WORLD VOICES

KEMPE, DANCING!
  BY GORDON WEAVER

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Introduction
About the Author
Chapter In Which The
     Narrator Introduces
     Himself and Will Kempe

Chapter In Which Pincus
      and Will Carouse

Chapter In Which Pincus
     Recounts The Death of
     Will Kempe

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Chapter In Which Pincus and Will Carouse
continued

        I also watched all the kurveh wenches in their shifts only, doxies they was, do dalliance with men in this stew, rude mechanics and apprentice boys, sitting on laps and drinking from the same cups, and letting touch bossoms and ankles, and kisses they did, and hands stroking hairs, and tickling palms, and even touching codpieces and plackets some bold ones. And I seen how they got up from their stools and benches, a kurveh wench and a mechanic or apprentice boy, and went to a door in back the big room wasn't the door out to the jakes behind, but was a stairs went up to which they called cribs where shtupping they did for monies paid these kurveh whore wenches. Such indecencies I saw and listened!

        “Will,” I said to Will Kempe, “here's filthy dalliance up the stairs in cribs, I seen that one with red hairs go now twice up with a different each time!”

        To which he laughed and said to me, “An' will you think on the like journey upwards for yourself, Pinky pearl, or are you not up to go thus upwards? For if you'd go up, yet you must be up betimes aforehand, and thereafter you'll come down, sooner up yonder than ye'll descend those stairs, my pearl!” Which was a coarse gleek.

        To which I said, “Fie, Will!” which he laughed at.

        And then all called for Will Kempe to dance a jig, which first he said he couldn't because he needed a music with pipe and tabor drum to do his comic Morris, but all said do a dance, which he then did, up on a table like it was a stage, he did a comic jig, and the tapster banged a music on a pot with a big wood ladle, and my Will danced till he was sweated, and wiggled his bum and crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, and all was made merry from this except me. I was thinking this was more performance a waste, not bringing us any monies for it. And he sang them a round, the one Prithee Hold Thy Peace Thou Knave, and another the one called I Decree Love, all coarse gleeks, which he did lots in theater, and also juggled four empty cups until he dropped one which broke. Still everyone in this stew brothel gave hands, which everyone always did for my Will Kempe.

        Which when he sat down by our bench again, all sweated and blowing hard his breaths, he said to me, “Prithee, sweet Pinky, call our maid for me a draught, for I'm feign to faint, and mad Will's like to sea-change to sad Will despite my will to carouse 'til dawn!” Which I did, and drank with him sherry sack cup for cup.

        Until I said, “Will, I think I got to make a piss.”

        To which he said, “There's them as says a jakes, if no joint-stool nor jordan pot, lies outside, yet I've n'er seen it, so go ye dispell this myth if you needs must, or else hie thee but a short stroll 'cross this room where the mulling fire burns hot enough you'll not douse it unless you piss longer and stronger than any Christian can, Pinky.” Which he was saying I should make a piss in the fireplace like I was a rude lout, which I wasn't and ain't, so I stood up to go find if it was outside a jakes.

        Except I'm shamed, and still am, to say I was now fap, so couldn't walk good enough to go outside in a dark night, so I walked only across the room, by all the revelers and gamesters, and went by the fireplace where I undressed my points to get out my putz, which I did, and pissed a hissing into the fireplace which it already stinked from piss, which is where they heated also the iron for mulling drinks.

        Which I didn't know my Will was doing farcical, he came behind me, and when I had out my schlong and was pissing my water, ashamed I already felt, and fap, he yelled out to all, “Look ye all! A great snake's crawled in to warm at our fire, or is it a dragon as they tell of in Wonder Books? Aye, has any here seen an eel as long or as salt as this?”

        To which coarse gleek all laughed, but I was the more shamed, and put away my putz and tied my points so fast I made myself wet, which I was even the more ashamed for, but so cup-shot was I, my Will had to help me walk back across the big room to our table and benches where sat our link boy, only he was now asleep from drink with his head on our table like it was a pillow, and our carpet knight gallants who laughed at Will's gleek against me did japes against me about eels and snakes and a big neat's tongue, which they meant a ox's pizzle, and I was the most ashamed almost as I ever was in my life, there in this Cardinal's Hat stew brothel on this once a carouse I went.

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