Hudibras

the seas,

Can fit you with what heirs we please;

And force you t’ own ’em, though begotten

By French valets, or Irish footmen.

Nor can the rigoroursest course

Prevail, unless to make us worse;

Who still, the harsher we are us’d,

Are further off from b’ing reduc’d,

And scorn t’ abate, for any ills,

The least punctilios of our wills.

Force does but whet our wits t’ apply

Arts, born with us for remedy;

Which all your politics, as yet,

Have ne’er been able to defeat:

For when y’ have try’d all sorts of ways,

What fools d’ we make of you in plays!

While all the favours we afford,

Are but to girt you with the sword,

To fight our battles in our steads,

And have your brains beat out o’ your heads;

Encounter, in despite of nature,

And fight at once with fire and water,

With pirates, rocks, and storms, and seas,

Our pride and vanity t’ appease;

Kill one another, and cut throats,

For our good graces, and best thoughts;

To do your exercise for honour,

And have your brains beat out the sooner;

Or crack’d, as learnedly, upon

Things that are never to be known;

And still appear the more industrious,

The more your projects are prepost’rous;

To square the circle of the arts,

And run stark mad to shew your parts;

Expound the oracle of laws,

And turn them which way we see cause;

Be our solicitors and agents,

And stand for us in all engagements.
And these are all the mighty pow’rs

You vainly boast to cry down ours,

And what in real value’s wanting,

Supply with vapouring and ranting;

Because yourselves are terrify’d,

And stoop to one another’s pride,

Believe we have as little wit

To be out-hector’d, and submit;

By your example, lose that right

In treaties which we gain’d in fight;

And, terrify’d into an awe,

Pass on ourselves a Salique law: 221

Or, as some nations use, give place,

And truckle to your mighty race;

Let men usurp th’ unjust dominion,

As if they were the better women.

Glossary

Advowtry

Adultery.

Animalia

Animals.

Arsie-versie

Upside-down.

Aruspicy

Prophesying, fortune-telling.

Bachrach

Wine from Bacharach, in Germany.

Bavin

A bundle of firewood.

Boutefeu

Arsonist or (literal or metaphorical) firebrand.

Cacodaemon

An evil Spirit.

Caldes’d

Cheated.

Calendae

The 1st or 2nd of the month.

Calleche

A carriage with two wheels and a folding hood.

Camelion

A giraffe.

Camisado

An attack by night, during which the attackers wore shirts over their armour so they could recognise one another.

Cane et angue pejus

Worse than a dog or a snake.

Caperdewsie

The stocks.

Capoch’d

Pulled off the hoods.

Caprich

A caprice.

Carbonading

Thrashing, beating.

Carroch

A stately or luxurious carriage.

Catasta

The stocks.

Cawdle

Soup or gruel.

Ceruse

White lead used as a cosmetic.

Champaign

Champagne wine.

Chous’d, choust, chows’d

Cheated.

Chouse

A cheat’s victim.

Classis

The elders and pastors of all the Presbyterian congregations in a district.

Coincidere

To come together.

Congees

Bows, curtseys.

Conster

Construe, explain.

Conventicle

Secret or illegal religious meetings.

Covins

Conspiracies.

Cucking-stool

A stool to which a malefactor (often an unfaithful wife) was tied, to be exposed to public ridicule, or ducked in a pond or river.

Curship

The title of being a cur⁠—pun on “worship.”

Curule

An ivory chair used as a mayor’s throne.

Deletory

That which wipes out or destroys.

Deodand

In English law an article which had caused a man’s death was ordered by the court to be a forfeited as a deodand (Ad Deodandum⁠—to be given to God). Before the reformation it or its value was given to the Church; afterwards to the local landowner.

Dewtry

A stupefying drink made from the Indian thorn-apple fruit.

Dialectico

A philosophical point of argument.

Dictum factum

No sooner said than done.

Disparo

To separate.

Donzel

A young page or squire.

Drazel

A slut.

Ducatoon

An Italian silver coin, worth about 6 shillings.

Ejusdem generis

Of the same kind.

Enucleate

To explain the meaning of.

Ex parte

On behalf of.

Exaunt

A religious establishment not under the authority of the local bishop.

Fadging

Fitting.

Feme-covert

A woman under the protection of a husband (a legal term)

Ferk

Beat, whip.

Festina lente

Make haste slowly.

Fingle-fangle

A whimsical or fantastic idea.

Fother

A cartload.

Fulhams

Loaded dice.

Ganzas

The birds which the hero of a popular romance harnessed to take him to the moon.

Genethliack

A caster of horoscopes.

Geomancy

Divination by interpreting the patterns of lines drawn at random on the ground or on paper.

Gleave

A spear or halberd.

Granado

A grenade.

Grilly’d

Grilled.

Grincam

Syphilis.

Guep

Go on!⁠—said to a horse or as an expression of derision.

Habergeon

A chain-mail shirt.

Haut-gouts

Tasty things.

Headborough

A constable.

Hiccius Doctius

A nonsense word used by jugglers, conjurers  etc., hence, any kind of trick or dishonest dealing.

Hight

Called, named.

Hoccamore

Wine from Hochheim, in Germany.

Horary

Hourly.

Huckle

The hip.

Huguenots

French Calvinists.

Hypocondries

The upper abdomen, between the breastbone and the navel.

Id est

That is.

Idem

The same.

Illation

Inference, deduction.

In eodem subjecto

Thrown together in the same place.

In querpo

Naked.

Jobbernol(e)

A thick head or blockhead.

Jure divino

By God’s law.

Langued

Heraldic term meaning, with a tongue of a particular colour  e.g. langued gules⁠—with a red tongue.

Lathy

Thin, like a lath.

Linsey-woolsey

A cloth of mixed wool and linen threads.

Linstock

A stick for holding a gunner’s match.

L’Ombre

A card game.

Longees

Lunges.

Lustrations

Ceremonials of ritual purification by washing.

Mainprize

To stand surety for someone.

Manicon

A plant (deadly nightshade) or its extract, believed