this the brothel where we ply our trade. | 20 |
III. Then she, peace made, to show we’re no more foes, | |
A hugeous crack of wind at me lets fly | |
And laughing, sets her fist against my nose, | |
Bids me “Go to” and claps me on the thigh; | |
Then, drunk, like logs we sleep till, by and by, | 25 |
Awaking, when her womb is hungerèd, | |
To spare the child beneath her girdlestead, | |
She mounts on me, flat as a pancake laid. | |
With wantoning she wears me to the thread, | |
In this the brothel where we ply our trade. | 30 |
ENVOI. Hail, rain, freeze, ready baked I hold my bread: | |
Well worth a lecher with a wanton wed! | |
Whether’s the worse? They differ not a shred. | |
Ill cat to ill rat; each for each was made. | |
We flee from honour; it from us hath fled: | 35 |
Lewdness we love, that stands us well in stead, | |
In this the brothel where we ply our trade. | |