The Ballade of Fat Margot Because I love and serve this beauty gladly, you must think I’m blind or completely mad but she has charms to please the finest palate; for love of her I’d strap on shield and dirk. When the men arrive, I hop and fetch a pot; I get the wine without a lot of racket, I bring them bread and water, cheese and fruit, and if they pay well I call out “Bene stat! and come again, next time you’re in rut, to this old whorehouse where we hold court.” From time to time, there’s an epic clash, when Margot comes to bed with no cash: I can’t even look at her, I hate her to death, I snatch up her dress, her surcote and belt, and swear to her I’ll pawn them for my cut. Hands on her hips, that little Antichrist wheezes and howls and swears by the death of Jesus that I’ll do no such thing. So I grab up a plank and write a blunt reply across her nose, in this old whorehouse where we hold court. Then we make up and she cracks a huge fart (no toxic beetle ever puffed worse) and, laughing, hammers her fist on my crown. “Go! Go!” she calls, with a slap on my rump. Then, both of us drunk, we sleep like a log. And when we wake, with her belly rumbling, she’s not about to waste her fruit: she climbs right on and I just lie there, squashed flatter than a board. Her lechery will be the death of me in this old whorehouse where we hold court. Come wind, hail, or ice, my bread is baked. I’m a dirty old man and a slut’s what suits me. Which one is worse? We’re a match, like unto like: bad rat, bad cat. Filth is our calling and boy does it call us; Virtue runs when it sees us, and we run from it, in this old whorehouse where we hold court.
