SCENE II.

_Venice.--The Senate-house._

_Enter_ AMAGO _the_ Duke, _the_ Watch, _and_ Senators.

_Duke._ I am amazèd at this maze of wonder, Wherein no thread or clue presents itself, To wind us from the obscure passages. What says my nephew?

_Watch._ Still resolute, my lord, and doth confess the theft.

_Duke._ We'll use him like a felon; cut him off, For fear he do pollute our sounder parts. Yet why should he steal, That is a loaden vine? Riches to him Were adding sands into the Libyan shore, 10 Or far less charity. What say the other prisoners?

_Watch._ Like men, my lord, fit for the other world, They take't upon their death, they slew your nephew.

_Duke._ And he is yet alive; keep them asunder; We may scent out the wile.

_Enter_ CLARIDIANA _and_ ROGERO _bound; with a_ Friar _and_ Officers.

_Rog._ My friend, is it the rigour of the law I should be tied thus hard, I'll undergo it; If not, prithee then slacken. Yet I have deserved it; This murder lies heavy on my conscience.

_Cla._ Wedlock, ay, here's my wedlock! O whore, whore, whore! 21

_Friar._ O, sir, be qualified.

_Cla._ Sir,[314] I am to die a dog's death, and will snarl a little at the old signor. You are only a parenthesis, which I will leave out of my execrations; but first to our _quondam_ wives, that makes us cry our vowels in red capital letters, "I[315] and U are cuckolds!" O may bastard-bearing, with the pangs of childbirth, be doubled to 'em![316] May they have ever twins, and be three week in travail between! May they be so rivell'd[317] with painting by that time they are thirty, that it may be held a work of condign merit but to look upon 'em! May they live to ride in triumph in a dung-cart, and be brown'd with all the odious ceremonies belonging to 't! may the cucking-stool be their recreation, and a dungeon their dying-chamber! May they have nine lives like a cat, to endure this and more! May they be burnt for witches of a sudden! And lastly, may the opinion of philosophers prove true, that women have no souls! 39

_Enter_ THAIS _and_ ABIGAIL.

_Tha._ What, husband--at your prayers so seriously?

_Cla._ Yes, a few orisons. Friar, thou that stand'st between the soul of men and the devil, keep these female spirits away, or I will renounce my faith else.

_Abi._ O husband, I little thought to see you in this taking!

_Rog._ O whore, I little thought to see you in this taking! I am governor of this castle of cornets; my grave will be stumbled at, thou adult'rate whore! I might have lived like a merchant.

_Abi._ So you may still, husband. 50

_Rog._ Peace! thou art very quick with me.

_Abi._ Ay, by my faith, and so I am, husband; belike you know I am with child.

_Rog._ A bastard, a bastard, a bastard! I might have lived like a gentleman, and now I must die like a hanger on, show tricks upon a wooden horse, and run through an alphabet of scurvy faces! Do not expect a good look from me.

_Abi._ O me unfortunate! 59

_Cla._ O to think, whilst we are singing the last hymn, and ready to be turn'd off, some new tune is inventing by some metremonger, to a scurvy ballad of our death! Again, at our funeral sermons, to have the divine divide his text into fair branches! O, flesh and blood cannot endure it! Yet I will take it patiently like a grave man. Hangman, tie not my halter of a true lover's knot: I burst it if thou dost.

_Tha._ Husband, I do beseech you on my knees, I may but speak with you. I'll win your pardon, Or with tears, like Niobe, bedew a-- 70

_Cla._ Hold thy water, crocodile, and say I am bound to do thee no harm; were I free, yet I could not be looser than thou; for thou art a whore! Agamemnon's daughter, that was sacrificed for a good wind, felt but a blast of the torments thou should'st endure; I'd make thee swound oftener than that fellow that by his continual practice hopes to become drum-major. What sayst thou to tickling to death with bodkins? But thou hast laugh'd too much at me already, whore! Justice, O duke! and let me not hang in suspense. 80

_Abi._ Husband, I'll nail me to the earth, but I'll win your pardon. My jewels, jointure, all I have shall fly; Apparel, bedding, I'll not leave a rug, So you may come off fairly.

_Cla._ I'll come off fairly: thou[318] beg my pardon! I had rather Chirurgeons' Hall should beg my dead body for an anatomy[319] than thou beg my life. Justice, O duke! and let us die!

_Duke._ Signior, think, and dally not with heaven, 90 But freely tell us, did you do the murder?

_Rog._ I have confess'd it to my ghostly father, And done the sacrament of penance for it. What would your highness more?

_Cla._ The like have I; what would your highness more? And here before you all take't o' my death.

_Duke._ In God's name, then, on to the death with them. For the poor widows that you leave behind, Though by the law their goods are all confiscate, Yet we'll be their good lord, and give 'em them. 100

_Cla._ O, hell of hells! Why did not we hire some villain to fire our houses?

_Rog._ I thought not of that; my mind was altogether of the gallows.

_Cla._ May the wealth I leave behind me help to damn her! And as the cursèd fate of courtezan, What she gleans with her traded art, May one, as a most due plague, cheat from [her] In the last dotage of her tirèd lust, And leave her an unpitied age of woe! 110

_Rog._ Amen, amen!

_Watch._ I never heard men pray more fervently.

_Rog._ O that a man had the instinct of a lion! He knows when the lioness plays false to him.[320] But these solaces, these women, they bring man to grey hairs before he be thirty; yet they cast out such mists of flattery from their breath, that a man's lost again. Sure I fell into my marriage-bed drunk, like the leopard;[321] well, with sober eyes, would I had avoided it! Come, grave, and hide me from my blasted fame. O that thou couldst as well conceal my shame!

[_Exeunt ambo, with_ Officers.

_Tha._ Your pardon and your favour, gracious duke, 120

[_Women kneel._

At once we do implore, that have so long Deceived your royal expectation, Assurèd that the comic knitting up Will move your spleen unto the proper use Of mirth, your natural inclination; And wipe away the watery-coloured anger From your enforcèd cheek. Fair lord, beguile Them and your saf't[322] with a pleasing smile. 130

_Duke._ Now by my life I do: fair ladies, rise; I ne'er did purpose any other end To them and these designs. I was inform'd Of some notorious error as I sat in judgment; And--do you hear?--these night works require A cat's eyes to impierce dejected darkness. Call back the prisoners.

_Re-enter_ CLARIDIANA _and_ ROGERO, _with_ Officers.

_Cla._ Now what other troubled news, that we must back thus? Has any senator begg'd my pardon upon my wife's prostitution to him? 140

_Rog._ What a spite's this; I had kept in my breath of purpose, thinking to go away the quieter, and must we now back?

_Duke._ Since you are to die, we'll give you winding-sheets, Wherein you shall be shrouded alive, By which we wind out all these miseries. Signor Rogero, bestow a while your eye, And read here of your true wife's chastity.

[_Gives him a letter._

_Rog._ Chastity? I will sooner expect a Jesuit's recantation, 150 Or the great Turk's conversion, than her chastity. Pardon, my liege; I will not trust mine eyes: Women and devils will deceive the wise!

_Duke._ The like, sir, is apparent on your side.

[_To_ CLARIDIANA.

_Cla._ Who? my wife?--chaste? Has your grace your sense? I'll sooner believe a conjuror may say his prayers with zeal, than her honesty. Had she been an hermaphrodite, I would scarce have given credit to you. Let him that hath drunk love-drugs trust a woman. By Heaven, I think the air is not more common! 160

_Duke._ Then we impose a strict command upon you. On your allegiance read what there is writ.

_Cla._ A writ of error, on my life, my liege!

_Duke._ You'll find it so, I fear.

_Cla._ What have we here--the Art of Brachygraphy?

[_Looks on the letter._

_Tha._ He's stung already: As if his eyes were turn'd on Perseus' shield, Their motion's fix'd, like to the pool of Styx.

_Abi._ Yonder's our flames; and from the hollow arches Of his quick eyes comes comet-trains of fire, 170 Bursting like hidden furies from their caves.

_Cla._[323] [_reading._] _Yours till he sleep the sleep of all the world, Rogero._

_Rog._ Marry, and that lethargy seize you! Read again.

[_Reads again._

_Cla._ _Thy servant so made by his stars, Rogero._ A fire on your wand'ring stars, Rogero!

_Rog._ Satan, why hast thou tempted my wife?

[_To_ CLARIDIANA.

_Cla._ Peace, seducer; I am branded in the forehead with your star-mark. May the stars drop upon thee, and with their sulphur vapours choke thee, ere thou come at the gallows! 181

_Rog._ Stretch not my patience, Mahomet.

_Cla._ Termagant,[324] that will stretch thy patience!

_Rog._ Had I known this I would have poison'd thee in the chalice This morning, when we received the sacrament.[325]

_Cla._ Slave, know'st thou this? [_showing the ring_] 'tis an appendix to the letter; But the greater temptation is hidden within. I will scour thy gorge like a hawk: Thou shalt swallow thine own stone in this letter, Seal'd and delivered in the presence of----

[_They bustle._

_Duke._ Keep them asunder; list to us, we command--

_Cla._ O violent villain! is not thy hand hereto, 192 And writ in blood to show thy raging lust?

_Tha._ Spice of a new halter, when you go a-ranging thus like devils, would you might burn[326] for't as they do!

_Rog._ Thus 'tis to lie with another man's wife: he shall be sure to hear on't again. But we are friends, sweet duck.

[_Kisses_ THAIS.

And this shall be my maxim all my life:-- Man never happy is till in a wife. 200

_Cla._ Here sink our hate lower than any whirlpool; And this chaste kiss I give thee for thy care,

[_Kisses_ ABIGAIL.

Thou[327] fame of women, full as wise as fair.

_Duke._ You have saved us a labour in your love. But, gentlemen, why stood you so prepost'rously? Would you have headlong run to infamy-- In so defamed a death?

_Rog._ O, my liege, I had rather roar to death with Phalaris' bull, than, Darius-like, to have one of my wings extend to Atlas, the other to Europe. 210 What is a cuckold, learn of me: Few can tell his pedigree, Nor his subtile nature conster. Born a man but dies a monster: Yet great antiquaries say, They spring from out Methusala, Who after Noah's flood was found To have his crest with branches crown'd. God in Eden's happy shade This same [wondrous] creature made. 220 Then to cut off all mistaking, Cuckolds are of women's making; From whose snares, good Lord deliver us!

_Cla._ Amen, amen! Before I would prove a cuckold, I would endure a winter's pilgrimage in the frozen zone--go stark naked through Muscovia, where the climate is nine degrees colder than ice. And thus much to all married men:-- Now I see great reason why 230 Love should marry jealousy: Since man's best of life is fame, He hath need preserve the same; When 'tis in a woman's keeping, Let not Argus' eyes be sleeping. The box[328] unto Pandora given By the better powers of heaven, That contains pure chastity, And each virgin sovereignty, Wantonly she oped and lost, 240 Gift whereof a god might boast. Therefore, shouldst thou Diana wed, Yet be jealous of her bed.

_Duke._ Night,[329] like a masque, is enter'd heaven's great hall, With thousand torches ushering the way. To Risus will we consecrate this evening; Like[330] Mycerinus cheating th' oracle, We'll make this night the day. Fair joys befall Us and our actions. Are you pleasèd all?

[_Exeunt omnes._

[314] This scene is printed throughout as verse in old eds.

[315] "I and U"--so the editor of 1820. Old eds. "IOV."

[316] Old eds. "him."

[317] Wrinkled.

[318] Old eds. "then."

[319] _i.e._, subject for dissection.

[320] Topsel in his account of the lion writes:--"Their sight and their smelling are most excellent, for they sleep with their eyes open, and because of the brightness of their eyes they cannot endure the light of fire, for fire and fire cannot agree: also their smelling (for which cause they are called _Odorati_) is very eminent, for _if the lioness have committed adultery with the leopard the male discovereth it by the sense of his nose_."--_History of Fourfooted Beasts_, ed. 1658, p. 360.

