For pityes sake do not destroye My ladye with your knife; You know shee is her father's joye, For Christes sake save her life. 60
I will not save her life, he sayd, Nor make my pyes of thee; Yet if thou dost this deed bewraye, Thy butcher I will bee.
Now when this lord he did come home 65 For to sit downe and eat; He called for his daughter deare, To come and carve his meat.
Now sit you downe, his ladye sayd, O sit you downe to meat: 70 Into some nunnery she is gone; Your daughter deare forget.
Then solemnlye he made a vowe, Before the companìe: That he would neither eat nor drinke, 75 Until he did her see.
O then bespake the scullion-boye, With a loud voice so hye: If now you will your daughter see, My lord, cut up that pye: 80
Wherein her fleshe is minced small, And parched with the fire: All caused by her step-mothèr, Who did her death desire.
And cursed bee the master-cook, 85 O cursed may he bee! I proffered him my own hearts blood, From death to set her free.
Then all in blacke this lord did mourne; And for his daughters sake, 90 He judged her cruell step-mothèr To be burnt at a stake.
Likewise he judg'd the master-cook In boiling lead to stand; And made the simple scullion-boye 95 The heire of all his land.
This song is a kind of translation of a pretty poem of Tasso's, called _Amore fuggitivo_, generally printed with his _Aminta_, and originally imitated from the first Idyllium of Moschus.
It is extracted from Ben Jonson's Masque at the marriage of lord viscount Hadington, on Shrove-Tuesday, 1608. One stanza full of dry mythology is here omitted, as it had been dropped in a copy of this song printed in a small volume called _Le Prince d'Amour_. Lond. 1660, 8vo.
[The stanza of the first Grace which Percy left out is as follows:--
"At his sight the sun hath turn'd, Neptune in the waters burn'd; Hell hath felt a greater heat; Jove himself forsook his seat: From the centre to the sky Are his trophies reared high."]
[_1 Grace._] Beauties have yee seen a toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blinde; Cruel now; and then as kinde? If he be amongst yee, say; 5 He is Venus' run away.
[_2 Grace._] Shee, that will but now discover Where the winged wag doth hover, Shall to-night receive a kisse, How and where herselfe would wish: 10 But who brings him to his mother Shall have that kisse, and another.