Satire on the Tailors
Here I am all alone, living among the bays, I have webs of cloth in bales, and they cannot keep a breath of wind from me; summer overtook me with the tailors' promises, though there is not one in the countryside who can reckon a farthing against me.
Think you not it strange the conceit that's in the tailors; if it be from the blood of the Milesians the beginning of that arrogance came, they have no cattle on shieling-knoll, they have no care for tilling, but a stingy, proud left hand, and poverty-stricken are they because of it.
Where can you see young men as sportive as the tailors? Lackaday! who but they if dancing and laughing would suffice! But if trouble or confusion come upon them, worry about wife or children, they are seen all over the land as sorners and wretched wanderers.
Did you ever know anyone like the tailors' wives? When they rise in the morning they have not a spark to warm themselves; asking of the neighbours everything of the necessaries of life, and she who gives them an armful of peats, 'tis the God of glory will repay her.
I spoke reasonably to the first of them though it was the Sabbath; he said to me that he regretted more that Robert's son should be without tailoring — " 'Tis the extent of thy traffic with inn-keepers that has left thy pocket empty, that has left thy clothing thin, and thy wife cannot replace it. "
I spoke to Macintyre, " 'Tis thy dissembling promise has wearied me; thou didst promise this year, thou didst promise last year, thou didst tarry and didst not come; I shall cajole thee no longer, for I am tired of thy plausible talk: would that they had made a cobbler of thee, so that the lies should be natural "
I spoke to the son of Angus Glas, " Wilt thou come out for me to-morrow? " He said, " I consider (thy request) strange, since thou art well acquainted with the failing: dost not see that I have a young wife who will not willingly let me out of sight, and though I should go I would not walk, and I would not be in Carinish to-night. "
I spoke to MacVicar, asking him to show me pity and friendship — " I was familiar and acquainted with thee on thy father's and mother's side; and thou needst not think that I am a man of no ability in Gaelic — I could praise thee and lampoon thee as well as anyone in Gaeldom. "
He who stole the patches from us, and made a plaything of them, when he went with that banner to show it to the Adversary, he tied it aloft to a pole and raised his head proudly: when the way was shown to him, he was made welcome yonder when he arrived.
Think you not it strange the conceit that's in the tailors; if it be from the blood of the Milesians the beginning of that arrogance came, they have no cattle on shieling-knoll, they have no care for tilling, but a stingy, proud left hand, and poverty-stricken are they because of it.
Where can you see young men as sportive as the tailors? Lackaday! who but they if dancing and laughing would suffice! But if trouble or confusion come upon them, worry about wife or children, they are seen all over the land as sorners and wretched wanderers.
Did you ever know anyone like the tailors' wives? When they rise in the morning they have not a spark to warm themselves; asking of the neighbours everything of the necessaries of life, and she who gives them an armful of peats, 'tis the God of glory will repay her.
I spoke reasonably to the first of them though it was the Sabbath; he said to me that he regretted more that Robert's son should be without tailoring — " 'Tis the extent of thy traffic with inn-keepers that has left thy pocket empty, that has left thy clothing thin, and thy wife cannot replace it. "
I spoke to Macintyre, " 'Tis thy dissembling promise has wearied me; thou didst promise this year, thou didst promise last year, thou didst tarry and didst not come; I shall cajole thee no longer, for I am tired of thy plausible talk: would that they had made a cobbler of thee, so that the lies should be natural "
I spoke to the son of Angus Glas, " Wilt thou come out for me to-morrow? " He said, " I consider (thy request) strange, since thou art well acquainted with the failing: dost not see that I have a young wife who will not willingly let me out of sight, and though I should go I would not walk, and I would not be in Carinish to-night. "
I spoke to MacVicar, asking him to show me pity and friendship — " I was familiar and acquainted with thee on thy father's and mother's side; and thou needst not think that I am a man of no ability in Gaelic — I could praise thee and lampoon thee as well as anyone in Gaeldom. "
He who stole the patches from us, and made a plaything of them, when he went with that banner to show it to the Adversary, he tied it aloft to a pole and raised his head proudly: when the way was shown to him, he was made welcome yonder when he arrived.
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