LANCIOTTO. Good-morning to your foolish majesty!
PEPE. I am a troubadour, A ballad-monger of fine mongrel ballads, And therefore running o'er with elegance. Wilt hear my verse?
PEPE. No, with rapture. You must go mad--weep, rend your clothes, and roll Over and over, like the ancient Greeks, When listening to Iliad.
LANCIOTTO. Sing, then, sing! And if you equal Homer in your song, Why, roll I must, by sheer compulsion.
PEPE. Nay, You lack the temper of the fine-eared Greek. You will not roll; but that shall not disgrace My gallant ballad, fallen on evil times. [_Sings._]
My father had a blue-black head, My uncle's head was reddish--maybe, My mother's hair was noways red, Sing high ho! the pretty baby!
Mark the simplicity of that! 'Tis called "The Babe's Confession," spoken just before His father strangled him.
LANCIOTTO. Most marvellous! You struggle with a legend worth your art.
PEPE. Now to the second stanza. Note the hint I drop about the baby's parentage: So delicately too! A maid might sing, And never blush at it. Girls love these songs Of sugared wickedness. They'll go miles about, To say a foul thing in a cleanly way. A decent immorality, my lord, Is art's specific. Get the passions up, But never wring the stomach.
My father combed his blue-black head, My uncle combed his red head--maybe, My mother combed my head, and said, Sing high ho! my red-haired baby.
LANCIOTTO. Fie, fie! go comb your hair in private.
PEPE. What! Will you not hear? Now comes the tragedy. [_Sings._]
My father tore my red, red head, My uncle tore my father's--maybe, My mother tore both till they bled-- Sing high ho! your brother's baby!
PEPE. Thence wigs arose; A striking epoch in man's history. But did you notice the concluding line, Sung by the victim's mother? There's a hit!
Which brother's, pray you? That's the mystery, The adumbration of poetic art, And there I leave it to perplex mankind. It has a moral, fathers should regard,-- A black-haired dog breeds not a red-haired cur. Treasure this knowledge: you're about to wive; And no one knows what accident--
LANCIOTTO. Peace, fool! So all this cunning thing was wound about, To cast a jibe at my deformity? [_Tears off_ PEPE'S _cap._] There lies your cap, the emblem that protects Your head from chastisement. Now, Pepe, hark! Of late you've taken to reviling me; Under your motley, you have dared to jest At God's inflictions. Let me tell you, fool, No man e'er lived, to make a second jest At me, before your time!