The Subpoena of the Muses

Mr Vignoles

Apollo by Great Jove’s Permission, King of each Poet and Musician, To Clio and Melpomene, Thalia and eke Euterpe,

Calliope and Polyhymnia, Terpsichore and Urania, and also unto Erato, John Doe and also Richard Roe

Send Greeting. We command you all, that upon no account you fail, but setting aside all Excuses, ye the ’foresaid subpoena’d Muses,

Before the Judge of the Attic Chest, The Judge that’s clad in sable vest, In Propria Persona appear, And take good heed you be here, On

Tuesday March the 26th to come, By seven in the afternoon, And tell the Truth of what you know, Believe have heard and so and so

Upon a certain Cause that’s fixt, For hearing that Day ’pending twixt Mars the great Bully of the Sky, Plaintiff, and cunning Mercury,

Defendant, in a certain Plea of dire Assault and Battery, For th’ Attic Jury on that Day, ’Twixt foresaid Persons on said Plea

And that you do not dare omit, To do as order’d by this writ, on Pain of losing half your wit:

Witness the said Judge of the Chest, our trusty Subject and our best, This First of March and of our Reign, Two Thousand nine.