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The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins

 

 

Of February the fifteenth night,
Full long before the day’s light
  I lay in till a trance,
And then I saw both Heaven and Hell :
Methought, among the fièndïs fell
  Mahoun (Mahommed : he was looked on as Satan in that ealry age) called for a dance
Of outcasts that were never shriven,
Against the feast of Fasterns even (The evening of Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of the fast of Lent.)
  To make their observance :
He had gallants prepare a guise (mask or disguising.)
And cast up gambols in the skies,
  As varlets do in France.
 
Disdainful harlots in haughty wise
Came in in many and sundry guise ;
  But yet laughed never Mahoun
Till priests came in with shaven necks :
Then all the fiends laughed, making mocks-
  Black-belly and Bawsy-broun.
 
“Let’s see”, quoth he ; “now who begins?”
With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins
  Began to leap at once.
And first of all in dance was Pride,
With hair combed back and bonnet on side,
  Like to make ruined homes.
And round about him, like a wheel,
His cassock rumpled to the heel,
  Down to the very stones.
Many deceivers with him tripped
Through scalding fire : aye as they skipped
  They grinned with hideous groans.
 
Then Ire came in with trouble and strife :
His hand was always on his knife :
  He swaggered like a bear.
Boasters, braggarts, and wrangelers
After him passed along in pairs,
  Harnessed, in fear of war,
In jackets and scrips and bonnets of steel :
Their legs were chainèd to the heel :
  Perverse was their appear ! (demeanor)
Some lit on others with swords that spilt,
Some gullied others to the hilt
  With knives that shave and shear.
 
Next Envy followed in the dance,
With feud and fire in every glance,
  Hid malice and despite ;
For hidden hate that traitor trembled.
Followed him scolders that dissembled
  With feignèd wordïs white ;
And flatterers in to men’s faces,
And backbiters in secret places,
  Who joyed in lying wit,
And whisperers of false reports.
Alas, that kings and royal courts
  Of them can not be quit !
 
Next him in dance came Cuvatise,
Root of all evil and ground of vice,
  Who never can be content.
Caitiffs, wretches, and usurers,
Misers, hoarders, and gatherers,
  All with that warlock went.
Out of their throats each shot on other
Hot molden gold, methought a fudder,(a load, 128 pounds weight.)
  And wildfire most fervént :
The spewed out all their shot, and then
Fiends filled them up to the throat agen
  With gold of every print.
 
Afterward Sloth, at the second bidding,
Came like a sow out of a midding,
  And sleepy was his grunting.
Many a tun-bellied sloven, lousy-
Slothful sluts and wenches drowsy-
  Were for his pleasure hunting.
He drew them forth into a chain ;
And Belial, with a brile rein,
  Walloped them on their rumps.
In dance they were so slow of feet,
He gave them in the fire a heat
  And made them stir their stumps.
 
Then Lechery, that loathly corse,
Came snorting like a breeding horse,
  And Idleness him led.
There was with him an ugly crew
And many a stinking body too,
  Which had in sin been dead.
When they were entered in the dance
They were full strange of countenance,
  Like torches burning red.
 
Then the foul monster Gluttony
Of maw insatiable and greedy,
  Did into the revel press.
Him followed many a foul drunkárt,
With can and drinking-cup and quart
  In surfeit and excess.
Full many a waistless wally-drag, (outcast)
With fat unwieldable, forth did wag
  In grease that did increase.
“Drink !” aye they cried with many a gape :
The fiends gave them hot lead to lap :
  Their boutny was no less.
 
No minstrels played to them, no doubt,
For gleemen they were holden out
  By day and eke by night ;
Except a minstrel that slew a man-
So to his heritage he won,
  And entered by brief of right.
 
Then cried Mahoun for a Highland pageant:
Then ran a fiend to fetch Makfadyane,
  Far northward in a nook ;
But he the war-cry had done shout
                       And gathered the Ersemen (Celts of Scotland and Ireland.)
                                                     [so about
That in Hell great room they took.
These termagants with tag and tatter
Full loud in Erse (The language of the Gäels or Celts in the Highlands of Scotland) began to clatter,
  And croak like raven and rook :
So deaf the Devil was with their yell
That in the deepest pot of Hell
  He smothered them with smoke.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

William Dunbar

 
 
Dance Poetry
A comprehensive anthology
Edited by Alkis Raftis
Copyright 2012

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