William Shakspeare.
“Ah sir! not only the mermaid singeth, but the merman sweareth, as another old song will convince you.”
Sir Thomas.
“I would fain be convinced of God’s wonders in the great deeps, and would lean upon the weakest reed like unto thee to manifest his glory. Thou mayest convince me.”
William Shakspeare.
1.
“’A wonderful story, my lasses and lads,
Peradventure you’ve heard from your grannams
or dads,
Of a merman that came every night to woo
The spinster of spinsters, our Catherine Crewe.
2.
“’But
Catherine Crewe
Is now seventy-two,
And avers she hath half forgotten
The truth of the tale, when you ask her about it,
And says, as if fain to deny it or flout it,
“Pooh! The
merman is dead and rotten.”
3.
“’The merman came up as the mermen are
wont,
To the top of the water, and then swam upon ’t;
And Catherine saw him with both her two eyes,
A lusty young merman full six feet in size.
4.
“’And
Catherine was frighten’d,
Her scalp-skin
it tighten’d,
And her head it swam strangely, although on dry land;
And the merman made bold
Eftsoons to lay hold
(this Catherine well recollects) of her hand.
5.
“’But how could a merman, if ever so good,
Or if ever so clever, be well understood
By a simple young creature of our flesh and blood?
6.
“’Some
tell us the merman
Can only speak
German,
In a voice between grunting and
snoring;
But Catherine says he had learned in the wars
The language, persuasions, and oaths of our tars,
And that even his voice was not
foreign.
7.
“’Yet when she was asked how he managed
to hide
The green fishy tail, coming out of the tide
For night after night above twenty,
“You troublesome creatures!” old Catherine
replied,
“In his pocket;
won’t that now content ye?"’”
Sir Thomas.
“I have my doubts yet. I should have said unto her, seriously, ‘Kate! Kate! I am not convinced.’ There may be witchcraft or sortilege in it. I would have made it a star-chamber matter.”
William Shakspeare.
“It was one, sir.”
Sir Thomas.
“And now I am reminded by this silly, childish song,—which, after all, is not the true mermaid’s,—thou didst tell me, Silas, that the papers found in the lad’s pocket were intended for poetry.”
Sir Silas.
“I wish he had missed his aim, sir, in your park, as he hath missed it in his poetry. The papers are not worth reading; they do not go against him in the point at issue.”