The Entertainment at Althorp
An excerpt – by Ben Jonson
This is MAB, the mistris-Faerie,
That doth nightly rob the dayrie;
And she can hurt, or helpe the cherning,
(As shee please) without discerning…
Shall we strip the skipping jester?
This is shee, that empties cradles,
Takes out children, puts in ladles:
Traynes forth mid-wives in their slumber,
With a sive the holes to number
And then leads them, from her borroughs,
Home through ponds, and water furrowes.
The Entertainment at Althorp, or The Althorp Entertainment, is an early Jacobean era literary work, written by Ben Jonson. It is also known by the alternative title The Satyr. The work marked a major development in Jonson’s career, as the first of many entertainments and masques that he would write for the Stuart Court.
