Saies, Sell me thy harpe, thou proud harper, For as many gold nobles thou shalt have' What wold ye doe with my harpe, ' he sayd,' "To playe my wiffe and me a fitt *, Now sell me, quoth hee, thy bryde soe gay, And as many gold nobles I will give, As leaves been on a tree. And what wold ye doe with my bryde soe gay, Iff I did sell her thee? More seemelye it is for her fayre bodye Hee played agayne both loud and shrillet, And Adler he did syng, "O ladye, this is thy owne true love; Noe harper, but a kyng. "O ladye, this is thy owne true love, * i. e. a tune, or strain of music. See Gloss. + Some liberties have been taken in the following stanzas; but wherever this edition differs from the preceding, it hath been brought nearer to the folio MS. The ladye looked, the ladye blushte, Up then rose the kemperye men, And loud they gan to crye: Kyng Estmere threwe the harpe asyde, And aye their swordes soe sore can byte, That soone they have slayne the kempery men, Kyng Estmere took that fayre ladyə, *** The word Gramarye, which occurs several times in the foregning Poem, is probably a corruption of the French word Grimoire, which signifies a conjuring Book in the old French romances, if not the art of Necromancy itself. +++ "Termagannt" (mentioned above in p. 63.) is the name given in the old romances to the God of the Saracens: in which he is constantly linked with Mahound or Mahomet. Thus in the legend of Syr Guy the Soudan (Sultan) swears, So helpe me Mahowne of might, Sign. p. iij. b. This word is derived by the very learned editor of Junius from the Anglo-Saxon Tyn, very, and Mazan, mighty. As this word has so sublime a derivation, and was so applicable to the true God, how shall we account for its being so degraded? Perhaps Tyn-mazan, or "Termagant," had been a name originally given to some Saxon idol, before our ancestors were converted to Christianity; or had been the peculiar attribute of one of their false deities; and therefore the first Christian missionaries rejected it as profane and improper to be applied to the true God. Afterwards, when the irruptions of the Saracens into Europe, and the Crusades into the east, had brought them acquainted with a new species of unbelievers, our ignorant ancestors, who thought that all that did not receive the Christian law were necessarily Pagans and Idolaters, supposed the Mahometan creed was in all respects the same with that of their Pagan forefathers, and therefore made no scruple to give the ancient name of "Termagant" to the God of the Saracens: just in the same manner as they afterwards used the name of "Sarazen" to express any kind of Pagan or Idolater. In the ancient romance of "Merline" (in the editor's folio manuscript), the Saxons themselves that came over with Hengist, because they were not Christians, are constantly called Sarazens. However that be, it is certain that, after the times of the Crusades, both "Mahound" and "Termagaunt" made their frequent appearance in the pageants and religious interludes of the barbarous ages; in which they were exhibited with gestures so furious and frantic, as to become proverbial. Thus Skelton speaks of Wolsey: Like "Mahound" in a play, Ed. 1736, p. 158. In like manner Bale, describing the threats used by some Papist magistrates to his wife, speaks of them as "grennyng upon her lyke Termagauntes in a playe." (Actes of Engl. Votaryes, Part 2. fol. 83. ed. 1550. 12mo.) Accordingly in a letter of Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College, to his wife or sister er*, *, who, it seems, with all her fellows (the players), had been "by my Lorde Maiors officer [s] mad to rid in a cart," he expresses his concern that she should "fall into the hands of suche Tarmagants." [So the orig. dated May 2, 1593, preserved by the care of the Rev. Thomas Jenyns Smith, Fellow of Dulw. Coll.] Hence we may conceive the force of Hamlet's expression in Shakspeare, where, condemning a ranting player, he says, "I could have such a fellow whipt for ore-doing Termagant: it outherods Herod." Act iii. sc. 3. By degrees the word came to be applied to an outrageous turbulent person, and especially to a violent brawling woman; to whom alone it is now confined, and this the rather as, I suppose, the character of "Termagant" was anciently represented on the stage after the eastern mode, with long robes or petticoats. Another frequent character in the old pageants or interludes of our ancestors was the "Sowdan" or " Soldan," representing a grim eastern tyrant. This appears from a curious passage in Stow's Annals, p. 458. In a stage-play "the people know right well that he that plaieth the Sowdain is percase a sowter [shoe-maker]; yet if one should cal him by his owne name, while he standeth in his majestie, one of his tormentors might hap to break his head." The Sowdain, or Soldan, was a name given to the Sarazen king (being only a more rude pronunciation of the word "Sultan"), as the Soldan of Egypt, the Soudan of * See Lysons's "Environs of London," 4to. vol. i. Persia, the Sowdan of Babylon, &c. who were generally represented as accompanied with grim Sarazens, whose business it was to punish and torment Christians. I cannot conclude this short memoir, without observing that the French romancers, who had borrowed the word Termagant from us, and applied it as we in their old romances, corrupted it into Tervagaunte: and from them La Fontaine took it up, and has used it more than once in his tales. This may be added to the other proofs adduced in these volumes of the great intercourse that formerly subsisted between the old minstrels and legendary writers of both nations, and that they mutually borrowed each others romances. VOL. I. |