Go, litelle quayre, namyd the Popagay,
Home to resorte Jerobesethe perswade;
For the cliffes of Scaloppe they rore wellawey,
And the sandes of Cefas begyn to waste and fade,
For replicacion restles that he of late ther made;
Now Neptune and Eolus ar agreed of lyclyhod,
For Tytus at Dover abydeth in the rode;
Lucina she wadythe among the watryfloddes,
And the cokkes begyn to crowe agayne the day;
Le tonsan de Jasonis lodgid among the shrowdes;
Of Argus revengyd, recover when he may,
Lyacon of Libyk and Lydy hathe cawghte hys pray... ( 278 – 89 )Skelton sends his book to follow Wolsey’s travels, yet retracing his steps
requires imitation, and Parrott is again caught up in rivalrous emulation of
Wolsey. Consensus is fairly clear; Jerobeseth (Wolsey) is called home while
Calais looks on in horror at his diplomatic hyperactivity; Henry VIII
(Neptune) and the Emperor Charles V (Aeolus) have agreed to keep the
Channel open so that Charles (this time Titus), who is to land at Dover, will
have access to Spain; Wolsey has returned with his goal (the emperor’s
support in his bid for the papacy) achieved after negotiating with Charles at
Bruges (hence the allusion to the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece as
well as the myth of Jason) and the hundred-eyed Argus is the peacock-like
François I. Wolseyfinally appears as Lycaon, the king turned into a wolf for
serving Zeus with a dish of humanflesh. The landscape Skelton creates here
is overlaid by Ovidian mythography; European potentates vanish and
reappear under multiple divine guises, while sands and cliffs are animated.
Wolsey’s name once again furnishes puns, but here his lupine identity,
which near the end of the poem offers a splendidly chilling visual vignette
(“Hys wolvys hede, wanne, bloo as lede, gapythe over the crowne,” 434 )
turns him into one of the framingfigures of Ovid’sMetamorphoses. Lycaon
is the quintessential human monster turned predator, and in Ovid preda-
tors, sexual and other, often force metamorphosis. Here, as Wolsey passes
through the landscape, cliffs lament and historical monarchs become gods.
When Parott comes close to narrating his own nature, it is elusive:
Parot is my owne dere harte, and my dere derling.
Melpomene, that fayre mayde, she burneshed his beke:
I pray you, let Parrot have lyberte to speke.
Parrot is a fayre byrd for a lady;
God of his goodnes him framed and wrought;
When Parrot is ded, he dothe not putrefy;
156 Court Poetry in Late Medieval England and Scotland