II. Plain Truth and Blind Ignorance. ..........................................................................
This excellent old ballad is preserved in the little ancient miscellany, intitled
The Garland of Goodwill. Ignorance is here made to speak in the broad Somersetshire
dialect. The scene we may suppose to be Glastonbury Abbey.
TRUTH"GOD speed you, ancient father,
And give you a good daye;
What is the cause, I praye you,
So sadly here you staye?
And that you keep such gazing
On this decayed place,
The which, for superstition,
Good princes down did raze?"
IGNORANCE"Chill tell thee, by my vazen,[1]
That zometimes che have knowne
A vair and goodly abbey
Stand here of bricke and stone;
And many a holy vrier,
As ich may say to thee,
Within these goodly cloysters
Che did full often zee."
TRUTH"Then I must tell thee, father,
In truthe and veritie,
A sorte of greater hypocrites
Thou couldst not likely see;
Deceiving of the simple
With false and feigned lies:
But such an order truly
Christ never did devise."
IGNORANCE"Ah! ah I che zmell thee now, man;
Che know well what thou art;
A vellow of mean learning,
Thee was not worth a vart:
Vor when we had the old lawe,
A merry world was then;
And every thing was plenty
Among all sorts of men."
TRUTH"Thou givest me an answer,
As did the Jewes sometimes
Unto the prophet Jeremye,