Mime VIII: The Dream

Rise up, Psyllawench! How long wilt lye snoring and the sow forswat? ‘Tarriest till the sun steal into thy parts and warm them? Art not thy ribs tired, tireless one, of sleping these agelong nights? Rise up, again I say, and light the lamp, prithee, and escort her unmelodious pigship to pasture. Oh, mutter and scratch thyself till I stand o’er thee and make me thy noddle soft with my stave. Megallis, wretche, snorest thou too like ympe of Latmos? Not with werkes art weary: for seeke we a wool fillet for rytes, not a wisp of wool is in our habitaunce. Wretche rise up: and thou Annas, prithee, list to my dreme, for thou nourslest not sorry wits. Mesemed I dragged through a long gorge a gote, fayre of beard and horn. And whenas at long last I <dragged him> from the dell—with dawn for I failed not my task, <mid pleasaunt ditties on> flutes goteherds were twining grene <bonds>. No hurt did I but <the gote scaped> and nibbled <of the vine shoots now from this> tree now from that. But those around, seeing how he <did> right <wantonly>, made the gote <an oblatioun>. Now against the altar and hard by me saw I <a young man clad> in a very fayre cloke of gold to his feet. He was dight with a slit frock round <his thighs> so as it mote reach down to their thin curve: and he had about his shoulders a long gowne bound by a stole of dappled fawn, and a crown of ivy tendrils around his hed. His nether shin was <swathed> with the binding of a high boot. Such a garb had he as fayre protectioun from savage chill, e’en as real. Meantime they <set forth> the hide in size such as mote have been the gift of Aeolus for Ulysses <voyaging, while he bade that they> sholde lepe on the skin <while he sholde win that> was best at landing again thereon, e’en as we observe in the dances of Dionysus. And some plunging with their foreheds on to the dust smit as dyvers the erthe amain: others were cast aback ; and all thynges, Annas, both laughter and payne were mingled in one. And mesemed I too had share and alone of that sore havocke leped on twice, and they acclaymed me as they saw me burdened and <o’erprest with the> skin <around my shoulders after the order of victors>. But others <did cast me out with mocking words . . .>. But an <old> man hooked of nose and fowl of ......... ‘to be prowd for thy tramplings. Out of sight, leaste aged though I be I smit thee athwart with my rod.’ And I answered back ‘O folk, I will die for the country an the old man <summon> me: thereunto call I the young man to witnes.’ And he bad the flogman to <bind> both in the stocks. Thereat ended my swevening. <Where is my> coat? Hither with it, Annas. Thus saw I: thus expound I. <E’en as fayre> was the gote I dragged out of the gorge, e’en so shall I have some gift from Dionysus fayre : and as amain the goteheards cleved him and rendered their rites and ate the flesh thereof, e’en so shall a many poetards clever rend my writings. So reckon I. But as mesemed alone to have the guerdon, while many trod in vain the breathles skin, for all I shared with the old man enraged, e’en so by Muses troth, either shall iambickes call me to great fame, or my second intendiment gode me after the order of Hipponax of yore to sing halting measures to my Xuthos-born kin.