Pomes Penyeach, Dept.

As a younger sobsister, considerably younger, I heard two works of poetry that have remained with me to this day, some 400 years later. The first was titled "The Good Ship Venus." Anonymous in authorship. Its first quatrain unfolded as follows:

It was on the good ship Venus,
by Christ you should have seen us;
the figurehead was a whore in bed
sucking a big red penis.

The refrain consisted primarily of repetitions of the phrase "frigging in the rigging," presumably lustily declaimed in performance. So, yes, you understand.

The other, same provenance--an Albanian--was "The Ball of Inverness," which began,

Four-and-twenty virgins at the ball at Inverness.
When the ball was over,
There were four-and-twenty less.

I've always thought about that. "Four-and-twenty less." Wrong, really. And, so, today, I remedied that solecism:

Four-and-twenty virgins at the ball at Castle Dewar.
When the ball was over,
There were four-and-twenty fewer.

Actually, in most sources I've found the poem is titled "The Ball of Kirriemuir," although the tone is identical (and the rhyme would work for my purposes equally well). It begins:

O the ball, the ball, the ball, the ball, the ball
at Kirremuir,
there were four-and-twenty prostitutes a-lying
on the floor.

Here's an online version that features such lovely versifying as the following:

There was dancin' in the meadows,
There was dancin' in the ricks,
Ye could nae hear the bagpipes
For the swishin' o' the pricks.

As you might imagine, much better with a stage Scot accent. I don't do accents or dialect humor. In the best interest of all concerned, trust me.

It's a' the ladies back,
Wi' yer arses tae the wall;
Gin ye can't get fucked at Kirriemuir,
Ye'll ne'er get fucked at all!

So say we all!