[321] Topsel has some remarks on the fondness of leopards for wine.

[322] Quy. "Them, and _yourself too_"?

[323] Not marked in old eds.

[324] Often mentioned in company with Mahomet and regarded as a Saracen deity. In the miracle-plays he was introduced as a noisy ranter, like Herod.

[325] In the closing chapter of _Vulgar Errors_, Sir Thomas Browne writes:--"I hope it is not true, and some indeed have probably denied, what is recorded of the monk who poisoned Henry the emperor in a draught of the Holy Eucharist. 'Twas a scandalous wound unto the Christian religion, and I hope all Pagans will forgive it, when they shall read that a Christian was poisoned in a cup of Christ and received his bane in a draught of his salvation."

[326] An allusion to _lues venerea_.

[327] Old eds. "That."

[328] The waggish old printers read "The pox is unto panders given!" The line (which was properly restored by the editor of 1820) must have been purposely misprinted.

[329] "Night ... the way."--These lines are found in Barkstead's _Myrrha_, 1607. See Introduction to vol. i.

[330] Old eds. "Like _Missermis_ cheating of the _brack_." The editor of 1820 reads "Like Missermis cheating of the brach," and to the word _brach_ appends a note, "_i.e._, the bitch;" but who was Missermis and what the bitch? Every reader of Herodotus (and every reader of Matthew Arnold) will remember how Mycerinus cheated the oracle by turning the day into the night. Six thousand years ago the torches flared in Mycerinus' palace; and I saw his bones this afternoon at Bloomsbury!

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PYGMALION'S IMAGE, AND CERTAIN SATIRES.

_The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image. And Certaine Satyres. At London, Printed for Edmond Matts, & are to be sold at the signe of the hand and Plough in Fleet streete._ 1598. 8vo.

_TO THE WORLD'S MIGHTY MONARCH_,

GOOD OPINION.

Sole regent of affection, perpetual ruler of judgment, most famous justice of censures, only giver of honour, great procurer of advancement, the world's chief balance, the all of all, and all in all, by whom all things are that that they are, I humbly offer this my poem.

Thou soul of pleasure, honour's only substance, Great arbitrator, umpire of the earth, Whom fleshly epicures call virtue's essence; Thou moving orator, whose powerful breath Sways all men's judgment--Great Opinion, Vouchsafe to gild my imperfection.

If thou but deign to grace my blushing style, And crown my muse with good opinion; If thou vouchsafe with gracious eye to smile Upon my young new-born invention, I'll sing a hymn in honour of thy name And add some trophy to enlarge thy fame.

But if thou wilt not with thy deity Shade and inmask the errors of my pen, Protect an orphan poet's infancy, I will disclose, that all the world shall ken How partial thou art in honours giving, Crowning the shade, the substance' praise depriving.

W. K.[331]

[331] W. K[insayder].--See _Introduction_, vol. i.

_THE ARGUMENT OF THE POEM._

Pygmalion, whose chaste mind all the beauties in Cyprus could not ensnare, yet, at the length having carved in ivory an excellent proportion of a beauteous woman, was so deeply enamoured on his own workmanship that he would oftentimes lay the image in bed with him, and fondly use such petitions and dalliance as if it had been a breathing creature. But in the end, finding his fond dotage, and yet persevering in his ardent affection, made his devout prayers to Venus, that she would vouchsafe to inspire life into his love, and then join them both together in marriage. Whereupon Venus, graciously condescending to his earnest suit, the maid (by the power of her deity) was metamorphosed into a living woman. And after, Pygmalion (being in Cyprus) begat a son of her, which was called Paphus; whereupon that island Cyprus, in honour of Venus, was after, and is now, called by the inhabitants, Paphos.[332]

[332] Paphos was the name of a town in Cyprus (celebrated for its temple of Aphrodite)--not of the island itself.

_TO HIS MISTRESS._

My wanton muse lasciviously doth sing Of sportive love, of lovely dallying. O beauteous angel! deign thou to infuse A sprightly wit into my dullèd muse. I invocate none other saint but thee, To grace the first blooms of my poesy. Thy favours, like Promethean sacred fire, In dead and dull conceit can life inspire; Or, like that rare and rich elixir stone, Can turn to gold leaden invention. Be gracious then, and deign to show in me The mighty power of thy deity; And as thou read'st (fair) take compassion-- Force me not envy my Pygmalion: Then when thy kindness grants me such sweet bliss, I'll gladly write thy Metamorphosis.

PYGMALION.

Pygmalion, whose high love-hating mind Disdain'd to yield servile affection Or amorous suit to any woman-kind, Knowing their wants and men's perfection; Yet love at length forced him to know his fate, And love the shade whose substance he did hate.

For having wrought in purest ivory So fair an image of a woman's feature,[333] That never yet proudest mortality Could show so rare and beauteous a creature 10 (Unless my mistress' all-excelling face, Which gives to beauty beauty's only grace)--

He was amazèd at the wondrous rareness Of his own workmanship's perfection. He thought that Nature ne'er produced such fairness, In which all beauties have their mansion; And, thus admiring, was enamourèd On that fair image himself portrayèd.

And naked as it stood before his eyes, Imperious Love declares his deity: 20 O what alluring beauties he descries In each part of his fair imagery! Her nakedness each beauteous shape contains; All beauty in her nakedness remains.

He thought he saw the blood run through the vein And leap, and swell with all alluring means; Then fears he is deceived, and then again He thinks he seeth the brightness of the beams Which shoot from out the fairness of her eye; At which he stands as in an ecstasy. 30

Her amber-colourèd, her shining hair, Makes him protest the sun hath spread her head With golden beams, to make her far more fair; But when her cheeks his amorous thoughts have fed, Then he exclaims, "Such red and so pure white, Did never bless the eye of mortal sight!"

Then views her lips, no lips did seem so fair In his conceit, through which he thinks doth fly So sweet a breath, that doth perfume the air; Then next her dimpled chin he doth descry, 40 And views and wonders, and yet views her still,-- Love's eyes in viewing never have their fill.

Her breasts like polish'd ivory appear, Whose modest mount do bless admiring eye, And makes him wish for such a pillowbear.[334] Thus fond Pygmalion striveth to descry Each beauteous part, not letting over-slip One parcel of his curious workmanship;

Until his eye descended so far down That it descrièd Love's pavilion, 50 Where Cupid doth enjoy his only crown, And Venus hath her chiefest mansion: There would he wink, and winking look again, Both eyes and thoughts would gladly there remain.

Who ever saw the subtile city-dame In sacred church, when her pure thoughts should pray, Peer through her fingers, so to hide her shame, When that her eye, her mind would fain bewray: So would he view and wink, and view again; A chaster thought could not his eyes retain. 60

He wondered that she blush'd not when his eye Saluted those same parts of secresy: Conceiting not it was imagery That kindly yielded that large liberty. O that my mistress were an image too, That I might blameless her perfections view!

But when the fair proportion of her thigh Began appear, "O Ovid!" would he cry, "Did e'en Corinna show such ivory When she appeared in Venus livery!" 70 And thus enamour'd dotes on his own art Which he did work, to work his pleasing smart.

And fondly doting, oft he kiss'd her lip; Oft would he dally with her ivory breasts; No wanton love-trick would he over-slip, But still observ'd all amorous beheasts, Whereby he thought he might procure the love Of his dull image, which no plaints could move.

Look how the peevish[335] Papists crouch and kneel To some dumb idol with their offering, 80 As if a senseless carvèd stone could feel The ardour of his bootless chattering, So fond he was, and earnest in his suit To his remorseless image, dumb and mute.

He oft doth wish his soul might part in sunder So that one half in her had residence; Oft he exclaims, "O beauty's only wonder! Sweet model of delight, fair excellence, Be gracious unto him that formèd thee, Compassionate his true love's ardency." 90

She with her silence seems to grant his suit; Then he all jocund, like a wanton lover, With amorous embracements doth salute Her slender waist, presuming to discover The vale of Love, where Cupid doth delight To sport and dally all the sable night.

His eyes her eyes kindly encounterèd; His breast her breast oft joinèd close unto; His arms' embracements oft she sufferèd; Hands, arms, eyes, tongue, lips, and all parts did woo; 100 His thigh with hers, his knee play'd with her knee,-- A happy consort when all parts agree!

But when he saw, poor soul, he was deceivèd (Yet scarce he could believe his sense had failed[336]), Yet when he found all hope from him bereavèd, And saw how fondly all his thoughts had erred, Then did he like to poor Ixion seem, That clipt a cloud instead of Heaven's Queen.

I oft have smiled to see the foolery Of some sweet youths, who seriously protest 110 That love respects not actual luxury, But only joys to dally, sport, and jest; Love is a child, contented with a toy; A busk-point[337] or some favour stills the boy.

Mark my Pygmalion, whose affections' ardour May be a mirror to posterity; Yet viewing, touching, kissing (common favour), Could never satiate his love's ardency: And therefore, ladies, think that they ne'er love you, Who do not unto more than kissing move you. 120

For Pygmalion kiss'd, view'd, and embraced, And yet exclaims, "Why were these women made, O sacred gods, and with such beauties graced! Have they not power as well to cool and shade, As for to heat men's hearts? Or is there none, Or are they all, like mine, relentless stone?"

With that he takes her in his loving arms, And down within a down-bed softly laid her; Then on his knees he all his senses charms, To invocate sweet Venus for to raise her 130 To wishèd life, and to infuse some breath To that which, dead, yet gave a life to death.

"Thou sacred queen of sportive dallying" (Thus he begins), "Love's only emperess, Whose kingdom rests in wanton revelling, Let me beseech thee show thy powerfulness In changing stone to flesh! Make her relent, And kindly yield to thy sweet blandishment.

"O gracious goodess,[338] take compassion; Instil into her some celestial fire, 140 That she may equalise affection, And have a mutual love, and love's desire! Thou know'st the force of love, then pity me-- Compassionate my true love's ardency."

Thus having said, he riseth from the floor As if his soul divinèd him good fortune, Hoping his prayers to pity moved some power; For all his thoughts did all good luck importune; And therefore straight he strips him naked quite, That in the bed he might have more delight. 150

Then thus, "Sweet sheets," he says, "which now do cover The idol of my soul, the fairest one That ever loved, or had an amorous lover-- Earth's only model of perfection-- Sweet happy sheets, deign for to take me in, That I my hopes and longing thoughts may win!"

With that his nimble limbs do kiss the sheets, And now he bows him for to lay him down; And now each part with her fair parts do meet, Now doth he hope for to enjoy love's crown; 160 Now do they dally, kiss, embrace together, Like Leda's twins at sight of fairest weather.

Yet all's conceit--but shadow of that bliss Which now my muse strives sweetly to display In this my wondrous Metamorphosis. Deign to believe me--now I sadly[339] say-- The stony substance of his image feature Was straight transform'd into a living creature!

For when his hands her fair-form'd limbs had felt, And that his arms her naked waist embraced, 170 Each part like wax before the sun did melt, And now, O now, he finds how he is graced By his own work! Tut! women will relent When as they find such moving blandishment.

Do but conceive a mother's passing gladness (After that death her only son had seized, And overwhelm'd her soul with endless sadness) When that she sees him 'gin for to be raised From out his deadly swoun to life again: Such joy Pygmalion feels in every vein. 180

And yet he fears he doth but dreaming find So rich content and such celestial bliss; Yet when he proves and finds her wondrous kind, Yielding soft touch for touch, sweet kiss for kiss, He's well assured no fair imagery Could yield such pleasing love's felicity.

O wonder not to hear me thus relate, And say to flesh transformèd was a stone! Had I my love in such a wishèd state As was afforded to Pygmalion, 190 Though flinty-hard, of her you soon should see As strange a transformation wrought by me.

