บทที่ บทที่ 19 · The oration of Master Janotu

Chapter 1.XIX.

The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.

Hem, hem, gud-day, sirs, gud-day. Et vobis, my masters. It were but

reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of

them. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused good

money for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux in

Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific quality of the

elementary complexion, which is intronificated in the terrestreity of their

quidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists and whirlwinds upon

our vines, indeed not ours, but these round about us. For if we lose the

piot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both sense and law. If you

restore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by it six basketfuls of

sausages and a fine pair of breeches, which will do my legs a great deal of

good, or else they will not keep their promise to me. Ho by gob, Domine, a

pair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non abhorrebit eam. Ha, ha, a

pair of breeches is not so easily got; I have experience of it myself.

Consider, Domine, I have been these eighteen days in matagrabolizing this

brave speech. Reddite quae sunt Caesaris, Caesari, et quae sunt Dei, Deo.

Ibi jacet lepus. By my faith, Domine, if you will sup with me in cameris,

by cox body, charitatis, nos faciemus bonum cherubin. Ego occiditunum

porcum, et ego habet bonum vino: but of good wine we cannot make bad

Latin. Well, de parte Dei date nobis bellas nostras. Hold, I give you in

the name of the faculty a Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give us

our bells. Vultis etiam pardonos? Per diem vos habebitis, et nihil

payabitis. O, sir, Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily, est bonum vobis.

They are useful to everybody. If they fit your mare well, so do they do

our faculty; quae comparata est jumentis insipientibus, et similis facta

est eis, Psalmo nescio quo. Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et est

unum bonum Achilles, a good defending argument. Hem, hem, hem, haikhash!

For I prove unto you, that you should give me them. Ego sic argumentor.

Omnis bella bellabilis in bellerio bellando, bellans, bellativo, bellare

facit, bellabiliter bellantes. Parisius habet bellas. Ergo gluc, Ha, ha,

ha. This is spoken to some purpose. It is in tertio primae, in Darii, or

elsewhere. By my soul, I have seen the time that I could play the devil in

arguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward want nothing but a cup

of good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire, my belly to the table, and a

good deep dish. Hei, Domine, I beseech you, in nomine Patris, Filii, et

Spiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us our bells: and God keep you from

evil, and our Lady from health, qui vivit et regnat per omnia secula

seculorum, Amen. Hem, hashchehhawksash, qzrchremhemhash.

Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio procul. Edepol, quoniam, ita certe,

medius fidius; a town without bells is like a blind man without a staff, an

ass without a crupper, and a cow without cymbals. Therefore be assured,

until you have restored them unto us, we will never leave crying after you,

like a blind man that hath lost his staff, braying like an ass without a

crupper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals. A certain

latinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said since, producing the

authority of one Taponnus,--I lie, it was one Pontanus the secular poet,

--who wished those bells had been made of feathers, and the clapper of a

foxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the bowels of his

brain, when he was about the composing of his carminiformal lines. But nac

petetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot kipipur kipipot put pantse

malf, he was declared an heretic. We make them as of wax. And no more

saith the deponent. Valete et plaudite. Calepinus recensui.