GNOTHO: O music! no music, but prove most doleful trumpet;
O bride!, but thou mayst prove a strumpet;
O venture! no venture, I have, for one, now none;
O wife! thy life is sav'd when I hop'd it had been gone.
Case up your fruitless strings; no penny, no wedding;
Case up thy maidenhead; no priest, no bedding:
Avaunt, my venture! it can ne'er be restor'd,
Till Ag, my old wife, be thrown overboard:
Then come again, old Ag, since it must be so;
Let bride and venture with woeful music go.
What for the bridecake?
Let it be mouldy, now 'tis out of season,
Let it grow out of date, currant, and reason;
Let it be chipped and chopped, and given to chickens.
No more is got by that than William Dickins
Got by his wooden dishes.
Put up your plums, as fiddlers put up pipes,
The wedding dash'd, the bridegroom weeps and wipes.
Fiddlers, farewell! and now, without perhaps,
Put up your fiddles as you put up scraps.