And now methinks some wanton itching ear, With lustful thoughts and ill attention, Lists to my muse, expecting for to hear The amorous description of that action Which Venus seeks, and ever doth require, When fitness grants a place to please desire.

Let him conceit but what himself would do When that he had obtainèd such a favour 200 Of her to whom his thoughts were bound unto, If she, in recompence of his love's labour, Would deign to let one pair of sheets contain The willing bodies of those loving twain.

Could he, O could he! when that each to either Did yield kind kissing and more kind embracing-- Could he when that they felt and clipp'd together, And might enjoy the life of dallying-- Could he abstain midst such a wanton sporting, From doing that which is not fit reporting? 210

What would he do when that her softest skin Saluted his with a delightful kiss; When all things fit for love's sweet pleasuring Invited him to reap a lover's bliss? What he would do, the self-same action Was not neglected by Pygmalion.

For when he found that life had took his seat Within the breast of his kind beauteous love-- When that he found that warmth and wishèd heat Which might a saint and coldest spirit move-- 220 Then arms, eyes, hands, tongue, lips, and wanton thigh, Were willing agents in love's luxury!

Who knows not what ensues? O pardon me! Ye gaping ears that swallow up my lines, Expect no more: peace, idle poesy, Be not obscene though wanton in thy rhymes; And, chaster thoughts, pardon if I do trip, Or if some loose lines from my pen do slip.

Let this suffice, that that same happy night, So gracious were the gods of marriage, 230 Midst all their pleasing and long-wish'd delight Paphus was got; of whom in after age Cy[p]rus was Paphos call'd, and evermore Those islanders do Venus' name adore.

_The_ AUTHOR _in praise of his precedent Poem._

Now, Rufus, by old Glebron's fearful mace, Hath not my muse deserved a worthy place? Come, come, Luxurio, crown my head with bays, Which, like a Paphian, wantonly displays The Salaminian[340] titillations, Which tickle up our lewd Priapians. Is not my pen complete? Are not my lines Right in the swaggering humour of these times? O sing pæana to my learnèd muse: _Io bis dicite!_ Wilt thou refuse? 10 Do not I put my mistress in before, And piteously her gracious aid implore? Do not I flatter, call her wondrous fair, Virtuous, divine, most debonair? Hath not my goddess, in the vaunt-guard[341] place, The leading of my lines their plumes to grace? And then ensues my stanzas, like odd bands Of voluntaries[342] and mercenarians, Which, like soldados[343] of our warlike age, March rich bedight in warlike equipage, 20 Glittering in dawbèd laced accoustrements,[344] And pleasing suits of love's habiliments; Yet puffy as Dutch hose they are within, Faint and white-liver'd, as our gallants bin; Patch'd like a beggar's cloak, and run as sweet As doth a tumbril[345] in the pavèd street. And in the end (the end of love, I wot), Pygmalion hath a jolly boy begot. So Labeo did complain his love was stone, Obdurate, flinty, so relentless none; 30 Yet Lynceus knows that in the end of this He wrought as strange a metamorphosis. Ends not my poem then surpassing ill? Come, come, Augustus, crown my laureate quill. Now, by the whips of epigrammatists, I'll not be lasht for my dissembling shifts; And therefore I use Popelings'[346] discipline, Lay ope my faults to Mastigophoros' eyne; Censure my self, 'fore others me deride And scoff at me, as if I had denied 40 Or thought my poem good, when that I see My lines are froth, my stanzas sapless be. Thus having rail'd against myself a while, I'll snarl at those which do the world beguile With maskèd shows. Ye changing Proteans, list, And tremble at a barking satirist.

[333] Shape.

[334] Pillowcase.--An old word used by Chaucer in the prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_.

[335] Idle, silly.

[336] Quy. "swerved" (an imperfect rhyme to "erred")?

[337] See note, vol. i. p. 9.

[338] Old eds. "Gods."

[339] "Sadly"--in sober truth.

[340] Salamis,--a town of Cyprus.

[341] Van-guard.

[342] Volunteers.

[343] Soldiers. (_Span._)

[344] See note, vol. i. p. 24.

[345] Dung-cart.

[346] Contemptuous term for Papists.

SATIRES.

SATIRE I.

_Quoedam videntur, et non sunt._

I cannot show in strange proportion, Changing my hue like a cameleon; But you all-canning[347] wits, hold water out, Ye vizarded-bifronted-Janian rout. Tell me, brown Ruscus, hast thou Gyges' ring, That thou presumest as if thou wert unseen? If not, why in thy wits half capreal Lett'st thou a superscribèd letter fall? And from thyself unto thyself dost send, And in the same thyself thyself commend? 10 For shame! leave running to some satrapas, Leave glavering[348] on him in the peopled press; Holding him on as he through Paul's doth walk, With nods and legs[349] and odd superfluous talk; Making men think thee gracious in his sight, When he esteems thee but a parasite. For shame! unmask; leave for to cloke intent, And show thou art vain-glorious, impudent. Come, Briscus, by the soul of compliment, I'll not endure that with thine instrument 20 (Thy gambo-viol placed betwixt thy thighs, Wherein the best part of thy courtship lies) Thou entertain the time, thy mistress by. Come, now let's hear thy mounting Mercury. What! mum? Give him his fiddle once again, Or he's more mute than a Pythagoran. But oh! the absolute Castilio,[350]-- He that can all the points of courtship show; He that can trot a courser, break a rush, And arm'd in proof, dare dure a straw's strong push; 30 He, who on his glorious scutcheon Can quaintly show wit's new invention, Advancing forth some thirsty Tantalus, Or else the vulture on Prometheus, With some short motto of a dozen lines; He that can purpose it in dainty rhymes, Can set his face, and with his eye can speak, Can dally with his mistress' dangling feak,[351] And wish that he were it, to kiss her eye And flare about her beauty's deity:-- 40 Tut! he is famous for his revelling, For fine set speeches, and for sonnetting; He scorns the viol and the scraping stick, And yet's but broker of another's wit. Certes, if all things were well known and view'd, He doth but champ that which another chew'd. Come, come, Castilion, skim thy posset curd, Show thy queer substance, worthless, most absurd. Take ceremonious compliment from thee! Alas! I see Castilio's beggary. 50 O if Democritus were now alive, How he would laugh to see this devil thrive! And by an holy semblance blear men's eyes, When he intends some damnèd villanies. Ixion makes fair weather unto Jove, That he might make foul work with his fair love; And is right sober in his outward semblance, Demure, and modest in his countenance; Applies himself to great Saturnus' son, Till Saturn's daughter yields his motion. 60 Night-shining Phoebe knows what was begat-- A monstrous Centaur illegitimate. Who would not chuck to see such pleasing sport-- To see such troops of gallants still resort Unto Cornuto's shop? What other cause But chaste Brownetta,[352] Sporo thither draws? Who now so long hath praised the chough's white bill, That he hath left her ne'er a flying quill: His meaning gain, though outward semblance love, So like a crabfish Sporo still doth move. 70 Laugh, laugh, to see the world, Democritus, Cry like that strange transformèd Tereus.[353] Now Sorbo, with a feignèd gravity, Doth fish for honour and high dignity. Nothing within, nor yet without, but beard, Which thrice he strokes, before I ever heard One wise grave word to bless my listening ear. But mark how Good Opinion doth him rear: See, he's in office, on his foot-cloth placed; Now each man caps, and strives for to be graced 80 With some rude nod of his majestic head, Which all do wish in limbo harrièd. But O I grieve that good men deign to be Slaves unto him that's slave to villany! Now Sorbo swells with self-conceited sense, Thinking that men do yield this reverence Unto his virtues: fond credulity! Ass, take[354] off Isis, no man honours thee. Great Tubrio's feather gallantly doth wave, Full twenty falls[355] doth make him wondrous brave. 90 O golden jerkin! royal arming coat! Like ship on sea, he on the land doth float. He's gone, he's shipp'd, his resolution Pricks him[356] (by Heaven) to this action. The pox it doth! Not long since did I view The man betake him to a common stew; And there (I wis), like no quaint-stomach'd man, Eats up his arms; and war's munition, His waving plume, falls in the broker's chest. Fie! that his ostrich stomach should disgest 100 His ostrich feather, eat up Venice lace! Thou[357] that didst fear to eat poor-johns a space, Lie close, ye slave, at beastly luxury! Melt and consume in pleasure's surquedry![358] But now, thou that didst march with Spanish pike before, Come with French pox out of that brothel door. The fleet's return'd. What news from Rodio?[359] "Hot service, by the Lord," cries Tubrio. Why dost thou halt? "Why, six times through each thigh Push'd with the pike of the hot enemy! 110 Hot service, hot, the Spaniard is a man; I say no more, and as a gentleman I served in his face. Farewell. Adieu." Welcome from Netherland, from steaming stew. Ass to thy crib, doff that huge lion's skin, Or else the owl will hoot and drive thee in. For shame, for shame! lewd-living Tubrio, Presume not troop among that gallant crew Of true heroic spirits; come, uncase, Show us the true form of Dametas'[360] face. 120 Hence, hence, ye slave! dissemble not thy state, But henceforth be a turncoat, runagate. O hold my sides! that I may break my spleen With laughter at the shadows I have seen! Yet I can bear with Curio's nimble feet, Saluting me with capers in the street, Although in open view and people's face, He fronts me with some spruce, neat, cinquepace;[361] Or Tullus, though, whene'er he me espies, Straight with loud mouth "A bandy, sir,"[362] he cries; 130 Or Robrus, who, addict to nimble fence, Still greets me with stockado's[363] violence. These I do bear, because I too well know They are the same they seem in outward show. But all confusion sever from mine eye This Janian bifront, Hypocrisy.

[347] _i.e._, all-_kenning_, all-knowing. Marston uses the word two or three times.

[348] Fawning.

[349] Bows.

[350] A mirror of refinement, a gallant of Castilian breeding. But there is also a reference to Baldessar Castiglione, author of the celebrated treatise _Il Cortese_. So in Guilpin's _Skialeheia_, 1598, the name "Balthazer" is applied to a spruce courtier:-- "Come to the court, and _Balthazer_ affords Fountains of holy and rose-water words. Hast thou need of him and wouldst find him kind? Nay, then, go by, the gentleman is blind." Sig. C. 4.

[351] Lock of hair?

[352] See note, vol. ii. p. 60.

[353] Who was transformed into the hoopoe. Old ed. "Tyreus."

[354] Old ed. "talke;" but the correction is made in the author's list of errata.

[355] Falling bands, which lay upon the shoulders.

[356] "Him"--omitted in old ed., but supplied in the author's list of errata.

[357] _i.e._, you who feared a short while ago ("a space") that you would have to dine off stock-fish.

[358] Wantonness.

[359] "Is the reference to Essex's expedition to Cadiz in 1596? _Rodao_ is the Italian form of a Portuguese town in the province of Beira."--_Grosart._

[360] The foolish shepherd in Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_.

[361] The name of a dance.

[362] Tullus can talk of nothing but tennis.

[363] A thrust in fencing.

SATIRE II.

