Supplication To The Devil Poem by Sidi Mahtrow

Supplication To The Devil



A tale of a battle-dore - (moral fable with animals as the principals)

(As told by the devil to Pierce Penniless in the Supplication to the Devil and related by Thomas Nash*)

“The beare on a time,
Beeing chiefe burgomaster
Of all the beastes vnder the lyon,
Gan thinke with himselfe
How hee might surfet in pleasure,
Or best husband his authoritie
To enlardge his delight and contentment.

With that hee beganne to prye
And to smell through euerie corner
Of the forrest for praye,
To haue a thousand imaginations with himselfe
What daynetie morsell he was master of,
And yet had not tasted.

Whole heards of sheepe
Had he deuoured,
And was not satisfied; fat oxen,
Heyfers, swine, calues, and yong kiddes
Were his ordinarie vyands:
He longed for horse-flesh,
And went presently to a medowe,
Where a fat cammell was grazing,
Whom, fearing to encounter with force
Because he was a huge beast and well shod,
He thought to betray
Vnder the colour of demaunding homage,
Hoping that,
As he should stoop to doo him truage,
He might seaze upon his throate,
And stifle him before he
Should be able to recouer himselfe
From his false embrace.

But therein hee was deceiued,
For, comming vnto this stately best
With this imperious message,
In stead of dooing homage vnto him,
He lifted vp one of his hindmost heeles,
And stroake him such a blowe on the forhead
That he ouer-threwe him.

Thereat not a little moou’d,
And enrag’d that he should be
So dishonored by his inferiour,
As he thought,
He consulted with the ape
How he might be reuenged.

The ape, abhorring him by nature
Because he ouer-lookt him so lordly,
And was by so manie degrees
Greater than he was,
Aduised him to dig a pit
With his pawes right in the way
Where this big boand gentleman should passe,
That so stumbling and falling in,
He might lightly skip on his backe,
And bridle him, and then hee come
And seaze on him at his pleasure.

No sooner was this perswaded
Than performed;
For enuy, that is neuer idle,
Could not sleep in his wrath,
Or ouer-slip the least opportunitie,
Till he had seene the confusion of his enemie.

Alas, goodly creature,
That thou mightst no longer liue!
What auaileth thy gentlenes, thy powesse,
Or the plentiful pasture wherein thou wert fed,
Since malice triumphs ouer al thou commandest?

Well may the mule rise vp in armes,
And the asse bray at the authors of thy death,
Yet shall their furie be fatall to themselues,
Before it take holde on these traitours.

What needeth more words?
The deuourer feedes on his captiue,
And is gorged with bloud.
But, as auarice and crueltie are euermore thirstie,
So far’d it was this hungrie usurper;
For, hauing flesht his ambition
With this treacherous conquest,
He past along throug a groue,
Where a heard of deare were a ranging;
Whom, when he had stedfastly
Surveyed from the fattest to the leanest,
Hee singled out one of the fairest of the company,
With whom he meant to close up his stomacke
Instead of cheese:
But because the wood-men
Were euer stirring thereabout,
And it was not possible
For one of his coate
To commit such outrage vndescried,
And that, if he were espied,
His life were in perill,
Though not with the lion,
Whose eyes he coulde blinde as he list,
Yet with the lesser sort of the brutish comminaltie,
Whom no flattry might pacifie.

Therefore, he determined
Slylie and priuily to poyson the streame
Where this jolly forrester wonted to drink;
And as he determined so he did:
Whereby it fell out that,
When the sunne was ascended to his height,
And all the nimble citizens of the wood
Betooke them to their laire,
This youthfull lord of the lawnds,
All faint and malcontent,
(As prophecying his neere approaching mishap by his languishing)
With a lazie, wallowing pace,
Strayed aside from the rest of his fellowship,
And betooke him all carelessly to corrupted fountaine
That was prepared for his funerall.

Ah, woe is mee!
This poyson is pitiles.
What need I say more,
Since you know it is death
With whom it encounters?

