Satires
Satire I
Away, thou changeling motley humourist,
Leave me, and in this standing wooden chest,
Consorted with these few books, let me lie
In prison, and here be coffin’d when I die.
Here are God’s conduits, grave divines, and here
Nature’s secretary, the philosopher,
And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie
The sinews of a city’s mystic body;
Here gathering chroniclers, and by them stand
Giddy fantastic poets of each land.
Shall I leave all this constant company,
And follow headlong, wild, uncertain thee?
First, swear by thy best love, here, in earnest
—If thou, which lovest all, canst love any best—
Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street,
Though some more spruce companion thou dost meet;
Not though a captain do come in thy way
Bright parcel-gilt, with forty dead men’s pay;
Not though a brisk perfumèd pert courtier
Deign with a nod thy courtesy to answer;
Nor come a velvet justice with a long
Great train of blue coats, twelve or fourteen strong,
Wilt thou grin, or fawn on him, or prepare
A speech to court his beauteous son and heir?
For better or worse take me, or leave me;
To take and leave me is adultery.
O monstrous, superstitious puritan,
Of refined manners, yet ceremonial man,
That when thou meet’st one, with enquiring eyes
Doth search, and like a needy broker prize
The silk and gold he wears, and to that rate,
So high or low, dost raise thy formal hat;
That will consort none, until thou have known
What lands he hath in hope, or of his own,
As though all thy companions should make thee
Jointures, and marry thy dear company.
Why shouldst thou, that dost not only approve,
But in rank itchy lust, desire and love
The nakedness and bareness to enjoy
Of thy plump muddy whore, or prostitute boy,
Hate virtue, though she be naked and bare?
At birth, and death, our bodies naked are;
And, till our souls be unapparelled
Of bodies, they from bliss are banished.
Man’s first blest state was naked; when by sin
He lost that, he was clothed but in beasts’ skin;
And in this coarse attire, which I now wear,
With God and with the Muses I confer.
But since thou, like a contrite penitent,
Charitably warn’d of thy sins, dost repent
These vanities and giddinesses, lo!
I shut my chamber door; and come, let’s go.
But sooner may a cheap whore, who hath been
Worn by as many several men in sin,
As are black feathers, or musk-coloured hose,
Name her child’s right true father ’mongst all those;
Sooner may one guess who shall bear away
Th’ infant of London, heir to an India;
And sooner may a gulling weather-spy,
By drawing forth heaven’s scheme, tell certainly
What fashion’d hats, or ruffs, or suits next year
Our subtle-witted antic youths will wear,
Than thou, when thou depart’st from me, can show
Whither, why, when, or with whom thou wouldst go.
But how shall I be pardon’d my offence
That thus have sinn’d against my conscience?
Now we are in the street; he first of all,
Improvidently proud, creeps to the wall;
And so imprison’d, and hemm’d in by me,
Sells for a little state high liberty.
Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet
Every fine, silken, painted fool we meet,
He them to him with amorous smiles allures,
And grins, smacks, shrugs, and such an itch endures,
As ’prentices or schoolboys, which do know
Of some gay sport abroad, yet dare not go.
And as fiddlers stop lowest, at highest sound,
So to the most brave, stoops he nighest the ground.
But to a grave man he doth move no more
Than the wise politic horse would heretofore,
Or thou, O elephant, or ape, wilt do,
When any names the King of Spain to you.
Now leaps he upright, jogs me, and cries, “Do you see
Yonder well-favoured youth?” “Which?” “O, ’tis he
That dances so divinely.” “O,” said I,
“Stand still, must you dance here for company?”
He droop’d, we went, till one—which did excel
Th’ Indians in drinking his tobacco well—
Met us; they talk’d; I whisper’d, “Let us go,
’T may be you smell him not; truly I do.”
He hears not me, but, on the other side
A many-colour’d peacock having spied,
Leaves him and me; I for my lost sheep stay;
He follows, overtakes, goes on the way,
Saying, “Him whom I last left, all repute
For his device in handsoming a suit,
To judge of lace, pink, panes, print, cut, and pleat,
Of all the court to have the best conceit.”
“Our dull comedians want him, let him go;
But O, God strengthen thee, why stopp’st thou so?”