_Quædam sunt, et non videntur._

I, that even now lisp'd like an amorist, Am turn'd into a snaphance[364] satirist. O title, which my judgment doth adore! But I, dull-sprited fat Boeotian[365] boor, Do far off honour that censorian seat; But if I could in milk-white robes entreat Plebeians' favour, I would show to be _Tribunus plebis_, 'gainst the villany Of these same Proteans, whose hypocrisy Doth still abuse our fond credulity. 10 But since myself am not immaculate, But many spots my mind doth vitiate, I'll leave the white robe and the biting rhymes Unto our modern Satire's sharpest lines, Whose hungry fangs snarl at some secret sin, And in such pitchy clouds enwrappèd been His Sphinxian riddles, that old OEdipus Would be amazed, and take it in foul snuffs That such Cymmerian darkness should involve A quaint conceit that he could not resolve. 20 O darkness palpable! Egypt's black night! My wit is stricken blind, hath lost his sight; My shins are broke with groping for some sense, To know to what his words have reference. Certes, _sunt_ but _non videntur_ that I know; Reach me some poets' index that will show. _Imagines Deorum_, Book of Epithets, _Natalis Comes_,[366] thou I know recites, And makest anatomy of poesy; Help me to unmask the satire's secrecy; 30 Delphic Apollo, aid me to unrip These intricate deep oracles of wit-- These dark enigmas, and strange riddling sense, Which pass my dullard brain's intelligence. Fie on my senseless pate! Now I can show Thou writest that which I nor thou dost know. Who would imagine that such squint-eyed sight Could strike the world's deformities so right? But take heed, Pallas, lest thou aim awry; Love nor yet Hate had e'er true-judging eye. 40 Who would once dream that that same elegy, That fair-framed piece of sweetest poesy, Which Muto put betwixt his mistress' paps (When he, quick-witted, call'd her Cruel Chaps, And told her there he might his dolors read Which she, O she! upon his heart had spread), Was penn'd by Roscio the tragedian? Yet Muto, like a good Vulcanian-- An honest cuckold--calls the bastard, son, And brags of that which others for him done. 50 Satire, thou liest, for that same elegy Is Muto's own, his own dear poesy: Why, 'tis his own, and dear, for he did pay Ten crowns for it, as I heard Roscius say.-- Who would imagine yonder sober man, That same devout meal-mouth'd precisian, That cries "Good brother," "Kind sister," makes a duck After the antique grace, can always pluck A sacred book out of his civil hose, And at th' op'ning and at our stomach's close, 60 Says with a turn'd-up eye a solemn grace Of half an hour; then with silken face Smiles on the holy crew, and then doth cry, "O manners! O times of impurity!" What that depaints[367] a church-reformed state, The which the female tongues magnificate, Because that Plato's odd opinion Of all things common hath strong motion In their weak minds;--who thinks that this good man Is a vile, sober, damned politician? 70 Not I, till with his bait of purity He bit me sore in deepest usury. No Jew, no Turk, would use a Christian So inhumanely as this Puritan. Diomedes' jades were not so bestial As this same seeming saint--vile cannibal! Take heed, O world! take heed advisedly Of these same damnèd anthropophagi. I had rather be within a harpy's claws Than trust myself in their devouring jaws, 80 Who all confusion to the world would bring Under the form of their new discipline. O I could say, Briareus' hundred hands Were not so ready to bring Jove in bands, As these to set endless contentious strife Betwixt Jehovah and his sacred wife! But see--who's yonder? True Humility, The perfect image of fair Courtesy; See, he doth deign to be in servitude Where he hath no promotion's livelihood! 90 Mark, he doth courtesy, and salutes a block, Will seem to wonder at a weathercock; Trenchmore[368] with apes, play music to an owl, Bless his sweet honour's running brasil[369] bowl; Cries "Bravely broke!" when that his lordship miss'd, And is of all the throngèd[370] scaffold hiss'd; O is not this a courteous-minded man? No fool, no; a damn'd Machiavelian; Holds candle to the devil for a while, That he the better may the world beguile, 100 That's fed with shows. He hopes, though some repine, When sun is set the lesser stars will shine; He is within a haughty malcontent, Though he do use such humble blandishment. But, bold-faced Satire, strain not over-high, But laugh and chuck at meaner gullery. In faith, yon is a well-faced gentleman; See how he paceth like a Cyprian! Fair amber tresses of the fairest hair That ere were wavèd by our London air; 110 Rich lacèd suit, all spruce, all neat, in truth. Ho, Lynceus! what's yonder brisk neat youth 'Bout whom yon troop of gallants flocken so, And now together to Brown's Common go? Thou know'st, I am sure; for thou canst cast thine eye Through nine mud walls, or else old poets lie. "'Tis loose-legg'd Lais, that same common drab For whom good Tubrio took the mortal stab."[371] Ha, ha! Nay, then, I'll never rail at those That wear a codpis,[372] thereby to disclose 120 What sex they are, since strumpets breeches use, And all men's eyes save Lynceus can abuse. Nay, stead of shadow, lay the substance out, Or else, fair Briscus, I shall stand in doubt What sex thou art, since such hermaphrodites, Such Protean shadows so delude our sights. Look, look, with what a discontented grace Bruto the traveller doth sadly[373] pace 'Long Westminster! O civil-seeming shade, Mark his sad colours!--how demurely clad! 130 Staidness itself, and Nestor's gravity, Are but the shade of his civility. And now he sighs: "O thou corrupted age, Which slight regard'st men of sound carriage! Virtue, knowledge, fly to heaven again; Deign not 'mong these ungrateful sots remain! Well, some tongues I know, some countries I have seen, And yet these oily snails respectless been Of my good parts." O worthless puffy slave! Didst thou to Venice go ought[374] else to have, 140 But buy a lute and use a courtesan,[375] And there to live like a Cyllenian?[376] And now from thence what hither dost thou bring, But surphulings,[377] new paints, and poisoning,[378] Aretine's[379] pictures, some strange luxury, And new-found use of Venice venery? What art thou but black clothes? Sad Bruto, say, Art anything but only sad[380] array? Which I am sure is all thou brought'st from France, Save Naples pox and Frenchmen's dalliance; 150 From haughty Spain, what brought'st thou else beside But lofty looks and their Lucifrian pride? From Belgia, what but their deep bezeling,[381] Their boot-carouse[382] and their beer-buttering? Well, then, exclaim not on our age, good man, But hence, polluted Neapolitan. Now, Satire, cease to rub our gallèd skins, And to unmask the world's detested sins; Thou shalt as soon draw Nilus river dry As cleanse the world from foul impiety. 160

[364] A spring-lock to a gun; hence applied to anything that goes off sharply.

[365] Old ed. "Boetian."

[366] Old ed. "_Natales Comes_."--Noël Conti (1520-1580), a native of Milan, better known under his Latinised name, Natalis Comes, was the author of _Mythologiæ, sive explicationis Fabularum, libri decem_, first printed at Venice in 1551, and frequently reprinted. To some editions are appended _Deorum Imagines_ ... _M. Antonii Tritonii Vtinensis_. Many old treatises on mythology have the title _Imagines Deorum_.

[367] We had the word "depaint" in vol. i., p. 90. It is as old as Chaucer.

[368] Dance trenchmore--a lively rustic dance.

[369] A sort of hard wood, used in dyeing to produce a red colour.--It is a very old word and is still in use.

[370] Old ed. "thurnged."

[371] It has been suggested, without the slightest shadow of foundation, that the allusion is to the death of Marlowe. Dr. Nicholson (Grosart's _Marston_, p. xlvi.) says:--"If Tubrio be Marlowe, then the hitherto unknown courtesan was the hermaphroditic 'Moll Cutpurse'" At the earliest computation Moll was born in 1584-5 (see Middleton, iv. 3); and Marlowe died in 1593.--(In old ed. the line runs:--"For from good Tubrio looke the mortall stab." The correction is made in the author's list of errata.)

[372] I have kept this spelling, as it was doubtless used intentionally. Nashe, in his droll abuse of Barnabe Barnes, writes:--"The first of them (which is Barnes) presently upon it, because he would be noted, getting him a strange pair of Babylonian breeches with a _codpisse_ as big as a Bolonian sausage," &c. (_Works_, ed. Grosart, iii. 162).

[373] Cf. vol. i. p. 12, "Now as solemn as a traveller," and the note on that passage.

[374] Old ed. "oft"--corrected in the author's list of errata.

[375] Old ed. "Currezan."

[376] Mercury was born on Cyllene, a mountain in Arcadia. Hence Marston uses the term, Cyllenian for a person of mercurial disposition.

[377] Cosmetics.

[378] Nashe in _The Unfortunate Traveller_ writes in a similar strain:--"Italy, the paradise of the earth and the epicure's heaven, how doth it form our young master?... From thence he brings the art of atheism, the art of epicurising, the art of whoring." Ascham and others make similar observations.

[379] Illustrations (after paintings of Giulio Romano) of the positions in venery. Aretine wrote verses to accompany the designs.

[380] Old ed. "say"--corrected in the author's list of errata.

[381] Tippling.

[382] Dr. Grosart quotes from Hall's Satires, vi. i. 81-2:-- "When erst our dry-soul'd sires so lavish were To charge whole _bootsful_ to their friends' welfare."

SATIRE III.

_Quædam et sunt, et videntur._

Now, grim Reproof, swell in my rough-hued rhyme, That thou mayst vex the guilty of our time. Yon is a youth whom how can I o'er-slip, Since he so jump doth in my meshes hit? He hath been longer in preparing him Than Terence wench; and now behold he's seen. Now, after two years' fast and earnest prayer The fashion change not (lest he should despair Of ever hoarding up more fair gay clothes), Behold at length in London street he shows. 10 His ruff did eat more time in neatest setting Than Woodstock's[383] work in painful perfecting; It hath more doubles far than Ajax' shield When he 'gainst Troy did furious battle wield. Nay, he doth wear an emblem 'bout his neck; For under that fair ruff so sprucely set, Appears a fall, a falling-band forsooth. O dapper, rare, complete, sweet nitty[384] youth! Jesu Maria! How his clothes appear Cross'd and recross'd with lace, sure for some fear 20 Lest that some spirit with a tippet mace[385] Should with a ghastly show affright his face. His hat, himself, small crown and huge great brim, Fair outward show, and little wit within. And all the band with feathers he doth fill, Which is a sign of a fantastic still. Why, so[386] he is, his clothes do sympathise And with his inward spirit humorise, As sure as (some do tell me) evermore A goat doth stand before a brothel door. 30 His clothes perfumed, his fusty mouth is aired, His chin new swept, his very cheeks are glaired.[387] But ho! what Ganymede is that doth grace The gallant's heels? One who for two days' space Is closely hired. Now who dares not call This Æsop's crow--fond, mad, fantastical? An open ass, that is not yet so wise As his derided fondness to disguise. Why, thou art Bedlam mad, stark lunatic, And glori'st to be counted a fantastic; 40 Thou neither art, nor yet will seem to be, Heir to some virtuous praisèd quality. O frantic man! that thinks all villany The complete honours of nobility! When some damn'd vice, some strange misshapen suit, Make youths esteem themselves in high repute. O age! in which our gallants boast to be Slaves unto riot and rude luxury! Nay, when they blush, and think an honest act Doth their supposèd virtues maculate! 50 Bedlam, Frenzy, Madness, Lunacy, I challenge all your moody empery Once to produce a more distracted man Than is inamorato Lucian. For when my ears received a fearful sound That he was sick, I went, and there I found Him laid of love, and newly brought to bed Of monstrous folly and a frantic head. His chamber hang'd about with elegies, With sad complaints of his love's miseries; 60 His windows strew'd with sonnets, and the glass Drawn full of love-knots. I approach'd the ass, And straight he weeps, and sighs some sonnet out To his fair love! And then he goes about For to perfume her rare perfection With some sweet-smelling pink epitheton; Then with a melting look he writhes his head, And straight in passion riseth in his bed; And having kiss'd his hand, stroke up his hair, Made a French conge, cries, "O cruel fear!" 70 To the antic bedpost. I laugh'd amain, That down my cheeks the mirthful drops did rain. Well, he's no Janus, but substantial, In show and essence a good natural; When as thou hear'st me ask spruce Duceus From whence he comes; and he straight answers us, From Lady Lilla; and is going straight To the Countess of (----), for she doth wait His coming, and will surely send her coach, Unless he make the speedier approach: 80 Art not thou ready for to break thy spleen At laughing at the fondness thou hast seen In this vain-glorious fool, when thou dost know He never durst unto these ladies show His pippin face? Well, he's no accident, But real, real, shameless, impudent; And yet he boasts, and wonders that each man Can call him by his name, sweet Ducean; And is right proud that thus his name is known. Ay, Duceus, ay, thy name is too far blown: 90 The world too much, thyself too little know'st, Thy private self. Why, then, should Duceus boast? But, humble Satire, wilt thou deign display These open nags, which purblind eyes bewray? Come, come, and snarl more dark at secret sin, Which in such labyrinths enwrappèd bin, That, Ariadne, I must crave thy aid To help me find where this foul monster's laid; Then will I drive the Minotaur from us, And seem to be a second Theseus. 100

[383] The maze at Woodstock.

