|
|
|
|
Anonymous. The Love Letter. Late 16thC.
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
By John Skelton
THE auncient acquaintance, madam, betwen vs twayn,
The famylyaryte, the formal dalyaunce,
Causyth me that I can not myself refrayne
But that I must wryte for my plesaunt pastaunce :
Remembryng your passying goodly countenaunce,
Your goodly port, your bewteous visage,
Ye may be countyd comfort of all corage.
Of all your feturs fauorable to make tru discripcion,
I am insuffycyent to make such enterpryse ;
For thus dare I say, without [con]tradiccyon,
That dame Menolope was neuer half so wyse :
Yet so it is that a rumer begynneth for to ryse,
How in good horsmen ye set your hole delyght,
And haue forgoten your old trew louyng knyght.
Wyth bound and rebound, bounsyngly take vp
Hys jentyll curtoyl, and set nowght by small naggys !
Spur vp at the hynder gyrth, with Gup, morell, gup !
With, Jayst ye, jenet of Spayne, for your tayll waggys !
Ye cast all your corage vppon such courtly haggys.
Haue in sergeaunt ferrour, myne horse behynd is bare ;
He rydeth well the horse, but he rydeth better the mare.
Ware, ware, the mare wynsyth wyth her wanton hele !
She kykyth with her kalkyns and keylyth with a clench ;
She goyth wyde behynde, and hewyth neuer a dele :
Ware gallyng in the widders, ware of that wrenche !
It is perlous for a horseman to dyg in the trenche.
Thus greuyth your husband, that ryght jentyll knyght,
And so with youre seruantys he fersly doth fyght.
So fersly he fytyth, his mynde is so fell,
That he dryuyth them doune with dyntes on ther day wach ;
He bresyth theyr braynpannys and makyth them to swell,
Theyre browys all to-brokyn, such clappys they cach ;
Whose jalawsy malycyous makyth them to lepe the hach ;
By theyr conusaunce knowing how they serue a wily py :
Ask all your neybours whether that I ly.
It can be no counsell that is cryed at the cros :
For youre jentyll husband sorowfull am I ;
How be it, he is not furst hath had a los :
Aduertysyng you, madame, to warke more secretly,
Let not all the world make an owtcry ;
Play fayre play, madame, and loke ye play clene,
Or ells with gret shame your game wylbe sene.
Qd Skelton, laureat.
|
Source:
Skelton, John. The Poetical Works of John Skelton. Vol. I.
Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1866. 28-30.
 | to Works of John Skelton |
Site copyright ©1996-2019 Anniina Jokinen. All Rights Reserved.
Created by Anniina Jokinen on April 10, 2000. Last updated January 31, 2019.
|
|
The Tudors
King Henry VII
Elizabeth of York
King Henry VIII
Queen Catherine of Aragon
Queen Anne Boleyn
Queen Jane Seymour
Queen Anne of Cleves
Queen Catherine Howard
Queen Katherine Parr
King Edward VI
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Renaissance English Writers
Bishop John Fisher
William Tyndale
Sir Thomas More
John Heywood
Thomas Sackville
John Bale
Nicholas Udall
John Skelton
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard
Hugh Latimer
Thomas Cranmer
Roger Ascham
Sir Thomas Hoby
John Foxe
George Gascoigne
John Lyly
Thomas Nashe
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Richard Hooker
Robert Southwell
Robert Greene
George Peele
Thomas Kyd
Edward de Vere
Christopher Marlowe
Anthony Munday
Sir Walter Ralegh
Thomas Hariot
Thomas Campion
Mary Sidney Herbert
Sir John Davies
Samuel Daniel
Michael Drayton
Fulke Greville
Emilia Lanyer
William Shakespeare
Persons of Interest
Visit Encyclopedia
Historical Events
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
The Babington Plot, 1586
The Spanish Armada, 1588
Elizabethan Theatre
See section
English Renaissance Drama
Images of London:
London in the time of Henry VII. MS. Roy. 16 F. ii.
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's Panoramic View of London, 1616. COLOR
|
|
John Skelton
