A Mort’s Drinking Song

A Mort’s Drinking Song
1641
From A Jovial Crew, by RICHARD BROME: Enter Patrico with his old wife with a wooden bowle of drink. She is drunk. She sings:—.

I

This is bien bowse, this is bien bowse, 1 strong ale
  Too little is my Skew. 2 cup or platter
I bowse no lage, but a whole gage 3 water; pot
  Of this I’ll bowse to you.

II

This bowse is better than rom-bowse, 4 wine
  It sets the gan a-gigling, 5 mouth
The autum-mort finds better sport 6 wife
  In bowsing than in nigling. 7 fornicating
    This is bien bowse, etc.


[She tosses off her bowle, falls back and is carried out.]





Notes

See Note to “The Merry Beggars,” ante.

Taken from Musa Pedestris, Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.

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Nearby

Overview
Forewords
. . .
Rhymes Of The Canting Crew.
The Beggar’s Curse
Towre Out Ben Morts
The Maunder’s Wooing
A Gage Of Ben Rom-Bouse
Bing Out, Bien Morts
The Song Of The Beggar
The Maunder’s Initiation
The High Pad’s Boast
The Merry Beggars
A Mort’s Drinking Song
A Beggar I’ll Be
A Budg And Snudg Song
The Maunder’s Praise Of His Strowling Mort
The Rum-Mort’s Praise Of Her Faithless Maunder
The Black Procession
Frisky Moll’s Song
The Canter’s Serenade
Retoure My Dear Dell
The Vain Dreamer
When My Dimber Dell I Courted
. . .
Appendix