Patience the Lion at the New York Public Library

"There was sometime an old Knight, who being disposed to make himself merry

at Christmas time, sent all his tenants and their families and poor neighbors and bade

them sit down to a feast. When they had assembled about the board and were about

to set to the food, the Knight rose and said: "Now, let no Man eat nor drinke until

he who is master over his wife shall sing a lusty carroll." There were many glances

'bout the room to see who would be the musician. After a dry hemme or two, a shy

man rose and sang a few works of an olde carroll, but he sat down suddenly through

an unseen influence. Then said the Knight, "Let no Woman eat nor drinke until she

who is master over her husband shall sing a lusty carroll." Whereupon the whole

assemblage of Women fell all to such a singing that there was never heard such

a caterwauling peece of musicke. Whereat the knight laughed so heartily,

that it did him halfe as muche good as a corner of his Christmas pie." 

(This has been rendered into more modern English from Pasquil's Jests, 1609.)

-- from 1001 Christmas Facts and Fancies by Alfred Carl Hottes

'Behold a simple tender babe,

In freezing winter night,

In homely manger trembling lies:

Alas! A piteous sight.

The inns are full; no man will yield

This little pilgrim bed;

But forced he is with silly beasts

In crib to shroud his head.

Despise him not for lying there;

First what he is inquire:

And orient pearl is often found

In depth of dirty mire.

Wight not his crib, his wooden dish,

Nor beasts that by him feed;

Weigh not his mother's poor attire,

Nor Joseph's simple weed.

This stable is a prince's court,

This crib his chair of state,

The beasts are parcel of his pomp,

The wooden dish his plate;

The persons in that poor attire

His royal liveries wear;

The Prince himself is come from heaven,

This pomp is prized there.

With joy approach, O Christian wight,

Do homage to thy King;

And highly praise this humble pomp,

Which he from heaven doth bring.'

New Prince, new pomp by Robert Southwell, c. 1561-95 ('...the good Jesuit,'

the editors note, 'executed for treason under Elizabeth.')

The Oxford Book of Carols, 1928

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