’Tis not good to travel on Sunday,
Whoever the Sabbath would keep;
Not good to be of ill-famed race;
Not good is a dirty woman;
Not good to write without learning;
Not good are grapes when sour;
Not good is an Earl without English;
Not good is a sailor, if old;
Not good is a bishop without warrant;
Not good is a blemish on an elder;
Not good a priest with but one eye;
Not good a parson, if a beggar;
Not good is a palace without play;
Not good is a handmaid if she’s slow;
Not good is a lord without a dwelling;
Not good is a temple without a burying ground;
Not good is a woman without shame;
Not good is a harper without a string;
Not good is fighting without courage;
Not good is entering a port without a pilot;
Not good is a maiden who backbites;
Not good is the poverty of a debtor;
Not good is a castle without an heir;
Not good is neglecting the household dogs;
Not good is disrespect to a father;
Not good is the talk of the drunken;
Not good is a knife without an edge;
Not good is injustice in judging;
Not good is the friendship of devils
For thy son, oh Virgin most honoured;
Though he has saved the seed of Adam,
Not good for himself was the cross.
Not good is a reader without understanding;
Not good for a man to want a friend;
Not good is a poet without a subject;
Not good is a tower without a hall;
Not good is a web without fulling;
Not good is sport without laughter;
Not good are misdeeds when prosperous;
Not good is marriage without consent;
Not good is a crown without supremacy;
Not good is ploughing by night;
Not good is learning without courtesy;
Not good is religion without knowledge.
Not good.
* * * * *
I myself, Robert, went[170]
Yesterday to a monastery,
And I was not allowed in,
Because my wife was not with me.
* * * * *
I dislike to journey for a year;[171]
I dislike the table where a woman sits;
I dislike sorrow and sadness;
I dislike a great house without joy;
I dislike seeing a good man with a bad wife;
I dislike a frown upon a prince’s face;
I dislike weak drink at a high price;
I dislike a noble without courtesy;
I dislike war when it is peace,
When nothing is allowed to pass;
I dislike a rough and cruel chief;
I dislike the men who cannot fight;
I dislike being long at a tune;
I dislike the men who grudge me food;
I dislike a jealous woman if unchaste;
I dislike the dog who cannot kill a stag;
I’m loath to go to Erin in the west,
Now that Brian of the tunes is dead;
I dislike a widow who is not cheerful;
I dislike the man of melancholy mind;
I dislike an ill-favoured old woman,
Whose tongue is sharp and rapid too;
I cannot tell to any man
All the things that I dislike.
I dislike.
[169] We have here a curious specimen of aphoristic poetry, the idea
borrowed probably from the Proverbs of Solomon. These aphorisms throw
some light upon the habits and modes of thought of the age in which
they were produced.
[170] These lines are given as indicative of the state of public
feeling at the time with respect to a great social question. The writer
of these lines was manifestly no friend to monasteries, and no believer
in their purity.
[171] We have here another specimen of aphoristic poetry. In the
original the lines are in rhyme. The author’s name is not given, though
it is probably Phelim M’Dougall.