Rogue Literature

主題 Topic	Rogue Literature
書刊名 Title	The Black Book’s Messenger (STC 12223), Collected in   The Black Books Messenger and the Defense of Conny Catching
作者 Author	Robert Greene
出版社 Publisher	Kessinger, Whitefish, MT
出版年 Year	2010
語言 Language	English
裝訂 Binding	□  平裝 Paperback　　　　■ 精裝 Hardcover
頁數 Pages	1064 pages
ISBN (10 / 13)	1165757079; 9781165757077
Bibliography Reference	(STC, Duff, GW . . .)
來源網址 Web Link	http://ppt.cc/O72u
劇本簡介撰稿者	王儀君
撰寫日期 Date	2014.2.

A.   簡介 Introduction (within 100 words, Chinese or English)

這本以流浪漢和為非作歹之惡人為主體的小書是Robert Greene 在世時的最後一部作品，十六世紀時類似的作品繁多，如Robert Copland 的The Highway to the Spital-House (1536); The Fraternitie of Vagabondes (1561)。這部作品一方面承繼西班牙picaro literature的潮流，另一方面卻是十八世紀Moll Flanders 等自白小說文類的先驅。

B.   文本摘錄 Extracts (4-6 Pages)

The life and death of Ned Browne, a notable cutpurse and cony-catcher
If you think, gentlemen, to hear a repentant man speak or to tell a large tale of his penitent sorrows ye are deceived, for as I have ever lived lewdly so I mean to end my life as resolutely, and not by a cowardly confession to attempt the hope of a pardon. Yet in that I was famous in my life for my villainies, I will at my death profess myself as notable by discoursing to you all merrily the manner and method of my knaveries, which if you hear without laughing, then after my death call me base knave, and never have me in remembrance.
 
Know therefore, gentlemen, that my parents were honest, of good report and no little esteem amongst their neighbours, and sought (if good nurture and education would have served) to have made me an honest man, but as one selfsame ground brings forth flowers and thistles, so of a sound stock proved an untoward scion, and of a virtuous father, a most vicious son. It boots little to rehearse the petty sins of my nonage, as disobedience to my parents, contempt of good counsel, despising of mine elders, filching, pettilashery, and such trifling toys, but with these follies I enured myself till waxing in years I grew into greater villainies. For when I came to eighteen years old, what sin was it that I would not commit with greediness, what attempt so bad that I would not endeavour to execute? Cutting of purses, stealing of horses, lifting, picking of locks, and all other notable cozenages, why I held them excellent qualities, and accounted him unworthy to live that could not or durst not live by such damnable practices. Yet as sin too openly manifested to the eye of the magistrate is either sore revenged or soon cut off, so I, to prevent that, had a net wherein to dance, and divers shadows to colour my knaveries withal, as I would title myself with the name of a fencer, & make gentlemen believe that I picked a living out by that mystery, whereas, God wot, I had no other fence but with my short knife and a pair of purse strings, and with them, in troth, many a bout have I had in my time. In torth [sic]? O, what a simple oath was this to confirm a man’s credit withal?
 
Why, I see the halter will make a man holy, for whilst God suffered me to flourish I scorned to disgrace my mouth with so small an oath as ‘In faith’, but I rent God in pieces, swearing and forswearing by every part of his body, that such as heard me rather trembled at mine oaths than feared my braves, and yet for courage and resolution I refer myself to all them that have ever heard of my name.
 
Thus animated to do wickedness, I fell to take delight in the company of harlots, amongst whom, as I spent what I got, so I suffered not them I was acquainted withal to feather their nests, but would at my pleasure strip them of all that they had. What bad woman was there about London whose champion I would not be for a few crowns to fight, swear, and stare in her behalf to the abuse of any that should do justice upon her? I still had one or two in store to crossbite withal, which I used as snares to trap simple men in, for if I took but one suspiciously in her company, straight I versed upon him and crossbit him for all the money in his purse. By the way (sith sorrow cannot help to save me) let me tell you a merry jest how once I crossbit a maltman that would needs be so wanton as when he had shut his malt to have a wench, and thus the jest fell out.
 