“Why!” “Hath he travell’d long?” “No.” “But to me,
Which understand none, he doth seem to be
Perfect French and Italian,” I replied,
“So is the pox.” He answer’d not, but spied
More men of sort, of parts and qualities.
At last his love he in a window spies,
And like light dew exhaled, he flings from me
Violently ravish’d to his lechery.
Many were there; he could command no more;
He quarrell’d, fought, bled; and turn’d out of door
Directly came to me, hanging the head,
And constantly a while must keep his bed.
Satire II
Sir, though—I thank God for it—I do hate
Perfectly all this town, yet there’s one state
In all ill things so excellently best,
That hate toward them breeds pity towards the rest.
Though poetry indeed be such a sin
As I think that brings dearth and Spaniards in;
Though like the pestilence and old-fashion’d love,
Riddlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be starved out, yet their state
Is poor, disarm’d, like Papists, not worth hate.
One—like a wretch, which at bar judged as dead
Yet prompts him, which stands next and cannot read,
And saves his life—gives idiot actors means,
Starving himself, to live by his labour’d scenes.
As in some organ, puppets dance above
And bellows pant below, which them do move,
One would move love by rhythms; but witchcraft’s charms
Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms.
Rams and slings now are silly battery;
Pistolets are the best artillery.
And they who write to lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That excuse for writing, and for writing ill.
But he is worst, who (beggarly) doth chaw
Others’ wits’ fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spew,
As his own things; and they’re his own, ’tis true;
For if one eat my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, th’ excrement is his own.
But these do me no harm, nor they which use
To outdo ⸻, and out-usure Jews,
To out-drink the sea, to out-swear the ⸻,
Who with sins of all kinds as familiar be
As confessors, and for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make,
Whose strange sins canonists could hardly tell
In which commandment’s large receipt they dwel.
But these punish themselves. The insolence
Of Coscus only breeds my just offence,
Whom time—which rots all, and makes botches pox,
And plodding on, must make a calf an ox—
Hath made a lawyer; which was, alas, of late
But scarce a poet; jollier of this state,
Than are new beneficed ministers, he throws,
Like nets or lime-twigs, wheresoe’er he goes,
His title of barrister on every wench,
And wooes in language of the pleas and bench.
“A motion, lady”—speak Coscus—“I have been
In love e’er since tricesimo of the Queen,
Continual claims I’ve made, injunctions got,
To stay my rival’s suit, that he should not
Proceed.”—Spare me.—“In Hilary term I went,
You said, if I return’d next ’size in Lent,
I should be in remitter of your grace;
In th’ interim my letters should take place
Of affidavits.” Words, words, which would tear
The tender labyrinth of a soft maid’s ear,
More, more than ten Sclavonians scolding, more
Than when winds in our ruin’d abbeys roar.
When sick with poetry, and possess’d with Muse
Thou wast, and mad, I hoped; but men, which choose
Law-practice for mere gain, bold soul[s] repute
Worse than embrothell’d strumpets, prostitute.
Now like an owl-like watchman, he must walk
His hand still at a bill, now he must talk
Idly, like prisoners, which whole months will swear,
The only suretyship hath brought them there,
And to every suitor lie in everything,
Like a king’s favourite, or like a king;
Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge, for
Bastardy ’bounds not in king’s titles, nor
Simony and sodomy in churchmen’s lives,
As these things do in him; by these he thrives.
Shortly, as the sea, he’ll compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand;
And spying heirs melting with luxury,
Satan will not joy at their sins, as he.
For as a thrifty wench scrapes kitchen stuff,
And barrelling the droppings, and the snuff
Of wasting candles, which in thirty year
(Relicly kept) perchance buys wedding-gear;
Piecemeal he gets lands, and spends as much time
Wringing each acre, as men pulling prime.
In parchment then, large as his fields, he draws
Assurances, big as gloss’d civil laws,
So huge, that men, in our time’s forwardness,
Are Fathers of the church for writing less.
These he writes not, nor for these written pays;
Therefore spares no length—as in those first days
When Luther was profess’d, he did desire
Short pater nosters, saying as a friar
Each day his beads, but having left those laws,
Adds to Christ’s prayer the Power and Glory clause.
