Have not the handmaids of the city[1]
Chose of their members a committee, 810
For raising of a common purse
Out of their wages, to raise horse?
And do they not as triers sit[2]
To judge what officers are fit?
Have theyAt that an egg let fly, 815
Hit him directly o'er the eye,
And running down his cheek, besmear'd,
With orange-tawny[3] slime, his beard;
But beard and slime be'ng of one hue,
The wound the less appear'd in view. 820
Then he that on the panniers rode
Let fly on th' other side a load,
And quickly charg'd again, gave fully,
In Ralpho's face, another volley.
The Knight was startled with the smell, 825
And for his sword began to feel;
And Ralpho, smother'd with the sink,
Grasp'd his, when one that bore a link,
O' the sudden clapp'd his flaming cudgel.
Like linstock, to the horse's touch-hole;[4] 830
And straight another, with his flambeau,
Gave Ralpho, o'er the eyes, a damn'd blow.
The beasts began to kick and fling,
And forc'd the rout to make a ring;
- ↑ Handmaids was a favourite expression of the puritans for women.
- ↑ This was the sneering statement of a satire called the "Parliament of Ladies," printed in 1647. The writer says: that divers weak persons having crept into places beyond their abilities, the House determined, to the end that men of greater parts might be put into their rooms, that the Ladies Waller, Middlesex, Foster, and Mrs Danch, by reason of their great experience in soldiery, be appointed a committee of tryers for the business.
- ↑ Bottom, the weaver (in Mids. Night's Dream), might have suggested this epithet, who asks in what heard he shall play the part of Pyramus? "whether in a perfect yellow beard, an orange-tawny beard, or a purple-in-grain heard?" Orange-tawny was the colour adopted by the Parliament troops at first, being the colours of Essex, who was Lord-general. It was, otherwise, assigned to Jews and to inferior persons. See Bacon, Essay xli.
- ↑ Linstock, from the German Linden-stock {a lime-tree cudgel), signifies the rod of wood with a match at the end of it, used by gunners in firing cannon.