And yet cannot all this expence of life
Set a period to insatiable murther;
But still it hath some anvyle to worke vpon,
And ouercasts all opposite prosperitie
That may anie way shadow his glorie.

Too long it were to reherse
All the practises of this sauadge blood hunter;
How he assailed the unicorne as he slept in his den,
And tore the heart out of his breast
Ere he could awake;
How he made the lesser beast
Lie in wayt one for the other,
And the crocodyle to coape with the basiliske,
That when they had enterehaungeably weakned each other,
Hee might come and insult ouer them
Both as he list.

But these were lesser matters,
Which daily vue had worne
Out of men’s mouths,
And he himself so customarably practised,
That often exercise had quite
Abrogated the opinion of sinne,
And impudence throughly confirmd
And vdaunted defiance
Of vertue in his face.

Yet new-fangled lust,
That in time is wearie of welfare,
And will be as soone cloyed
With too much ease and delicacie,
As pouertie with labour and scarcitie,
At length brought him out of loue
With this greedie, bestiall humour;
And now he affected a milder varietie in his diet:
He had bethought him what a pleasant thing
It was to eate nothing but honnie another while,
And what great store of it was in that countrey.

Now did he cast in his head,
That if hee might bring the husbandmen
Of the soyle in opinion that they might
Buy honey cheaper than being
At such charges in keeping of bees,
Or that those bees
Which they kept were most of them drones,
& what should such idle drones doo
With such stately hyues,
Or lye sucking at such precious honnicombs;
That if they were took away
From them and distributed equally abroad,
They would releeue a great manie of painfull labourers
That had need of them,
And would continually liue seruiceable
At their commaund,
If they might enioy
Such a beefite: nay more,
Let them giue waspes but onely the wax,
And dispose of the honnie as they thinke good,
And they shal humme
And buzze a thousand times lowder than they,
And haue the hiue fuller at the yeres end
(With yong ones, I meane)
Than the bees are wont in ten yere.

To broach this deuice
The foxe was addrest like a shepheards dogge,
And promist to haue his pattent seald,
To be the king’s poulterer for euer,
If hee could bring it to passe.
Faith, quoth he and He put it in a venter,
Let hap how it will.

With that he grew
In league with an old camelion,
That could put on all shapes,
And imitate anie colour,
As occasion serued; and him he addrest,
Sometime like an ape to make sport,
& then like a crocodile to weepe,
Sometime lyke a serpent to sting,
And by and by like a spaniel to fawne;
That with these sundrie formes,
(Applyde to mens variable humors)
He might perswade the world
He ment as he spake,
And only intended their good
When he thought nothing lesse.

In this disguise these two deceiuers
Went vp and downe, and did much harme
Vnder the habite of simplicitie,
Making the poore silly swaines
Beleeue they were cunning phisitions (physicians?) ,
And well seene (skilled; Shakespeare) in all cures,
That they could heale anye malady,
Though neuer do daungerous,
And restore a man to life
That had been dead two dayes,
Only by breathing vpon him.

Aboue all things they perswaded them,
That the honny that their bees brought forth
Was poysonous and corrupt,
By reason that those floures and hearbs,
Out of which it was gathered and exhaled,
Were subicet to the infection
Of euery spider and venimous canker (that which corrupts and consumes; Bacon) ,
And not a loathsome toade
(How detestable soeuer)
But reposde himselfe vnder theyr shadow,
And lay sucking at their rootes continually:
Wheras in other countries,
No noisome or poisnous creature might liue,
By reason of the imputed goodnes of the soyle,
Or carefull diligenceof the gardners aboue ours;
As, for example, Scotland, Denmarke,
And some more pure parts of the 17 prouinces.

These perswasions
Made the good honest husbandmen to pause,
And mistrust their owne wits
Verie much in nourishing such dangerous animals;
But yet, I know not how,
Antiquitie and custome so ouer rulde their feare,
That none would resolue to abandon them on the sodaine,
Til they saw a further inconuenience;
Whereby my two cunning philosophers
Wre driuen to studie Galen (famous Greek physician) anew,
And seeke splenatiue (hot fiery; Shakespeare) simples (single ingredient, a herb; Drayton/Garth)
To purge their popular patients
Of the opinion of their olde traditions and customes;
Which, how they wroght
With the most part that had least wit,
It were a world to tell.