But when he sells or changes land, he impairs
His writings, and, unwatch’d, leaves out, ses heires,
As slyly as any commenter goes by
Hard words, or sense; or, in divinity,
As controverters in vouch’d texts leave out
Shrewd words, which might against them clear the doubt.
Where are those spread woods which clothed heretofore
Those bought lands? not built, nor burnt within door.
Where the old landlord’s troops, and alms? In halls
Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals
Equally I hate. Mean’s blest; in rich men’s homes
I bid kill some beasts, but no hecatombs;
None starve, none surfeit so. But oh, we allow
Good works, as good, but out of fashion now,
Like old rich wardrobes. But my words none draws
Within the vast reach of th’ huge statute’s jaws.
Satire III
Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids
Those tears to issue, which swell my eyelids.
I must not laugh, nor weep sins, and be wise.
Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies?
Is not our mistress, fair Religion,
As worthy of all our souls’ devotion,
As virtue was in the first blinded age?
Are not heaven’s joys as valiant to assuage
Lusts, as earth’s honour was to them? Alas,
As we do them in means, shall they surpass
Us in the end? and shall thy father’s spirit
Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit
Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear
Thee, whom he taught so easy ways, and near
To follow, damn’d? Oh, if thou darest, fear this;
This fear great courage and high valour is.
Darest thou aid mutinous Dutch; and darest thou lay
Thee in ships, wooden sepulchres, a prey
To leaders’ rage, to storms, to shot, to dearth?
Darest thou dive seas, and dungeons of the earth?
Hast thou courageous fire to thaw the ice
Of frozen North discoveries; and thrice
Colder than salamanders, like divine
Children in th’ oven, fires of Spain and the line,
Whose countries limbecs to our bodies be,
Canst thou for gain bear? and must every he
Which cries not, “Goddess!” to thy mistress, draw,
Or eat thy poisonous words? courage of straw!
O desperate coward, wilt thou seem bold, and
To thy foes, and his, who made thee to stand
Sentinel in his world’s garrison, thus yield,
And for forbid wars leave th’ appointed field?
Know thy foes; the foul devil, he whom thou
Strivest to please, for hate, not love, would allow
Thee fain his whole realm to be quit; and as
The world’s all parts wither away and pass,
So the world’s self, thy other loved foe, is
In her decrepit wane, and thou loving this,
Dost love a wither’d and worn strumpet; last,
Flesh, itself’s death, and joys which flesh can taste,
Thou lovest; and thy fair goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe.
Seek true religion, O where? Mirreus,
Thinking her unhoused here and fled from us,
Seeks her at Rome, there, because he doth know
That she was there a thousand years ago;
And loves the rags so, as we here obey
The state-cloth where the prince sat yesterday.
Crants to such brave loves will not be enthrall’d,
But loves her only who at Geneva ’s call’d
Religion, plain, simple, sullen, young,
Contemptuous yet unhandsome; as among
Lecherous humours, there is one that judges
No wenches wholesome, but coarse country drudges.
Graius stays still at home here, and because
Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws,
Still new, like fashions, bid him think that she
Which dwells with us, is only perfect, he
Embraceth her, whom his godfathers will
Tender to him, being tender; as wards still
Take such wives as their guardians offer, or
Pay values. Careless Phrygius doth abhor
All, because all cannot be good; as one,
Knowing some women whores, dares marry none.
Gracchus loves all as one, and thinks that so
As women do in divers countries go
In divers habits, yet are still one kind,
So doth, so is religion; and this blind—
Ness too much light breeds. But unmovèd thou
Of force must one, and forced but one allow;
And the right. Ask thy father which is she;
Let him ask his. Though Truth and Falsehood be
Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is.
Be busy to seek her; believe me this,
He’s not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best.
To adore, or scorn an image, or protest,
May all be bad. Doubt wisely; in strange way,
To stand inquiring right, is not to stray;
To sleep, or run wrong, is. On a huge hill,
Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
Reach her, about must and about must go,
And what th’ hill’s suddenness resists, win so.
Yet strive so, that before age, death’s twilight,
Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night.
To will implies delay, therefore now do
Hard deeds, the body’s pains; hard knowledge to
The mind’s endeavours reach; and mysteries
Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes.
Keep the truth which thou hast found; men do not stand
In so ill case, that God hath with His hand
Signed kings blank-charters, to kill whom they hate;
Nor are they vicars, but hangmen to fate.
Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied
To man’s laws, by which she shall not be tried
At the last day? or will it then boot thee
To say a Philip or a Gregory,
A Harry or a Martin, taught thee this?
Is not this excuse for mere contraries
Equally strong? cannot both sides say so?
That thou mayst rightly obey power, her bounds know;
Those past, her nature and name is changed; to be
Then humble to her is idolatry.
As streams are, power is; those blest flowers, that dwell
At the rough stream’s calm head, thrive and do well,
But having left their roots, and themselves given
To the stream’s tyrannous rage, alas, are driven
Through mills, rocks, and woods, and at last, almost
Consumed in going, in the sea are lost.
So perish souls, which more choose men’s unjust
Power from God claim’d, than God Himself to trust.
Satire IV
Well; I may now receive, and die. My sin
Indeed is great, but yet I have been in
A purgatory, such as fear’d hell is
A recreation and scant map of this.
My mind, nor with pride’s itch, nor yet hath been
Poison’d with love to see, or to be seen.
I had no suit there, nor new suit to show,
Yet went to court; but as Glaze which did go
To mass in jest, catch’d, was fain to disburse
The hundred marks, which is the statute’s curse,
Before he ’scaped; so ’t pleased my destiny—
Guilty of my sin in going—to think me
As prone to all ill, and of good as forget—
Full, as proud, lustful, and as much in debt,
As vain, as witless, and as false as they
Which dwell in court, for once going that way.
Therefore I suffer’d this; towards me did run
A thing more strange, than on Nile’s slime the sun
E’er bred, or all which into Noah’s ark came;
A thing which would have posed Adam to name;
Stranger than seven antiquaries’ studies,
Than Afric’s monsters, Guiana’s rarities;
Stranger than strangers; one, who for a Dane,
In the Danes’ massacre had sure been slain,
If he had lived then; and without help dies,
When next the ’prentices ’gainst strangers rise;
One, whom the watch, at noon, lets scarce go by;
One, to whom th’ examining justice sure would cry,
“Sir, by your priesthood, tell me what you are.”
His clothes were strange, though coarse, and black, though bare;
Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been
Velvet, but ’twas now—so much ground was seen—
Become tufftaffaty; and our children shall
See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all.
The thing hath travell’d, and, faith, speaks all tongues,
And only knoweth what to all states belongs.
Made of th’ accents and best phrase of all these,
He speaks one language. If strange meats displease,
Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste,
But pedants’ motley tongue, soldiers’ bombast,
Mountebanks’ drug-tongue, nor the terms of law
Are strong enough preparatives, to draw
Me to bear this, yet I must be content
With his tongue, in his tongue, called compliment;
In which he can win widows, and pay scores,
Make men speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,
Outflatter favourites, or outlie either
Jovius, or Surius, or both together.
He names me, and comes to me; I whisper, “God!
How have I sinn’d, that Thy wrath’s furious rod,
This fellow, chooseth me?” He saith, “Sir,
I love your judgment; whom do you prefer,
For the best linguist?” And I sillily
Said, that I thought Calepine’s dictionary.
“Nay, but of men, most sweet Sir;” Beza then,
Some Jesuits, and two reverend men
Of our two Academies I named. Here
He stopped me, and said; were “Nay, your apostles were
Good pretty linguists, and so Panurge was;
Yet a poor gentleman all these may pass
By travel.” Then, as if he would have sold
His tongue, he praised it, and such wonders told,
That I was fain to say, “If you’d lived, sir,
Time enough to have been interpreter
To Babel’s bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.”
He adds, “If of court life you knew the good,
You would leave loneness.” I said, “Not alone
My loneness is; but Spartan’s fashion,
To teach by painting drunkards, doth not taste
Now; Aretine’s pictures have made few chaste;
No more can princes’ courts—though there be few
Better pictures of vice—teach me virtue.”
He, like to a high-stretched lute-string, squeak’d, “O sir,
’Tis sweet to talk of kings.” “At Westminster,”
Said I, “the man that keeps the abbey tombs,
And for his price doth with whoever comes
Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk,
From king to king, and all their kin can walk.
Your ears shall hear nought but kings; your eyes meet
Kings only; the way to it is King’s street.”