[384] I suppose that "nitty" = _spruce_ (_Lat._ nitidus). The usual meaning of "nitty" is--_lousy_.

[385] Carried by the sheriff's officer when he arrested a man for debt.

[386] In the original, the couplet "Why, so ... humorise," follows l. 36. Mr. Gosse pointed out this error (Grosart's _Marston_, p. li.); he proposes to put the couplet about the goat lower down.

[387] Anointed with the white of an egg.--Old eds. "glazed."

SATIRE IV.

_Reactio._

Now doth Rhamnusia Adrastian, Daughter of Night, and of the Ocean, Provoke my pen. What cold Saturnian Can hold, and hear such vile detraction? Ye pines of Ida, shake your fair-grown height, For Jove at first dash will with thunder fight; Ye cedars, bend, 'fore lightning you dismay; Ye lions tremble, for an ass doth bray. Who cannot rail?--what dog but dare to bark 'Gainst Phoebe's brightness in the silent dark? 10 What stinking scavenger (if so he will, Though streets be fair) but may right easily fill His dungy tumbrel? Sweep, pare, wash, make clean, Yet from your fairness he some dirt can glean. The windy-colic striv'd to have some vent, And now 'tis flown, and now his rage is spent. So have I seen the fuming waves to fret, And in the end naught but white foam beget; So have I seen the sullen clouds to cry, And weep for anger that the earth was dry, 20 After their spite that all the hail-shot drops Could never pierce the crystal water tops, And never yet could work her more disgrace But only bubble quiet Thetis' face Vain envious detractor from the good, What cynic spirit rageth in thy blood? Cannot a poor mistaken title 'scape, But thou must that into thy tumbrel scrape? Cannot some lewd immodest beastliness Lurk and lie hid in just forgetfulness, 30 But Grillus'[388] subtile-smelling swinish snout Must scent and grunt, and needs will find it out? Come, dance, ye stumbling satyrs by his side, If he list once the Sion Muse deride; Ye Granta's white nymphs, come, and with you bring Some sillabub, whilst he doth sweetly sing 'Gainst Peter's tears[389] and Mary's moving moan, And like a fierce enragèd boar doth foam At sacred sonnets. O daring hardiment! At Bartas' sweet _Semains_[390] rail impudent; 40 At Hopkins, Sternhold, and the Scottish King,[391] At all translators that do strive to bring That stranger language to our vulgar tongue, Spit in thy poison their fair acts among; Ding[392] them all down from fair Jerusalem, And mew them up in thy deserved Bedlam. Shall Paynims honour their vile falsèd gods With sprightly wits, and shall not we by odds Far, far more strive with wit's best quintessence To adore the sacred ever-living essence? 50 Hath not strong reason moved the legists' mind, To say the fairest of all nature's kind The prince by his prerogative may claim? Why may not then our souls, without thy blame (Which is the best thing that our God did frame), Devote the best part to his sacred name, And with due reverence and devotion, Honour his name with our invention? No, poesy not fit for such an action, It is defiled with superstition: 60 It honoured Baal, therefore pollute, pollute-- Unfit for such a sacred institute. So have I heard a heretic maintain The church unholy, where Jehovah's name Is now adored, because he surely knows Sometimes[393] it was defiled with Popish shows; The bells profane, and not to be endured, Because to Popish rites they were inured. Pure madness! Peace, cease to be insolent, And be not outward sober, inly impudent. 70 Fie, inconsiderate! it grieveth me An academic should so senseless be. Fond censurer! why should those mirrors seem So vile to thee, which better judgments deem Exquisite then, and in our polish'd times May run for senseful tolerable lines? What, not _mediocria firma_ from thy spite? But must thy envious hungry fangs needs light On _Magistrates' Mirror_?[394] Must thou needs detract And strive to work his ancient honour's wrack? 80 What, shall not Rosamond[395] or Gaveston Ope their sweet lips without detraction? But must our modern critic's envious eye Seem thus to quote some gross deformity, Where art, not error, shineth in their style, But error, and no art, doth thee beguile? For tell me, critic, is not fiction The soul of poesy's invention? Is't not the form, the spirit, and the essence, The life, and the essential difference, 90 Which _omni_, _semper_, _soli_, doth agree To heavenly descended poesy? Thy wit God comfort, mad chirurgion. What, make so dangerous an incision?-- At first dash whip away the instrument Of poet's procreation! Fie, ignorant! When as the soul and vital blood doth rest, And hath in fiction only interest, What, Satire, suck the soul from poesy, And leave him spriteless! O impiety! 100 Would ever any erudite pedant[396] Seem in his artless lines so insolent? But thus it is when petty Priscians Will needs step up to be censorians. When once they can in true scann'd verses frame A brave encomium of good Virtue's name; Why, thus it is, when mimic apes will strive With iron wedge the trunks of oaks to rive. But see, his spirit of detraction Must nibble at a glorious action. 110 _Euge!_ some gallant spirit, some resolvèd blood, Will hazard all to work his country's good, And to enrich his soul and raise his name, Will boldly sail unto the rich Guiane: What then? Must straight some shameless satirist,[397] With odious and opprobrious terms insist To blast so high resolv'd intention With a malignant vile detraction? So have I seen a cur dog in the street Piss 'gainst the fairest posts he still could meet; 120 So have I seen the March wind strive to fade The fairest hue that art or nature made: So envy still doth bark at clearest shine, And strives to stain heroic acts divine. Well, I have cast thy water, and I see Th' art fall'n to wit's extremest poverty, Sure in consumption of the spritely part. Go, use some cordial for to cheer thy heart, Or else I fear that I one day shall see Thee fall into some dangerous lethargy. 130 But come, fond braggart, crown thy brows with bay, Intrance thyself in thy sweet ecstasy; Come, manumit thy plumy pinion, And scour the sword of elvish champion; Or else vouchsafe to breathe in wax-bound quill, And deign our longing ears with music fill; Or let us see thee some such stanzas frame, That thou mayst raise thy vile inglorious name. Summon the Nymphs and Dryades to bring Some rare invention, whilst thou dost sing 140 So sweet that thou mayst shoulder from above The eagle from the stairs of friendly Jove,[398] And lead sad Pluto captive with thy song, Gracing thyself, that art obscured so long. Come, somewhat say (but hang me when 'tis done) Worthy of brass and hoary marble stone; Speak, ye attentive swains, that heard him never, Will not his pastorals[399] endure for ever? Speak, ye that never heard him ought but rail, Do not his poems bear a glorious sail? 150 Hath not he strongly justled from above The eagle from the stairs of friendly Jove? May be, may be; tut! 'tis his modesty; He could, if that he would: nay, would, if could, I see. Who cannot rail, and with a blasting breath Scorch even the whitest lilies of the earth? Who cannot stumble in a stuttering style, And shallow heads with seeming shades beguile? Cease, cease, at length to be malevolent To fairest blooms of virtues eminent; 160 Strive not to soil the freshest hues on earth With thy malicious and upbraiding breath. Envy, let pines of Ida rest alone, For they will grow spite of thy thunder-stone; Strive not to nibble in their swelling grain With toothless gums of thy detracting brain; Eat not thy dam, but laugh and sport with me At strangers' follies with a merry glee. Let's not malign our kin. Then, satirist, I do salute thee with an open fist.[400] 170

[388] The allusion in the following lines is to Hall's Satires, i. 8. See _Introduction_, vol. i.--Grillus was one of Ulysses' companions who were turned into swine. When the others rejoiced at resuming their human shape, Grillus preferred to remain a swine.

[389] An allusion to Southwell's poems _Saint Peter's Complaint_ and _The Virgin Mary to Christ on the Cross_.

[390] The allusion is to Sylvester's once famous translations of Du Bartas.

[391] James in his _Poetical Exercises_ (1591) published a translation of Du Bartas' poem _The Furies_; but there seems also to be a reference to the metrical translation of the psalms (first published in 1631), on which James was known to be engaged.

[392] Dash.

[393] Often used for _sometime_.

[394] In Hall's Satires, i. 5, the _Mirror of Magistrates_ is ridiculed.

[395] The allusion is to Daniel's _Complaint of Rosamond_, 1592, and to Michael Drayton's _Complaint of Gaveston_, 1593. I cannot discover any abuse of Daniel or Drayton in Hall's Satires. I have elsewhere suggested (Marlowe, iii. 243) that Marston is here glancing at Sir John Davies' forty-fifth epigram, in which a conceit from Daniel's _Rosamond_ is ridiculed.

[396] A sneer at Hall, who left Cambridge (soon to return), before completing his course, to take temporary work as a schoolmaster, as he relates in _Some Specialities of the Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich_ (Works, ed. Wynter, 1. xxiv).

[397] The satirist is Hall, who wrote in the third satire of Book iv. of _Virgidem_:-- "Ventrous Fortunio his farm hath sold And gads to _Guiane_ land to fish for gold."

[398] Marston is ridiculing Hall's _Defiance to Envy_, prefixed to _Virgidem_.:-- "Or would we loose her plumy pinion, Manacled long with bonds of modest fear, Soon might she have those kestrels proud outgone Whose flighty wings are dew'd with weeter [_sic_] air; And hopen now to _shoulder from above The eagle from the stairs of friendly Jove_.

"Or list she rather in late triumph rear Eternal trophies to some conqueror Whose dead deserts slept in his sepulchre, And never saw nor life nor light before, To lead sad Pluto captive with my song To grace the triumphs he obscured so long, &c."

[399] It is not improbable that Hall published an early volume of pastorals which is now unknown. See Corser's _Collectanea_, vii. 134. In _Virgidem_. vi. 1. ll. 175-184 ("Shall the controller of proud Nemesis, &c."), Hall replies to Marston's raillery.

[400] Edward Guilpin in his sixth Satire (_Skialetheia_, 1598, sig. E. V.) alludes to Marston's _Reactio_:-- "The double-volum'd satire praised is And liked of divers for his rods in piss, Yet other some who would her credit crack, Have clapp'd Reactio's action on her back."

The expression "rods in piss" is used in reference to Sat. i. l. 44. of the _Scourge of Villainy_. "Double-volum'd satire" seems to refer to Hall's two collections of Satires; but the passage is obscure.

SATIRE V.