A Pleasant Tale how Ned Browne Crossbit a Maltman
This senex fornicator, this old lecher, using continually into Whitechapel, had a haunt into Petticoat Lane to a trugging-house there, and fell into great familiarity with a good wench that was a friend of mine, who one day revealed unto me how she was well thought on by a maltman, a wealthy old churl, and that ordinarily twice a week he did visit her, and therefore bade me plot some means to fetch him over for some crowns. I was not to seek for a quick invention, and resolved at his coming to crossbite him, which was (as luck served) the next day. Monsieur the maltman, coming according to his custom, was no sooner secretly shut in the chamber with the wench but I came stepping in with a terrible look, swearing as if I meant to have challenged the earth to have opened and swallowed me quick, and presently fell upon her and beat her; then I turned to the maltman and lent him a blow or two, for he would take no more, he was a stout stiff old tough churl, and then I railed upon them both, and objected to him how long he had kept my wife, how my neighbours could tell me of it, how the Lane thought ill of me for suffering it, and now that I had myself taken them together, I would make both him and her smart for it before we parted.
The old fox that knew the ox by the horn was subtile enough to spy a pad in the straw and to see that we went about to crossbite him, wherefore he stood stiff and denied all, and although the whore cunningly on her knees weeping did confess it, yet the maltman faced her down and said she was an honest woman for all him, and that this was but a cozenage compacted between her and me to verse and crossbite him for some piece of money for amends, but sith he knew himself clear he would never grant to pay one penny. I was straight in mine oaths, and braved him with sending for the constable, but in vain, all our policies could not draw one cross from this crafty old carl till I, gathering my wits together, came over his fallows thus. I kept him still in the chamber, & sent (as though I had sent for the constable) for a friend of mine, an ancient cozener, and one that had a long time been a knight of the post; marry, he had a fair cloak and a damask coat that served him to bail men withal. To this perjured companion I sent to come as a constable to make the maltman stoop, who (ready to execute any villainy that I should plot) came speedily like an ancient wealthy citizen, and taking the office of a constable in hand began very sternly to examine the matter and to deal indifferently, rather favouring the maltman than me, but I complained how long he had kept my wife; he answered, I lied, & that it was a cozenage to crossbite him of his money. Mas Constable cunningly made thisinto it. For you, Browne, you complain how he hath abused your wife a long time, & she partly confesseth as much. He (who seems to be an honest man and of some countenance amongst his neighbours) forswears it, and saith it is but a devise to strip him of his money. I know not whom to believe, and therefore this is my best course: because the one of you shall not laugh the other to scorn, I’ll send you all three to the Counter, so to answer it before some justice that may take examination of the matter. The maltman, loath to go to prison and yet unwilling to part from any pence, said he was willing to answer the matter before any man of worship, but he desired the constable to favour him that he might not go to ward, and he would send for a brewer, a friend of his, to be hisIn faith, says this cunning old cozener, you offer like an honest man, but I cannot stay so long till he be sent for, but if you mean, as you protest, to answer the matter, then leave some pawn and I will let you go whither you will while tomorrow, and then come to my house here hard by at a grocer’s shop and you and I will go before a justice, and then clear yourself as you may. The maltman, taking this crafty knave to be some substantial citizen, thanked him for his friendship and gave him a seal-ring that he wore on his forefinger, promising the next morning to meet him at his house. As soon as my friend had the ring, away walks he, and while we stood brabbling together he went to the brewer’s house with whom this maltman traded, and delivered the brewer the ring as a token from the maltman, saying he was in trouble, and that he desired him by that token to send him ten pound. The brewer, seeing an ancient citizen bringing the message, and knowing the maltman’s ring, stood upon no terms sith he knew his chapman wogld [sic for ‘would’] and was able to answer it again if it were a brace of hundred pounds, delivered him the money without any more ado, which ten pound at night we shared betwixt us, and left the maltman to talk with the brewer about the repayment. Tush, this was one of my ordinary shifts, for I was holden in my time the most famous crossbiter in all London. Well, at length, as wedding and hanging comes by destiny, I would, to avoid the speech of the world, be married, forsooth, and keep a house, but (gentlemen) I hope you that hear me talk of marriage do presently imagine that sure she was some virtuous matron that I chose out. Shall I say my conscience? She was a little snout-fair, but the commonest harlot and hackster that ever made fray under the shadow
of Coleman hedge. Wedded to this trull, what villainy could I devise but she would put in practice, and yet though she could foist a pocket well, and get me some pence, and lift now and then for a need, and with the lightness of her heels bring me in some crowns, yet I waxed weary, and stuck to the old proverb that change of pasture makes fat calves. I thought that in living with me two years she lived a year too long, and therefore casting mine eye on a pretty wench, a man’s wife well known about London, I fell in love with her, and that so deeply that I broke the matter to her husband that I loved his wife and must needs have her, and confirmed it with many oaths that if he did not consent to it I would be his death, whereupon her husband, a kind knave and one every way as base a companion as myself, agreed to me, and we bet a bargain that I should have his wife and he should have mine, conditionally that I should give him five pounds to boot, which I promised, though he never had it. So we, like two good horse-corsers, made a chop and change and swapped up a roguish bargain, and so he married my wife, and I his. Thus, gentlemen, did I neither fear God nor his laws, nor regarded honesty, manhood, or conscience, but these be trifles and venial sins. Now sir, let me boast of myself a little in that I came to the credit of a high-lawyer, and with my sword free-booted abroad in the
country like a cavalier on horseback, wherein I did excel for subtilty, for I had first for myself an artificial hair, and a beard so naturally made that I could talk, dine and sup in it, and yet it should never be spied. I will tell you there rests no greater villainy than in this practice, for I have robbed a man in the morning, and come to the same inn and baited, yea, and dined with him the same day. And for my horse, that he might not be known, I could ride him one part of the day like a goodly gelding with a large tail hanging to his fetlocks, and the other part of the day I could make him a cut, for I had an artificial tail so cunningly counterfeited that the ostler when he dressed him could not perceive it. By these policies I little cared for hues and cries, but straight with disguising myself would outslip them all, and as for my cloak, it was tarmosind [sic for ‘turned’?] (as they do term it), made with two outsides that I could turn it how I list, for howsoever I wore it, the right side still seemed to be outward. I remember how prettily once I served a priest, and because one death dischargeth all, and is as good as a general pardon, hear how I served him.