He smack’d and cried, “He’s base, mechanic, coarse,
So are all your Englishmen in their discourse.
Are not your Frenchmen neat? Mine, as you see,
I have but one, sir, look—he follows me.”
“Certes they’re neatly clothed. I of this mind am,
Your only wearing is your grogaram.”
“Not so, sir, I have more.” Under this pitch
He would not fly; I chafed him. But as itch
Scratched into smart, and as blunt iron ground
Into an edge, hurts worse; so I, fool, found
Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness,
He to another key his style doth dress,
And asks, “What news?” I tell him of new plays.
He takes my hand, and as a still which stays
A semibreve, ’twixt each drop, he niggardly,
As loth to enrich me, so tells many a lie,
More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stows,
Of trivial household trash. He knows; he knows
When the Queen frown’d, or smiled, and he knows what
A subtle statesman may gather of that;
He knows who loves whom; and who by poison
Hastes to an office’s reversion;
He knows who hath sold his land, and now doth beg
A licence, old iron, boots, shoes, and egg—
Shells to transport; shortly boys shall not play
At span-counter, or blow-point, but shall pay
Toll to some courtier; and wiser than all us,
He knows what lady is not painted. Thus
He with home meats cloys me. I belch, spew, spit,
Look pale and sickly, like a patient, yet
He thrusts on more; and as he’d undertook
To say Gallo-Belgicus without book,
Speaks of all states and deeds that have been since
The Spaniards came, to the loss of Amiens.
Like a big wife, at sight of loathèd meat,
Ready to travail, so I sigh and sweat
To hear this Macaron talk. In vain; for yet,
Either my humour, or his own to fit,
He, like a privileged spy, whom nothing can
Discredit, libels now ’gainst each great man.
He names a price for every office paid;
He saith, our wars thrive ill, because delay’d;
That offices are entail’d, and that there are
Perpetuities of them, lasting as far
As the last day; and that great officers
Do with the pirates share, and Dunkirkers.
Who wastes in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes;
Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats.
I more amazed than Circe’s prisoners, when
They felt themselves turn beasts, felt myself then
Becoming traitor, and methought I saw
One of our giant statutes ope his jaw
To suck me in, for hearing him I found
That as burnt venom lechers do grow sound
By giving others their sores, I might grow
Guilty, and he free; therefore I did show
All signs of loathing; but since I am in,
I must pay mine and my forefathers’ sin
To the last farthing. Therefore to my power
Toughly and stubbornly I bear this cross; but th’ hour
Of mercy now was come; he tries to bring
Me to pay a fine to ’scape his torturing,
And says, “Sir, can you spare me”—I said, “Willingly”;
“Nay, sir, can you spare me a crown”? Thankfully I
Gave it, as ransom; but as fiddlers, still,
Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
Thrust one more jig upon you; so did he
With his long complimental thanks vex me.
But he is gone, thanks to his needy want,
And the prerogative of my crown; scant
His thanks were ended, when I—which did see
All the court fill’d with more strange things than he—
Ran from thence with such, or more haste than one
Who fears more actions doth haste from prison.
At home, in wholesome solitariness,
My piteous soul began the wretchedness
Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance
Like his, who dreamt he saw hell, did advance
Itself o’er me; such men as he saw there,
I saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear
Becomes the guilty, not th’ accuser; then
Shall I, none’s slave, of highborn or raised men
Fear frowns? and, my mistress Truth, betray thee
To huffing, braggart, puffed nobility?
No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
O sun, in all thy journey, vanity
Such as swells the bladder of our court? I
Think he which made your waxen garden, and
Transported it, from Italy, to stand
With us at London, flouts our courtiers, for
Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor
Taste have in them, ours are; and natural
Some of the stocks are, their fruits bastard all.
’Tis ten a-clock and past; all whom the mews,
Baloun, tennis, diet, or the stews
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready that day, in flocks are found
In the presence, and aye—God pardon me—
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them. “For a king
Those hose are,” cry the flatterers; and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell. -
Wants reach all states. Meseems they do as well
At stage as court; all are players; whoe’er looks
—For themselves dare not go—o’er Cheapside books
Shall find their wardrobe’s inventory. Now,
The ladies come. As pirates, which do know
That there came weak ships fraught with cochineal,
The men board them; and praise, as they think, well
Their beauties; they, the men’s wits; both are bought.
