Sub nocte silenti, (i) in nocte vel paulo ante noctem, cum spectatur in
ignibus aurum; when you might have seene gold in the fier, the fier
shin'de so like gold, Ecce per opaca locorum, came the fidlers creeping
alonge, densa subter testudine casus, their instruments vnder their
arms, in their cases, & at lenghe, Itum est in viscera terræ, broke open
into the harte of the hall; neither when they were there could they bee
content to [F. 83r rev.] warme their fingers by the fier and bee gone,
though I [40] would have persuaded them thereto, but Iuvat vsque morari
et conferre gradum; they would needes staye & the youth daunce; but oh
to see, woe to see, that pleasure is but a pinch and felicitye but a
phillippe; when as Juvat ire per altum, some were cutting capers aloft
in the ayre, canit similiter huic, and they likewise with their
minstrelsey fitting it to their footing, all on a suddaine, Subito I may
say to them, but Repente to mee, their sporte was spoild, their musicke
marrd, their dauncinge dasht with a vox hominem sonat, with a voyce,
[50] with an awefull voice, Hæccine fieri flagitia; ar these the fruites
of the fires; statur a me, (i) sto, statur ab illis, (i) stant; they
that even now scrap't so fast with their stickes fell now to scraping
faster with their leggs; their fum fum was turn'd to mum mum, and their
pleasaunt melodye to most pittifull making of faces; but when they
look't that their fiddles should have flyen about their eares, their
calveskin cases about their calveshead pates, as the sunne shines
brightest through a shower, so did softnes in the midst of severitye:
[F. 82v rev.] there was noe more [60] said to them but, Teque his ait
eripe flammis; they were best, since they had made many mens heeles
warme with shakinge, to coole their owne by quaking without doore. But
the more mercy was shewed before, the lesse was left for mee. Had I
beene dealt with soe mercifullye, I had not neede to have come with this
exclamation, or had it beene but gratia ab officio, but a groat out of
mine office, I should not have stonied the stones nor rented the rockes
with my dolorous outcryes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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