_Parva magna, magna nulla._

Ambitious Gorgons, wide-mouth'd Lamians,[401] Shape-changing Proteans, damn'd Briarians, Is Minos dead, is Rhadamanth asleep, That ye thus dare unto Jove's palace creep? What, hath Rhamnusia spent her knotted whip, That ye dare strive on Hebe's cup to sip? Yet know Apollo's quiver is not spent, But can abate your daring hardiment. Python is slain, yet his accursèd race Dare look divine Astrea in the face; 10 Chaos return, and with confusion Involve the world with strange disunion; For Pluto sits in that adorèd chair Which doth belong unto Minerva's heir. O hecatombe! O catastrophe![402] From Midas' pomp to Irus' beggary! Prometheus, who celestial fire Did steal from heaven, therewith to inspire Our earthly bodies with a senseful mind, Whereby we might the depth of nature find, 20 Is ding'd[403] to hell, and vulture eats his heart, Which did such deep philosophy impart To mortal men; when thieving Mercury, That even in his new-born infancy Stole fair Apollo's quiver and Jove's mace, And would have filch'd the lightning from his place, But that he fear'd he should have burnt his wing And sing'd his downy feathers' new-come spring; He that in ghastly shade of night doth lead Our souls unto the empire of the dead; 30 When he that better doth deserve a rope Is a fair planet in our horoscope, And now hath Caduceus in his hand, Of life and death that hath the sole command. Thus petty thefts are paid and soundly whipt, But greater crimes are slightly overslipt; Nay, he's a god that can do villany With a good grace and glib facility. The harmless hunter, with a ventrous eye, When unawares he did Diana spy 40 Nak'd in the fountain, he became straightway Unto his greedy hounds a wishèd prey, His own delights taking away his breath, And all ungrateful forced his fatal death (And ever since hounds eat their masters clean, For so Diana curst them in the stream). When strong-back'd Hercules, in one poor night, With great, great ease, and wond[e]rous delight, In strength of lust and Venus' surquedry, Robb'd fifty wenches of virginity-- 50 Far more than lusty Laurence[404]--yet, poor soul, He with Actæon drinks of Nemis'[405] bowl: When Hercules' lewd act is registered, And for his fruitful labour deified, And had a place in heaven him assigned, When he the world unto the world resigned. Thus little scapes are deeply punishèd, But mighty villains are for gods adored. Jove brought his sister to a nuptial bed, And hath an Hebe and a Ganymede, 60 A Leda, and a thousand more beside His chaste Alcmena and his sister-bride, Who 'fore his face was odiously defil'd, And by Ixion grossly got with child: This thunderer, that right vertuously Thrust forth his father from his empery, Is now the great monarcho of the earth, Whose awful nod, whose all-commanding breath, Shakes Europe's ground-work; and his title makes[406] As dread a noise as when a cannon shakes 70 The subtile air. Thus hell-bred villany Is still rewarded with high dignity, When Sisyphus, that did but once reveal That this incestuous villain had to deal In isle Phliunte with Ægina fair,[407] Is damn'd to hell, in endless black despair Ever to rear his tumbling stone upright Upon the steepy mountain's lofty height; His stone will never now get greenish moss, Since he hath thus incurred so great a loss 80 As Jove's high favour. But it needs must be Whilst Jove doth rule and sway the empery. And poor Astrea's fled into an isle, And lives a poor and banishèd exile, And there penn'd up, sighs in her sad lament, Wearing away in pining languishment. If that Silenus' ass do chance to bray, And so the satyrs' lewdness doth bewray, Let him for ever be a sacrifice; Prick, spur, beat, load, for ever tyrannise 90 Over the fool. But let some Cerberus Keep back the wife of sweet-tongued Orpheus, Gnato[408] applauds the hound. Let that same child Of night and sleep (which hath the world defiled With odious railing) bark 'gainst all the work Of all the gods, and find some error lurk In all the graces; let his laver[409] lip Speak in reproach of Nature's workmanship; Let him upbraid fair Venus, if he list, For her short heel; let him with rage insist 100 To snarl at Vulcan's man, because he was Not made with windows of transparent glass, That all might see the passions of his mind; Let his all-blasting tongue great errors find In Pallas' house, because if next should burn, It could not from the sudden peril turn; Let him upbraid great Jove with luxury, Condemn the heaven's queen of jealousy: Yet this same Stygian Momus must be praised, And to some godhead at the least be raised. 110 But if poor Orpheus sing melodiously, And strive with music's sweetest symphony To praise the gods, and unadvisedly Do but o'er-slip one drunken deity, Forthwith the bouzing Bacchus out doth send His furious Bacchides, to be revenged; And straight they tear the sweet musician, And leave him to the dogs' division. Hebrus, bear witness of their cruelty, For thou didst view poor Orpheus' tragedy. 120 Thus slight neglects are deepest villany, But blasting mouths deserve a deity. Since Gallus slept, when he was set to watch Lest Sol or Vulcan should Mavortius catch In using Venus; since the boy did nap, Whereby bright Phoebus did great Mars intrap, Poor Gallus now (whilom to Mars so dear) Is turnèd to a crowing chaunticlere; And ever since, 'fore that the sun doth shine (Lest Phoebus should with his all-piercing eyne 130 Descry some Vulcan), he doth crow full shrill, That all the air with echoes he doth fill; Whilst Mars, though all the gods do see his sin, And know in what lewd vice he liveth in, Yet is adored still, and magnified, And with all honours duly worshipped. _Euge!_ Small faults to mountains straight are raised; Slight scapes are whipt, but damnèd deeds are praised. Fie, fie! I am deceived all this while, A mist of errors doth my sense beguile; 140 I have been long of all my wits bereaven; Heaven for hell taking, taking hell for heaven; Virtue for vice, and vice for virtue still; Sour for sweet, and good for passing ill. If not, would vice and odious villany Be still rewarded with high dignity? Would damned Jovians be of all men praised, And with high honours unto heaven raised? 'Tis so, 'tis so; riot and luxury Are virtuous, meritorious chastity: 150 That which I thought to be damn'd hell-born pride, Is humble modesty, and nought beside; That which I deemèd Bacchus' surquedry, Is grave and staid, civil sobriety. O then, thrice holy age, thrice sacred men, 'Mong whom no vice a satire can discern, Since lust is turnèd into chastity, And riot unto sad sobriety, Nothing but goodness reigneth in our age, And virtues all are join'd in marriage! 160 Here is no dwelling for impiety, No habitation for base villany; Here are no subject for reproof's sharp vein; Then hence, rude satire, make away amain, And seek a seat where more impurity Doth lie and lurk in still security! Now doth my satire stagger in a doubt, Whether to cease or else to write it out. The subject is too sharp for my dull quill; Some son of Maia, show thy riper skill; 170 For I'll go turn my tub against the sun, And wistly mark how higher planets run, Contemplating their hidden motion. Then on some Latmos with Endymion, I'll slumber out my time in discontent, And never wake to be malevolent, A beadle to the world's impurity. But ever sleep in still security. If this displease the world's wrong-judging sight, It glads my soul, and in some better sprite 180 I'll write again. But if that this do please, Hence, hence, satiric Muse, take endless ease, Hush now, ye band-dogs, bark no more at me, But let me slide away in secrecy.

EPICTETUS.[410]

[401] In Topsel's _Hist. of Four-footed Beasts_ (ed. 1658, pp. 352-5) there is an interesting chapter "of the Lamia."

[402] "_Huc usque Xylinum._"--Marginal note in old ed. The meaning is "Bombast--balderdash--up to this point." Marston lets the reader know that the high-sounding lines at the beginning of this satire are to be taken in jest. See more on p. 342. (_Lat._ xylinum, Gr. xulinon = cotton, bombast.)

[403] Dashed.

[404] Dyce, in a note on a passage of _The Captain_, iv. 3 (_Beaumont and Fletcher_, iii. 295), quotes from _A Brown Dozen of Drunkards_, 1648, sig. C:--"This late Lusty Lawrence, that Lancashire Lad, who had seventeen bastards in one year, if we believe his Ballad," &c.

[405] Seemingly a contraction (_metri causa_) of "Nemesis."

[406] "_Rex hominumque deorumque._"--Marginal note in old ed.

[407] One legend makes Asopus, father of Aegina, to have been the river that watered the Phliasian territory in Argolis. See Heyne's note on Apollodorus' _Bibl._, iii. 12. 5.

[408] Gnatho,--used by Plautus and Terence as a proper name for a parasite (Gr. gnathon).

[409] "Laver lip" = hanging lip. Cf. Hall's Satires, ii. 2:--"A _lave-ear'd_ ass with gold may trappèd be;" and again in iv. 1--"His ears hang _laving_ like a new-lugg'd swine."

[410] I fail to understand why Epictetus' name should stand here. The conclusion of this satire is more in 'Ercles' vein than in Epictetus'.--At the end of old ed. is a list of "Faults escaped."

THE SCOURGE OF VILLAINY.

_The Scovrge of Villanie. Three bookes of Satyres._ _Persevs._ _v v v Nec scompros_ [_sic_] _metuentia carmina nec thus._

_At London, Printed by I. R. and are to be sold by Iohn Buzbie, in Paules Church-yard, at the signe of the Crane, 1598._ 8vo.

_The Scovrge of Villanie. Corrected, with the addition of newe Satyres. Three Bookes of Satyres._

_Persivs._ _v v v Nec scombros metuentia carmina nec thus._

_At London, Printed by I. R. Anno Dom. 1599._ 8vo.

The letters "_v v v_" indicate that the dactyl at the beginning of the line has been dropped.

_To_[411] _his most esteemed and best beloved Self dat dedicatque._

[411] This dedication is not found in ed. 1598.

_To_ Detraction _I present my_ Poesy.

Foul canker of fair virtuous action, Vile blaster of the freshest blooms on earth, Envy's abhorrèd child, Detraction, I here expose, to thy all-tainting breath, The issue of my brain: snarl, rail, bark, bite, Know that my spirit scorns Detraction's spite.

Know that the Genius, which attendeth on And guides my powers intellectual, Holds in all vile repute Detraction; My soul an essence metaphysical, 10 That in the basest sort scorns critics' rage Because he knows his sacred parentage.

My spirit is not puft[412] up with fat fume Of slimy ale, nor Bacchus' heating grape. My mind disdains the dungy muddy scum Of abject thoughts and Envy's raging hate. True judgment slight regards Opinion, A spritely wit disdains Detraction.

A partial praise shall never elevate My settled censure of my own esteem; 20 A canker'd verdict of malignant hate Shall ne'er provoke me worse myself to deem. Spite of despite and rancour's villainy, I am myself, so is my poesy.

[412] Ed. 1598 "huft."

_In Lectores prorsus indignos._

Fie, Satire, fie! shall each mechanic slave, Each dunghill peasant, free perusal have Of thy well-labour'd lines?--each[413] satin suit, Each quaint fashion-monger, whose sole repute Rests in his trim gay clothes, lie slavering, Tainting thy lines with his lewd censuring? Shall each odd puisne[414] of the lawyer's inn, Each barmy-froth, that last day did begin To read his little, or his ne'er a whit, Or shall some greater ancient, of less wit 10 (That never turn'd but brown tobacco leaves, Whose senses some damn'd occupant[415] bereaves), Lie gnawing on thy vacant time's expense, Tearing thy rhymes, quite altering the sense? Or shall perfum'd Castilio censure thee, Shall he o'erview thy sharp-fang'd poesy (Who ne'er read further than his mistress' lips), Ne'er practised ought but some spruce cap'ring skips, Ne'er in his life did other language use, But "Sweet lady, fair mistress, kind heart, dear cuz"-- Shall this phantasma, this Coloss peruse, 21 And blast, with stinking breath, my budding muse? Fie! wilt thou make thy wit a courtezan For every broken handcraft's artisan? Shall brainless cittern-heads,[416] each jobbernoul,[417] Pocket the very genius of thy soul? Ay, Phylo, ay, I'll keep an open hall, A common and a sumptuous festival; Welcome all eyes, all ears, all tongues to me, Gnaw peasants on my scraps of poesy; 30 Castilios, Cyprians, court-boys, Spanish blocks,[418] Ribanded[419] ears, Granado netherstocks,[420] Fiddlers, scriveners, pedlars, tinkering knaves, Base blue-coats,[421] tapsters, broad-cloth-minded slaves-- Welcome, i'faith; but may you ne'er depart Till I have made your gallèd hides to smart. Your gallèd hides? avaunt, base muddy scum, Think you a satire's dreadful sounding drum Will brace itself, and deign to terrify Such abject peasants' basest roguery? 40 No, no, pass on, ye vain fantastic troop Of puffy youths; know I do scorn to stoop To rip your lives. Then hence, lewd nags, away, Go read each post,[422] view what is play'd to-day, Then to Priapus' gardens.[423] You, Castilio, I pray thee let my lines in freedom go, Let me alone, the madams call for thee, Longing to laugh at thy wit's poverty. Sirra livery cloak, you lazy slipper-slave, Thou fawning drudge, what, wouldst thou satires have? 50 Base mind, away, thy master calls, be gone. Sweet Gnato, let my poesy alone: Go buy some ballad of the Fairy King, And of the beggar wench[424] some roguy thing, Which thou mayst chant unto the chamber-maid To some vile tune, when that thy master's laid. But will you needs stay? am I forced to bear The blasting breath of each lewd censurer? Must naught but clothes, and images of men, But spriteless trunks, be judges of thy pen? 60 Nay then, come all; I prostitute my muse, For all the swarms of idiots to abuse. Read all, view all; even with my full consent, So you will know that which I never meant; So you will ne'er conceive, and yet dispraise That which you ne'er conceived, and laughter raise Where I but strive in honest seriousness To scourge some soul-polluting beastliness. So you will rail, and find huge errors lurk In every corner of my cynic work. 70 Proface,[425] read on, for your extrem'st dislikes Will add a pinion to my praise's flights. O how I bristle up my plumes of pride, O how I think my satire's dignifi'd, When I once hear some quaint Castilio, Some supple-mouth'd slave, some lewd Tubrio, Some spruce pedant, or some span-new-come fry Of inns-o'-court, striving to vilify My dark reproofs! Then do but rail at me, No greater honour craves my poesy. 80

1. But, ye diviner wits, celestial souls, Whose free-born minds no kennel-thought controlls, Ye sacred spirits, Maia's eldest sons--

2. Ye substance of the shadows of our age, In whom all graces link in marriage, To you how cheerfully my poem runs!

3. True-judging eyes, quick-sighted censurers, Heaven's best beauties, wisdom's treasurers, O how my love embraceth your great worth!

