English poetry -- History and criticism; Poetry -- Early works to 1800
Sometime the vndeceny ariseth by the indignitie of the word in respect of
the speaker himselfe, as whan a daughter of Fraunce and next heyre
generall to the crowne (if the law _Salique_ had not barred her) being set
in a great chaufe by some harde words giuen her by another prince of the
bloud, said in her anger, thou durst not haue said thus much to me if God
had giuen me a paire of, &c. and told all out, meaning if God had made her
a man and not a woman she had bene king of Fraunce. The word became not
the greatnesse of her person, and much lesse her sex, whose chiefe virtue
shamefastnesse, which the Latines call _Verecundia_, that is a naturall
feare to be noted with any impudicitie: so as when they heare or see any
thing tending that way they commonly blush, & is a part greatly praised in
all women.
Yet will ye see in many cases how pleasant speeches and fauouring some
skurrillity and vnshamefastnes haue now and then a certaine decencie, and
well become both the speaker to say, and the hearer to abide, but that is
by reason of some other circumstance, as when the speaker himselfe is
knowne to be a common iester or buffon, such as take vpon them to make
princes merry, or when some occasion is giuen by the hearer to induce such
a pleasaunt speach, and in many other cases whereof no generall rule can
be giuen, but are best knowen by example: as when Sir _Andrew Flamock_
king _Henry_ the eights standerdbearer, a merry conceyted man and apt to
skoffe, waiting one day at the kings heeles when he entred the parke at
Greenewich, the king blew his horne, _Flamock_ hauing his belly full, and
his tayle at commaundment, gaue out a rappe nothing faintly, that the king
turned him about and said how now sirra? _Flamock_ not well knowing how to
excuse his vnmannerly act, if it please you Sir quoth he, your Maiesty
blew one blast for the keeper and I another for his man. The king laughed
hartily and tooke it nothing offensiuely: for indeed as the case fell out
it was not vndecently spoken by Sir _Andrew Flamock_, for it was the
cleaneliest excuse he could make, and a merry implicatiue in termes
nothing odious, and therefore a sporting satisfaction to the kings mind,
in a matter which without some such merry answere could not haue bene well
taken. So was _Flamocks_ action most vncomely, but his speech excellently
well becoming the occasion.
But at another time and in another like case, the same skurrillitie of
_Flamock_ was more offensiue, because it was more indecent. As when the
king hauing _Flamock_ with him in his barge, passing from Westminster to
Greenewich to visite a fayre Lady whom the king loued and was lodged in
the tower of the Parke: the king comming within sight of the tower, and
being disposed to be merry, said, _Flamock_ let vs rime: as well as I can
said _Flamock_ if it please your grace. The king began thus:
_Within this towre,
There lieth a flowre,
That hath my hart._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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