And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.
Ver. 9. And now am I their song] They compose comedies out of my tragedies, and make themselves merry in my misery; they not only make ballads and sonnets of my sufferings, but also play them upon their instruments, as the Hebrew word importeth.
Yea, I am their byword] Sermonis argumentum, the matter of their discourse; I am all their talk; neither have they anything else whereof to chat and babble, but only of me; yea, to make my disgraces to pass into a proverb, they call all miserable men by my name, De me confabulantur et contemptim loquuntur (Disc.). The ale stakes served David in like sort; the drunkards upon their ale bench tossed his name as dogs do carrion, making him their ballad and their byword, Psalms 69:12. The whole Church complaineth of the like contempt, Psa 79:4 Lamentations 3:14; Lam 3:63 Ezekiel 33:32. Thus when the invincible Armada, as they called it, was coming for England, Don Bernardino Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in France, solaced himself with a vain and false poem or song of England's miseries; which, as a triumph before the victory, he absurdly printed (Cambd. Eliz.). The gunpowder traitors also did the like in their sevenfold psalmody, as they called it; that devilish ditty, which secretly the Papists passed from hand to hand with tunes set to be sung or played. The matter consisted of railing upon King Edward VI, Queen Elizabeth, King James, and others; of petition, imprecation, prophecy, and praise (Spec. Bell. Sacr.).