4. Ye idols of my soul, ye blessed spirits, 90 How shall I give true honour to your merits, Which I can better think than here paint forth!

You sacred spirits, Maia's eldest sons, To you how cheerfully my poem runs! O how my love embraceth your great worth, Which I can better think than here paint forth! O rare!

[413] Ed. 1598 "shal each."

[414] A newly-entered student at the inns-of-court. Cf. Middleton, iv. 37:--"Now I, not intending to understand her, but like a puny at the inns of Venery, &c."

[415] See Dyce's _Shakesp. Gloss._, _s._ OCCUPY.

[416] In allusion to the grotesque figures carved on the tops of citterns. See Nares' _Glossary_.

[417] "A jobbernoll. Teste de boeuf, michon, grosse teste."--_Cotgrave._

[418] Spanish hats, fashionable at this time. "From Spain what bringeth our traveller? A skull-crown'd hat of the fashion of an old deep porrenger," &c.--Nashe's _Unfortunate Traveller_.

[419] See note, vol. ii. p. 391.

[420] So in the _Debate between Pride and Lowliness_:--"The nether-stocks of pure Granada silk." See Fairholt's _History of Costume_, 1860, p. 211.

[421] Serving-men.

[422] It was the custom to paste on a pillar near the theatre the title of the play that was to be acted.

[423] In the suburbs--particularly near the Curtain Theatre--were many gardens, "either paled or walled round very high, with their arbours and bowers" (Stubbes), to which libertines resorted. See Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps' chapter on "The Theatre and Curtain" in _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_.

[424] An allusion to a jest (common in the fugitive poetry of the time) about a beggar-wench, with a child at her back, who refused the advances of a knight (on the ground that the child would be injured in the amorous encounter), unless he would allow the child to be strapped to his own back.

[425] "Proface"--an exclamation of welcome from the host to his guests at a feast. See Nares' _Glossary_.

_To those that seem judicial Perusers._

Know, I hate to affect too much obscurity and harshness, because they profit no sense. To note vices, so that no man can understand them, is as fond as the French execution in picture. Yet there are some (too many) that think nothing good that is so courteous as to come within their reach. Terming all satires bastard which are not palpable dark, and so rough writ that the hearing of them read would set a man's teeth on edge; for whose unseasoned palate I wrote the first Satire, in some places too obscure, in all places misliking me. Yet when by some scurvy chance it shall come into the late perfumed fist of judicial Torquatus[426] (that, like some rotten stick in a troubled water, hath got a great deal of barmy[427] froth to stick to his sides), I know he will vouchsafe it some of his new-minted epithets (as _real_, _intrinsicate_, _Delphic_), when in my conscience he understands not the least part of it. But from thence proceeds his judgment. Persius is crabby, because ancient, and his jerks (being particularly given to private customs of his time) dusky. Juvenal (upon the like occasion) seems to our judgment gloomy. Yet both of them go a good seemly pace, not stumbling, shuffling. Chaucer is hard even to our understandings: who knows not the reason? how much more those old satires which express themselves in terms that breathed not long even in their days. But had we then lived, the understanding of them had been nothing hard. I will not deny there is a seemly decorum to be observed, and a peculiar kind of speech for a satire's lips, which I can willinglier conceive than dare to prescribe; yet let me have the substance rough, not the shadow. I cannot, nay, I will not delude your sight with mists; yet I dare defend my plainness against the verjuice-face of the crabbed'st satirist that ever stuttered. He that thinks worse of my rhymes than myself, I scorn him, for he cannot: he that thinks better, is a fool. So favour me, Good Opinion, as I am far from being a Suffenus.[428] If thou perusest me with an unpartial eye, read on: if otherwise, know I neither value thee nor thy censure.

W. KINSAYDER.

[426] A hit at Ben Jonson.--See Introduction to vol. i.

[427] Ridiculed by Ben Jonson in the _Poetaster_.

[428] The poet ridiculed by Catullus.

THE

SCOURGE OF VILLAINY.

PROEMIUM IN LIBRUM PRIMUM.

I bear the scourge of just Rhamnusia, Lashing the lewdness of Britannia. Let others sing as their good genius moves, Of deep designs, or else of clipping loves: Fair fall them all, that with wit's industry Do clothe good subjects in true poesy; But as for me, my vexèd thoughtful soul Takes pleasure in displeasing sharp control. Thou nursing mother of fair Wisdom's lore, Ingenuous Melancholy, I implore 10 Thy grave assistance: take thy gloomy seat, Enthrone thee in my blood; let me entreat, Stay his quick jocund skips, and force him run A sad-paced course, until my whips be done. Daphne, unclip thine arms from my sad brow; Black cypress crown me, whilst I up do plow The hidden entrails of rank villainy, Tearing the veil from damn'd impiety. Quake, guzzel dogs,[429] that live on putrid slime, Skud from the lashes of my yerking rhyme. 20

[429] "In other words, dogs of the gutter or drain. A small gutter is still called a guzzle in some of the provinces."--_Halliwell._

SATIRE I.

_Fronti nulla fides._

Marry, God forefend! Martius swears he'll stab: Phrygio, fear not, thou art no lying drab. What though dagger-hack'd mouths of his blade swears It slew as many as figures of years Aquafortis eat in't, or as many more As methodist[430] Musus kill'd with hellebore In autumn[431] last; yet he bears that male lie[432] With as smooth calm as Mecho rivalry. How ill his shape with inward form doth fage,[433] Like Aphrogenia's ill-yoked marriage! 10 Fond physiognomer, complexion Guides not the inward disposition, Inclines I yield; thou sayst law; Julia, } Or Cato's often-curst Scatinia, } Can take no hold on simp'ring Lesbia. } True, not on her eye; yet alum oft doth blast The sprouting bud that fain would longer last. Chary Casca, right pure, or Rhodanus, Yet each night drinks in glassy Priapus.[434] Yon pine is fair, yet foully doth it ill 20 To his own sprouts; mark, his rank drops distill Foul Naples' canker[435] in their tender rind. Woe worth, when trees drop in their proper kind! Mistagogus, what means this prodigy? When Hiadolgo speaks 'gainst usury, When Verres rails 'gainst thieves, Milo doth hate Murder, Clodius cuckolds, Marius the gate Of squinting Janus shuts? Run beyond bound Of _Nil ultra_, and hang me when one's found Will be himself. Had nature turn'd our eyes 30 Into our proper selves, these curious spies Would be ashamed: Flavia would blush to flout When Oppia calls Lucina help her out, If she did think Lynceus did know her ill, How nature art, how art doth nature spill. God pardon me! I often did aver, _Quod gratis grate_, the astronomer An honest man; but I'll do so no more. His face deceived me; but now, since his whore And sister are all one, his honesty 40 Shall be as bare as his anatomy, To which he bound his wife. O, packstaff[436] rhymes! Why not, when court of stars shall see these crimes? Rods are in piss--ay, for thee, empirick, That twenty grains of opium will not stick To minister to babes. Here's bloody days, When with plain herbs Mutius more men slays Than ere third Edward's sword! Sooth, in our age, Mad Coribantes need not to enrage The people's minds. You, Ophiogeni[437] 50 Of Hellespont, with wrangling villainy The swoll'n world's inly stung, then deign a touch, If that your fingers can effect so much. Thou sweet Arabian Panchaia, Perfume this nasty age: smug Lesbia Hath stinking lungs, although a simp'ring grace, A muddy inside, though a surphuled[438] face. O for some deep-searching Corycean, To ferret out yon lewd Cinædian![439] How now, Brutus, what shape best pleaseth thee? 60 All Protean forms, thy wife in venery, At thy enforcement takes? Well, go thy way, She may transform thee, ere thy dying day. Hush, Gracchus hears, that hath retail'd more lies, Broachèd more slanders, done more villainies, Than Fabius' perpetual golden coat (Which might have _Semper idem_ for a mott) Hath been at feasts, and led the measuring[440] At court, and in each marriage revelling; Writ Palæphatus'[441] comment on those dreams 70 That Hylus takes, 'midst dung-pit reeking steams Of Athos' hot-house. Gramercy, modest smile, Chremes asleep! Paphia, sport the while. Lucia, new set thy ruff; tut, thou art pure, Canst thou not lisp "good brother," look demure? Fie, Gallus, what, a sceptic Pyrrhonist, When chaste Dictynna breaks the zonelike twist? Tut, hang up hieroglyphics. I'll not feign, Wresting my humour from his native strain.

[430] A regular physician, opposed to an empiric.

[431] Imitated from Juvenal, x. 221, "Quot Themison aegros autumno occiderit uno."

[432] "_Male_ lie"--great, strong lie: perhaps in imitation of Gr. arsin.

[433] Fadge.

[434] From Juvenal--"_Vitreo_ bibit ille _Priapo_," Sat. ii. 95. The _vitreus Priapus_ was a drinking-cup fashioned in the shape of a Priapus.

[435] "Naples' canker"--the pox.

[436] "Cf. Hall, Prol. B. iii. 'Satyres ... packstaff plain.'"--_Grosart._

[437] "There is a certain kind of people to whom it is naturally given, either by touching or sucking, to cure the wounding of venomous serpents; called Psylli (a people of Libya) and Marsi, people of Italy, bordering upon the Samnites, and Aequiculania, and _those that were called by the ancient writers Ophiogenes, which dwelt about Hellespont, as both Pliny, Aelianus, and Aeneas Silvius do witness_."--Topsel's _Hist. of Serpents_, ed. 1658, p. 624.

[438] Washed with Cosmetics.

[439] Gr. kinaidos.

[440] The _measures_--a stately dance.

[441] The author of a treatise (Peri Apiston) on mythology.

SATIRE II.

_Difficile est Satiram non scribere._--JUVE.

