Lydgate’s letter to Gloucester mixes purse and body in a dazzling series of
metaphorical reversals, in which inside and outside, poet and purse, cannot
be told apart:
my purs was falle in gret rerage,
Lynyng outward, his guttys wer out shake,
Oonly for lak of plate and of coignage.
Botme of his stomak was tournyd vp-so-doun,
A laxatif did hym so gret outrage,
Made hym slendre by a consumpcioun...The disorderly body promotes natural disorder, as the ship imprinted on the
gold noble expands into an image of the poet’s fortunes, impeded by“wynd
froward”and“lowh ground-ebbe.”^48 For Dunbar, the device on the coin’s
face is the image of a similarly troubling meditation:“My purs is maid of sic
ane skyn, / Thair will na cors byd it within”(B 61 , 21 – 22 ). As in other
begging-poems, poverty is an open invitation to the devil; the old almsman
of Hoccleve’sRegementreminds us that“Þe feend, men seyn, may hoppen
in a pouche / Whan þat no croys þere-innë may a-pere,”^49 while one of
Deschamps’s poems has the refrain“Le crucefisetjen’ont que .II. crois”
[“The crucified and I have only two crosses between us”].^50
“Sanct saluatour, send siluer sorrow”(B 61 ) draws other meanings from
the beggar’s purse. Its refrain,“My panefull purs so priclis me,” has
suggested to some readers a punning reference to the scrotum.^51 Bawcutt
is skeptical:“The relevance to the poem of such a sexual innuendo is
unclear, and has never been demonstrated.”^52 Dunbar’s allusion, however,
shares with other court poets of the period afigurative link between poverty,
emasculation and clerical status. Molinet’s indigence connotes old age and
loss of virility:
D’argent je suis et de jonnesse vuit,
Viellesse approche et gaires ne me duit;
J’ay perdus voix et sy ay perdu nom,
Chanter ne puis le Credo in unum
Et mon pouvre v. i. t. ay perdu aux
Deduis d’amours...^53[I’m void of money and youth alike, old age comes on and gives me little delight;
I’ve lost my voice and I’ve lost my name, I can’t sing the Credo, and I’ve lost my
poor prick to the delights of love...]
For him, indeed, impotence is a major concern:“je dis / Que mon engin
rude et rond comme ung oeuf / Le jeu Sainct Pry ne puist faire tout neuf”
“My panefull purs so priclis me” 75