For now nothing was canonicall (law; Bacon)
But what they spake,
No man would conuerse with his wife
But first askt their aduise,
Nor pare his nayles,
Nor cut his beard without their prescription:
So senseles, so wauering is the light vnconstaunt multitude,
That will daunce after euerye mans pype,
And sooner prefer a blinde harper (player of the harp, Shakespeare)
That can squeake out a new horne-pipe (Welsh wind instrument in the time of Spencer et. al.) ,
Than Alcinous (ruler of the Phaeacians - see Odyssey) or Appolloes (Apollo) varietie,
That imitates the eight straines of Doryan (bold and grave Greek music) melodie.

I speak this to amplify
The nouel folly of the headlong vulgar (masses) ,
That making their eyes and eares
Vassailes (slave) to the legerdemaine (sleight of hand)
Of these iugling (juggling) montebanks,
Are presently drawne (drawn) to contemne art and experience,
In comparison of the ignorance
Of a number of audacious ideots (idiots) .

The fox can tell a faire tale,
And couers (covers) all his knauerie vnder conscience,
And the camelion can address himself
Like an angell whensoeuer he is disposed
To worke mischief by myracles;
But yet, in the end,
Their secret driftes
Are laide open,
And linceus eyes,
That see through stone walls,
Haue made a passage
Into the close couerture of their hypocrisie.

For one daye, as these two deuisers
Were plotting by themselues
How to driue all the bees
From their honnicombes,
By putting worm-wood in their hyues,
And strewing henbane
And rue in euerie place
Where they resort,
A flye that past by,
And heard all their talke,
Stomacking the foxe of olde,
For that he had murthered so manie
Of his kindred with his flayle-driuing taile,
Went presently and buzd in linceus eares
The whole purport of their malice;
Who awaking his hundred eyes
At these vnexpected tidings
Aan pursue them whersoeuer they went,
And trace their intents
As they proceede into action,
So that ere halfe their baytes
Were cast foorth,
They wre apprehended and imprisoned,
And all their whole counsaile detected.

But long ere this,
The beare, impatient of delayes,
And consum’d with an inward greefe in himselfe,
That hee might not haue his will
Of a fat hinde that out-ran him,
He went into the woods all melancholy,
And there dyed for pure anger,
Aeauing the foxe and the camelion
To the destinie of their desert,
And mercie of their judges.

How they scapte I know not,
But some saye they were hanged,
And so weele leaue them.”

Pierce Penniless’s Supplication to the Devil, Thomas Nash, (published in the years 1592 - 1596) and reprinted by the Council of the Shakespeare Society, Introduction and Notes by J. Payne Collier,1842, pp 69-74

Notes:
Page 69, line five, the beare on a time, &c.] This elaborate apologue was of course much more intelligible and pointed at the date when it was published than at the present. It had, no doubt, an individual and personal application. As Nash says in his letter to Jeffes, p. xv., he was not a man to pen an apologue in vain. It may be suspected perhaps, that the bear was the Earl of Leichester.

Page 69, line 30, the nimble citizens of the wood.] Thomas Lodge, in his “Rosalynde, ” 1590, calls deere “The citizens of the wood, ” and Shakespeare, in “As You Like It, ” founded upon Lodge’s “Rosalynde, ” terms them “native burghers of this desert city” (act ii.sc.1) .

Suggested modern spelling and commentary by Sidi Mahtrow. Note that U is substituted for V and I for J in many words. Arranged as unrhymed poetry rather than as prose so that the story can be spoken as it may have been intended for the stage in 1500 by Shakespeare, Malone and others.

The moral, as before, is that entrusting all to the government (or officials) is to give away rights. And, that justice prevails over the evil doers.

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