Mami Takyiwa's Misfortune

Summary

O you who think the deed more worth than thought,

Consider the misfortune of Takyiwa,

Her fisher-husband kept her, but loved her not,

And had with her a fair but ailing daughter.

Each day except Tuesday Takyiwa would sit

In rain or sunshine at the market place

Doing all she could to eke a profit

From the carefully priced fish her husband brought.

She did not care how scanty was her cloth,

Though she was never seen in dirty rags.

Her care was how to send her daughter forth

Into the cruel world she knew too well.

Without some trade or training she was doomed;

But nothing she could do would make her father

Think of stopping habits that consumed

The needed cash to spend on training her,

He carefully calculated every penny,

Insisting that Takyiwa had to give

A satisfactory estimate of any

Expenditure or sales she daily made.

He would not scruple to invade the kitchen

To count the peppers one by one and check

And would up-braid Takyiwa for an itching

Palm, if he felt unsatisfied.

He did all this to get sufficient money

To spend on private pleasures—and the church.

For of the pastor's flock there wasn't any

Who gave so much at harvest or to charity.

The pastor asked him once about his wife,

And why she went to market every Sunday

Instead of thinking of eternal life

By joining him to church and Leaders’ Meeting.

He told the pastor he had done his best

To help the wife to quit her heathen ways,

But she would treat his efforts as a jest,

And do her worst to set his daughter against him.

On one occasion he donated money

To the happy pastor, asking public prayer

For the quick conversion of his wife and only

Daughter, to the ways of thrift and piety.

At last the daughter grew, and took a lover,

And it was clear she was to have a baby…

And O what fury did the man uncover

From every hidden corner of his being.

He promptly told the pastor and his flock

Of the horrid scandal of his only daughter;

And he moved high heaven with unholy talk

To force his daughter's man to pay a fortune.