Why good wits ne’er wear scarlet gowns, I thought
This cause; These men men’s wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all reds which scarlets dye.
He called her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net;
She fears her drugs ill laid, her hair loose set.
Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe himself at door refine,
As if the presence were a mosque; and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confess, not only mortal
Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate;
And then by Durer’s rules survey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waist to thighs?
So in immaculate clothes, and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety
As a young preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady which owes
Him not so much as good will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests,
So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten cardinals into th’ Inquisition;
And whispers “By Jesu!” so often, that a
Pursuivant would have ravish’d him away
For saying of our Lady’s psalter. But ’tis fit
That they each other plague; they merit it.
But here comes Glorius, that will plague them both,
Who in the other extreme, only doth
Call a rough carelessness good fashion;
Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him, he rusheth in, as if “Arm, arm!”
He came to cry; and though his face be as ill
As theirs, which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe,
Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.
Tired now I leave this place, and, but pleased so
As men from gaols to execution go,
Go through the great chamber—why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?—being among
Those Ascaparts, men big enough to throw
Charing Cross for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth but “Queen’s man,” and fine
Living, barrels of beef, flagons of wine,
I shook like a spied spy. Preachers, which are
Seas of wits and arts, you can, then dare
Drown the sins of this place, for, for me,
Which am but a scant brook, it enough shall be
To wash the stains away. Although I yet
With Machabee’s modesty the known merit
Of my work lessen; yet some wise man shall,
I hope, esteem my writs canonical.
Satire V
Thou shalt not laugh in this leaf, Muse, nor they
Whom any pity warms. He which did lay
Rules to make courtiers—he being understood
May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good?—
Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme
Are wretched or wicked; of these two a theme
Charity and liberty give me. What is he,
Who officers’ rage and suitors’ misery
Can write and jest? If all things be in all
—As I think, since all which were, are, and shall
Be, be made of the same elements,
Each thing each thing implies or represents—
Then man is a world; in which officers
Are the vast ravishing seas, and suitors
Springs, now full, now shallow, now dry, which to
That which drowns them run; these self reasons do
Prove the world a man, in which officers
Are the devouring stomach, and suitors
Th’ excrements which they void. All men are dust;
How much worse are suitors, who to men’s lust
Are made preys? O, worse than dust or worms’ meat,
For they do eat you now, whose selves worms shall eat.
They are the mills which grind you, yet you are
The wind which drives them; and a wasteful war
Is fought against you, and you fight it; they
Adulterate law, and you prepare the way;
Like wittols, th’ issue your own ruin is.
Greatest and fairest empress, know you this?
Alas, no more than Thames’ calm head doth know
Whose meads her arms drown, or whose corn o’erflow.
You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I,
By having leave to serve, am most richly
For service paid, authorized now begin
To know and weed out this enormous sin.
O age of rusty iron!—some better wit
Call it some worse name, if aught equal it—
Th’ iron age that was, when justice was sold—now
Injustice is sold dearer—did allow
All claimed fees and duties. Gamesters, anon,
The money which you sweat and swear for is gone
Into other hands. So controverted lands
’Scape, like Angelica, the striver’s hands.
If law be in the judge’s heart, and he
Have no heart to resist letter, or fee,
Where wilt thou appeal? power of the courts below
Flows from the first main head, and these can throw
Thee, if they suck thee in, to misery,
To fetters, halters. But if the injury
Steel thee to dare complain; alas, thou goest
Against the stream, upwards, when thou art most
Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they,
’Gainst whom thou shouldst complain, will in thy way
Become great seas, o’er which, when thou shalt be
Forced to make golden bridges, thou shalt see
That all thy gold was drown’d in them before.
All things follow their like; only who have, may have more.
Judges are gods; he who made and said them so,
Meant not men should be forced to them to go,
By means of angels. When supplications
We send to God; to Dominations,
Powers, Cherubins, and all heaven’s courts, if we
Should pay fees as here, daily bread would be
Scarce to kings; so ’tis. Would it not anger
A Stoic, a coward, yea a martyr,
To see a pursuivant come in, and call
All his clothes copes, books primers, and all
His plate chalices, and mistake them away,
And lack a fee for coming? Oh! ne’er may
Fair Law’s white reverend name be strumpeted,
To warrant thefts; she is established
Recorder to Destiny on earth, and she
Speaks Fate’s words, and but tells us who must be
Rich, who poor; who in chairs, who in gaols.
