Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/148

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72
HUDIBRAS.
[PART I.

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]

  1. 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.
  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.
  3. The steel on which a butcher whets his knife, called humorously a
    "dudgeon," or dagger. Some editions put truncheon.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. A horseman's pistol.
  7. 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.