My masters and friends and good people draw near Look out for your purses for that I do say For though little money in them you do bear I´ll come up behind you and steal it away. You often are told by the young and the old: „Beware of the devilish cutpurse so bold!“ But my thieving will one day be over you´ll see For I know that the gallows are waiting for me Young friends you had better been starved by your nurse Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse But oh, you vile nation of Cut-purses all! Relent and repent, and amend, and be sound, And know that you ought not by honest men's fall Advance your own fortunes to dye above ground: And though you go gay in silks, as you may, It is not the highway to heaven, as they say. Repent then, repent you, for better for worse, And kiss not the gallows for cutting a purse. Your eyes and your fingers are nimble of growth, But Dun many times hath been nimbler than both; Yet you are deceived by many a slut, But the hangman is only the Cut-purses cut. It makes you to vex when he bridles your necks, And then at the last what becomes of your tricks? But when you should pray, you begin for to curse The hand that first shewd you to slash at purse.
My masters and friends and good people draw near Look out for your purses for that I do say For though little money in them you do bear I´ll come up behind you and steal it away. You often are told by the young and the old: „Beware of the devilish cutpurse so bold!“ But my thieving will one day be over you´ll see For I know that the gallows are waiting for me Young friends you had better been starved by your nurse Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse But oh, you vile nation of Cut-purses all! Relent and repent, and amend, and be sound, And know that you ought not by honest men's fall Advance your own fortunes to dye above ground: And though you go gay in silks, as you may, It is not the highway to heaven, as they say. Repent then, repent you, for better for worse, And kiss not the gallows for cutting a purse. Your eyes and your fingers are nimble of growth, But Dun many times hath been nimbler than both; Yet you are deceived by many a slut, But the hangman is only the Cut-purses cut. It makes you to vex when he bridles your necks, And then at the last what becomes of your tricks? But when you should pray, you begin for to curse The hand that first shewd you to slash at purse.
