Bells and Motley

The Jester put on his cap and bells

For the final time, we’re told,

The Queen was set to replace him for

She said he was far too old,

‘He doesn’t amuse me like he did

Before, when we all were young,

Should I dispense with his services,

Or command the Jester hung?’

 

Her courtiers were gathered around,

They wanted to please the Queen,

Lord Chalmers said, ‘Suspend by his feet!’

Then Darnley: ‘No! By his spleen!’

‘Tar and Feather him,’ said Bottolph,

‘And run him around the town,

Then tether him to a stake, and light

Him up, in the palace grounds.’

 

The Queen thought that was hilarious,

And clapped and cried in her mirth,

‘By Jove, we’ll have us some jesting yet,

We’ll bring him on down to earth!’

‘He’s sure to appreciate the jest

For he won’t deny your fun,’

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said,

‘We’ll gather in everyone.’

 

While the Jester sat in his lonely room

In a dark and evil tower,

He knew that he would be summoned soon

But he didn’t know the hour.

He wondered if she might knight him then

For his services to the crown,

Or grant him a fabulous pension for

The years that he’d played the clown?

 

For Jesters, they are but mortal men

Aside from their clownish role,

Down under bells and motley lives

A far from perfect soul,

The jesting covers a beating heart

That is rarely ever seen,

And his was filled with a lifetime love

For Her Majesty, the Queen.

 

He’d loved her since, as a little girl

She’d laughed and played in the grounds,

While he’d leapt out of the bushes there

To her squeals, and laughs and frowns,

He’d always jingled his bells for her,

And carried her in to tea,

When she was sleepy and all laughed out

After playing so happily.

 

He knew that he’d made more enemies

Than friends, as the years went by,

For jealousy breeds in a court with needs

And the courtiers were sly,

They took it in turns to trip him up

And to hurt, as part of the jest,

But he took new heart at the cruel laughs

By the ones who were not impressed.

 

He finally stood in front of the Queen

And bowed right down to the floor,

He looked for a smile on her much loved face

But a scowl was all he saw.

‘You’ve come to the end of your usefulness,

A Fool on a bended knee,

Take him outside and string him up,

Upside down from a tree!’

 

He hung for an hour in misery,

And then they had cut him down,

Tarred and feathered his motley’d form

And beat him around the town.

They wanted to stake and light him up

But the Queen said, ‘Let him go.

Give him a crown in a silver cup

For the years he amused me so!’

 

They cast him out in a farmer’s field

And barred him then from the court,

He wept and wailed in his anguish there

For a day and a night, and thought;

The slings and arrows he’d suffered from

Were now brought up with his bile,

And sweet revenge was his ruling theme,

He planned and schemed for a while.

 

One night he went to the palace yard

And crept down the cellar stair,

He doctored all the barrels of hock

And the fine French flagons there,

Then some time after the palace hunt

He hid in the servants’ hall,

And waited til they drank and were drunk

At the Queen’s Most Favoured Ball.

 

Then Bottolph woke in a barrel of tar,

And Chalmers hung by his heels,

While Darnley woke in a quivering fear

In a barrel of snakes and eels,

The Queen awoke in her stately bed

Pinned down by a giant sow,

And wearing the Jester’s bells. He said,

‘Who is the Jester now?’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Barbz]

Years of laughs and gag and mirth, for the monarchy he served, their actions as he tired and aged. Was more than he deserved. The Court and Crown said string him up, and then they flogged and beat him. Why, thought he, as his wounds healed, didn't they just unseat him? But Jesters have two sides you know, their gags hide true emotion. He conjured up a scheme or two, and a ghastly potion. And he rang his bells of revenge.......smiling for his serving. A dose of agony, was just, ..and also, quite deserving. Genius, Bard, Genius!!! Barbz

[Marie]

Certainly a fitting end. It saddened me to think that he expected reward for his long years of service, and then was met with so callous a fate. But I think the queen was kinder than she seemed after all because she didn't kill him, but let him go. And that, of course, led to her own fate...