Have fear and feel you dread of the Master of Phynances

Have fear and feel you dread of the Master of Phynances
He’s the biggest villain you can find in France.
He unites top speed and high rapidity
And combines fierce rage and great ferocity.
Of ruse and trickery he knows every usage
To select the areas where to make his ravage,
He never risks a thing in neighborhoods well guarded,
But each time attacks merchants isolated
And the wee independents with their hands in their pockets,
Who never think of shouting till they’re flayed to their sockets.
Alack! it is too late: once they’re caught in the net
They are quickly bled then disemboweled quite.
A greasy paladin comes to decapitate each of them,
Staring out askance over his sunglasses’ rim ...
He is always up before the break of day,
As soon as he’s awake his tricks are underway.
He opens with great fuss the door into the hall
Where the paladins sleep the verminous rabble ...
His earhole begins to writhe and even falls down whistling:
A paladin slapped up awakens loudly shouting.
Then all do just as much, then to the noise of the drum
Down the stairs in rows into the courtyard they come.
Père Ubu reads to them his consummate arrangements
That settle on each one his ultimate destination;
Then gives them a crouton, two or three cooked onions
Then pushes them outside with a kick right square on the bum ...
Then with a magisterial step he enters his chamber
And looks at the time on his clock of amber:
—Six o’clock! great God! how late I am I fear!
And how much time I lose with all these suckers here!
Come on and wake up now, lady Mère Ubance,
Bring the shiting saber and the hook of phynance,
And let of this my headgear the edifice beplumed
Me incontinently be by your hands resumed!
—But, says great Mère Ubu, Monsieur Père Ubon,
Of washing up your mug there isn’t any question?
Now this remark displeased the Master of Finances:
He knitted both his brows with an air of vengeance.
Mère Ubu insists, and raises up her fist...
Mère Ubu takes off and in a corner’s missed.
From his loathsome pocket he passes forth his braces
And, what weather it be, whether it blows or ices
He exits bending his back under the morning blow
And goes with all his heart to lay his neighbor low.

 

Alfred Jarry