She is all fair, but yet hath foul long nails,
With which she scratcheth suitors; in bodies
Of men, so in law, nails are extremities.
So officers stretch to more than law can do,
As our nails reach what no else part comes to.
Why barest thou to yon officer? Fool! hath he
Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee?
Fool! twice, thrice thou hast bought wrong, and now hungrily
Beg’st right, but that dole comes not till these die.
Thou hadst much, and laws Urim and Thummim try
Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper
Enough to clothe all the great Carrick’s pepper.
Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese
Then Hammon if he sold his antiquities.
O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize
Esop’s fables, and make tales prophecies.
Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cozened,
And divest, near drowning, for what vanished.
Upon Mr. Thomas Coryat’s Crudities
Oh, to what height will love of greatness drive
Thy learned spirit, sesqui-superlative?
Venice’ vast lake thou’st seen, and wouldst seek then
Some vaster thing, and found’st a courtesan.
That inland sea having discover’d well,
A cellar-gulf, where one might sail to hell
From Heidelberg, thou longed’st to see; and thou
This book, greater than all, producest now.
Infinite work! which doth so far extend,
That none can study it to any end.
’Tis no one thing; it is not fruit nor root,
Nor poorly limited with head or foot.
If man be therefore man, because he can
Reason and laugh, thy book doth half make man.
One-half being made, thy modesty was such,
That thou on th’ other half wouldst never touch.
When wilt thou be at full, great lunatic?
Not till thou exceed the world? canst thou be like
A prosperous nose-born wen, which sometimes grows
To be far greater than the mother-nose?
Go then, and as to thee, when thou didst go,
Münster did towns, and Gesner authors show,
Mount now to Gallo-Belgicus; appear
As deep a statesman, as a gazetteer.
Homely and familiarly, when thou comest back,
Talk of Will Conqueror, and Prester Jack.
Go, bashful man, lest here thou blush to look
Upon the progress of thy glorious book,
To which both Indies sacrifices send.
The West sent gold, which thou didst freely spend,
Meaning to see ’t no more, upon the press.
The East sends hither her deliciousness,
And thy leaves must embrace what comes from thence,
The myrrh, the pepper, and the frankincense.
This magnifies thy leaves; but if they stoop
To neighbour wares, when merchants do unhoop
Voluminous barrels; if thy leaves do then
Convey these wares in parcels unto men;
If for vast tons of currants and of figs,
Of medicinal and aromatic twigs,
Thy leaves a better method do provide,
Divide to pounds, and ounces subdivide;
If they stoop lower yet, and vent our wares,
Home-manufactures, to thick popular fairs;
If omni-pregnant there upon warm stalls
They hatch all wares for which the buyer calls;
Then thus thy leaves we justly may commend,
That they all kind of matter comprehend.
Thus thou, by means which th’ ancients never took,
A Pandect makest, and universal book.
The bravest heroës, for public good,
Scattered in divers lands their limbs and blood;
Worst malefactors, to whom men are prize,
Do public good, cut in anatomies;
So will thy book in pieces for a lord,
Which casts at Portescue’s, and all the board
Provide whole books; each leaf enough will be
For friends to pass time, and keep company.
Can all carouse up thee? no, thou must fit
Measures and fill out for the half-pint wit.
Some shall wrap pills, and save a friend’s life so;
Some shall stop muskets, and so kill a foe.
Thou shalt not ease the critics of next age
So much, as once their hunger to assuage;
Nor shall wit-pirates hope to find thee lie
All in one bottom, in one library.
Some leaves may paste strings there in other books,
And so one may, which on another looks,
Pilfer, alas, a little wit from you;
But hardly much; and yet I think this true;
As Sibyl’s was, your book is mystical,
For every piece is as much worth as all.
Therefore mine impotency I confess;
The healths, which my brain bears, must be far less;
Thy giant wit o’erthrows me; I am gone;
And rather than read all, I would read none.