I cannot hold, I cannot, I, endure To view a big-womb'd foggy cloud immure The radiant tresses of the quick'ning sun: Let custards quake,[442] my rage must freely run. Preach not the Stoic's patience to me; I hate no man, but men's impiety. My soul is vex'd; what power will resist, Or dares to stop a sharp-fang'd satirist? Who'll cool my rage? who'll stay my itching fist? But I will plague and torture whom I list. 10 If that the threefold walls of Babylon Should hedge my tongue, yet I should rail upon This fusty world, that now dare put in ure[443] To make JEHOVA but a coverture To shade rank filth. Loose conscience is free From all conscience, what else hath liberty? As't please the Thracian Boreas to blow, So turns our airy conscience to and fro. What icy Saturnist, what northern pate, But such gross lewdness would exasperate? 20 I think the blind doth see the flame-god rise From sister's couch, each morning to the skies, Glowing with lust. Walk but in dusky night With Lynceus' eyes, and to thy piercing sight Disguisèd gods will show, in peasants' shape, Prest[444] to commit some execrable rape. Here Jove's lust-pander, Maia's juggling son, In clown's disguise, doth after milkmaids run; And, 'fore he'll lose his brutish lechery, The trulls shall taste sweet nectar's surquedry. 30 There Juno's brat forsakes Neries' (?) bed And like a swaggerer, lust-firèd, Attended only with his smock-sworn page, Pert Gallus, slyly slips along, to wage Tilting encounters with some spurious seed Of marrow pies and yawning oysters' breed. O damn'd! Who would not shake a satire's knotty rod, When to defile the sacred seat of God Is but accounted gentlemen's disport? 40 To snort in filth, each hour to resort To brothel-pits; alas! a venial crime, Nay, royal, to be last in thirtieth slime! Ay me! hard world for satirists begin To set up shop, when no small petty sin Is left unpurged! Once to be pursy fat, Had wont because that life did macerate. Marry, the jealous queen of air doth frown, That Ganymede is up, and Hebe down. Once Albion lived in such a cruel age 50 That[445] men did hold by servile villenage: Poor brats were slaves of bondmen that were born, And marted, sold: but that rude law is torn And disannull'd, as too too[446] inhumane, That lords o'er peasants should such service strain. But now (sad change!) the kennel sink of slaves, Peasant great lords, and servile service craves. Bond-slave sons had wont be bought and sold; But now heroës' heirs (if they have not told A discreet number[447] 'fore their dad did die) 60 Are made much of: how much from merchandie? Tail'd, and retail'd, till to the pedlar's pack The fourth-hand ward-ware comes; alack, alack![448] Would truth did know I lied: but truth and I Do know that sense is born to misery. Oh would to God this were their worst mischance, Were not their souls sold to dark ignorance! Fair godness is foul ill, if mischief's wit Be not repress'd from lewd corrupting it. O what dry brain melts not sharp mustard rhyme, 70 To purge the snottery of our slimy time! Hence, idle "_Cave_," vengeance pricks me on, When mart is made of fair religion. Reform'd bald Trebus swore, in Romish quire, He sold God's essence for a poor denier.[449] The Egyptians adorèd onions, To garlic yielding all devotions. O happy garlic, but thrice happy you, Whose scenting gods in your large gardens grew! Democritus, rise from thy putrid slime, 80 Sport at the madness of that hotter clime, Deride their frenzy, that for policy Adore wheat dough as real deity. Almighty men, that can their Maker make, And force his sacred body to forsake The cherubins, to be gnawn actually, Dividing _individuum_ really; Making a score of gods with one poor word. Ay, so I thought, in that you could afford So cheap a pennyworth. O ample field, 90 In which a satire may just weapon wield But I am vex'd, when swarms of Julians Are still manured by lewd precisians, Who, scorning Church-rites, take the symbol up As slovenly as careless courtiers slup Their mutton gruel! Fie! who can withhold, But must of force make his mild muse a scold, When that he grievèd sees, with red vex'd eyes, That Athens' ancient large immunities Are eyesores to the Fates! Poor cells forlorn! 100 Is't not enough you are made an abject scorn To jeering apes, but must the shadow too Of ancient substance be thus wrung from you! O split my heart, lest it do break with rage, To see th' immodest looseness of our age! Immodest looseness? fie, too gentle word, When every sign can brothelry afford: When lust doth sparkle from our females' eyes, And modesty is roosted in the skies! Tell me, Galliottæ, what means this sign, 110 When impropriate gentles will turn Capuchine? Sooner be damn'd! O, stuff satirical! When rapine feeds our pomp, pomp ripes our fall; When the guest trembles at his host's swart look; The son doth fear his stepdame, that hath took His mother's place for lust; the twin-born brother Maligns his mate, that first came from his mother; When to be huge, is to be deadly sick; When virtuous peasants will not spare to lick The devil's tail for poor promotion; 120 When for neglect, slubber'd Devotion Is wan with grief; when Rufus yawns for death Of him that gave him undeservèd breath; When Hermus makes a worthy question, Whether of right,[450] as paraphernalion, A silver piss-pot[451] fits his lady dame, Or it's too good--a pewter best became; When Agrippina poisons Claudius' son, That all the world to her own brat might run; When the husband gapes that his stale wife would die That he might once be in by courtesy; 131 The big-paunch'd wife longs for her loath'd mate's death, That she might have more jointures here on earth; When tenure for short years (by many a one) Is thought right good be[452] turn'd forth Littleton, All to be heady, or freehold at least, When 'tis all one, for long life be a beast, A slave, as have a short-term'd tenancy; When dead's the strength of England's yeomanry; When inundation of luxuriousness 140 Fats all the world with such gross beastliness:-- Who can abstain? What modest brain can hold, But he must make his shame-faced muse a scold?

[442] Ridiculed in _The Poetaster_, v. i.; but we have the expression _quaking custard_ in the prologue to _Volpone_.

[443] Use.

[444] _i.e._, intent on committing.

[445] So ed. 1598.--Ed. 1599 "Than."

[446] See note 1, vol. ii. p. 328.

[447] _i.e._, if they have not attained their majority.

[448] Dekker, on the other hand, tells us in _The Seven Deadly Sins of London_, 1606, that orphans were nowhere more carefully guarded than in London. "For what city in the world," he writes, "does more dry up the tears of the widow and gives more warmth to the fatherless than this ancient and reverend grandame of cities? Where hath the orphan (that is to receive great portions) less cause to mourn the loss of parents? He finds four and twenty grave senators to be his father instead of one; the city itself to be his mother; her officers to be his servants, who see that he want nothing; her laws to suffer none to do him wrong; and though he be never so simple in wit or so tender in years, she looks as warily to that wealth which is left him as to the apple of her own eye."

[449] A small French coin.

[450] Old eds. "Whether of _Wright_, as _Paraphonalion_."

[451] It would appear from old inventories that these articles were occasionally made of the precious metals.

[452] The text is evidently corrupt.

SATIRE III.

_Redde, age, quæ deinceps risisti._

It's good be wary, whilst the sun shines clear (Quoth that old chuff that may dispend by year Three thousand pound), whilst he of good pretence Commits himself to Fleet, to save expense. No country's Christmas--rather tarry here, The Fleet is cheap, the country hall too dear. But, Codrus, hark! the world expects to see Thy bastard heir rot there in misery. What! will Luxurio keep so great a hall That he will prove a bastard in his fall? 10 No; "Come[453] on five! St. George, by Heaven, at all!" Makes his catastrophe right tragical! At all? till nothing's left! Come on, till all comes off, Ay, hair and all! Luxurio, left a scoff To leprous filths! O stay, thou impious slave, Tear not the lead from off thy father's grave To stop base brokeage!--sell not thy father's sheet-- His leaden sheet, that strangers' eyes may greet Both putrefaction of thy greedy sire And thy abhorrèd viperous desire! 20 But wilt thou needs, shall thy dad's lacky brat Wear thy sire's half-rot finger in his hat? Nay, then, Luxurio, waste in obloquy, And I shall sport to hear thee faintly cry, "A die, a drab, and filthy broking knaves, Are the world's wide mouths, all-devouring graves." Yet Samus keeps a right good house, I hear-- No, it keeps him, and free'th him from chill fear Of shaking fits. How, then, shall his smug wench, How shall her bawd (fit time) assist her quench 30 Her sanguine heat? Lynceus, canst thou scent? She hath her monkey and her instrument Smooth fram'd at Vitrio. O grievous misery! Luscus hath left his[454] female luxury; Ay, it left him! No, his old cynic dad Hath forc'd him clean forsake his Pickhatch[455] drab. Alack, alack! what peace of lustful flesh Hath Luscus left, his Priape to redress? Grieve not, good soul, he hath his Ganymede, His perfumed she-goat, smooth-kemb'd and high fed. 40 At Hogson[456] now his monstrous love he feasts, For there he keeps a bawdy-house of beasts. Paphus, let Luscus have his courtezan, Or we shall have a monster of a man. Tut! Paphus now detains him from that bower, And clasps him close within his brick-built tower. Diogenes,[457] thou art damn'd for thy lewd wit, For Luscus now hath skill to practise it. Faith, what cares he for fair Cinædian boys, Velvet-caped[458] goats, Dutch mares? Tut! common toys! Detain them all on this condition, 51 He may but use his cynic friction. O now, ye male stews, I can give pretence For your luxurious incontinence. Hence, hence, ye falsèd seeming patriots, Return not with pretence of salving spots, When here ye soil us with impurity, And monstrous filth of Doway seminary. What, though Iberia yield you liberty, To snort in sauce of Sodom villainy? 60 What, though the blooms of young nobility, Committed to your Rhodon's custody, Ye, Nero-like, abuse? yet ne'er approach Your new St. Omer's[459] lewdness here to broach; Tainting our towns and hopeful academes With your lust-baiting, most abhorrèd means. Valladolid, our Athens, 'gins to taste Of thy rank filth. Camphire and lettuce chaste[460] Are clean cashier'd; now Sophi ringoes eat, Candied potatoes are Athenians' meat. 70 Hence, holy thistle, come sweet marrow-pie, Enflame our backs to itching luxury. A crab's[461] baked guts, a lobster's butter'd thigh, I hear them swear is blood for venery. Had I some snout-fair[462] brats, they should endure The new-found Castilion calenture Before some pedant tutor, in his bed, Should use my frie like Phrygian Ganymede. Nay, then, chaste cells, when greasy Aretine, For his rank fico,[463] is surnamed divine; 80 Nay, then, come all ye venial scapes to me, I dare well warrant you'll absolvèd be. Rufus, I'll term thee but intemperate-- I will not once thy vice exaggerate-- Though that each hour thou lewdly swaggerest, And at the quarter-day pay'st interest For the forbearance of thy chalkèd score; Though that thou keep'st a tally with thy whore: Since Nero keeps his mother Agrippine, And no strange lust can satiate[464] Messaline. 90 Tullus, go scotfree; though thou often bragg'st That, for a false French crown thou vaulting hadst; Though that thou know'st, for thy incontinence, Thy drab repaid thee true French pestilence. But tush! his boast I bear, when Tegeran Brags that he foists his rotten courtezan Upon his heir, that must have all his lands, And them hath join'd in Hymen's sacred bands. I'll wink at Robrus, that for vicinage Enters common on his next neighbour's stage; 100 When Jove maintains his sister and his whore, And she incestuous, jealous evermore Lest that Europa on the bull should ride; Woe worth, when beasts for filth are deified! Alack, poor rogues! what censor interdicts The venial scapes of him that purses picks? When some sly golden-slopp'd Castilio Can cut a manor's strings at primero? Or with a pawn shall give a lordship mate, In statute-staple[465] chaining fast his state? 110 What academic starved satirist Would gnaw reez'd[466] bacon, or, with ink-black fist, Would toss each muck-heap for some outcast scraps Of half-dung bones, to stop his yawning chaps? Or, with a hungry, hollow, half-pined jaw Would once a thrice-turn'd bone-pick'd subject gnaw, When swarms of mountebanks and banditti, Damn'd Briareans, sinks of villainy, Factors for lewdness, brokers for the devil, Infect our souls with all-polluting evil? 120 Shall Lucia scorn her husband's lukewarm bed (Because her pleasure, being hurrièd In jolting coach, with glassy instrument, Doth far exceed the Paphian blandishment), Whilst I (like to some mute Pythagoran) Halter my hate, and cease to curse and ban Such brutish filth? Shall Matho raise his fame By printing pamphlets in another's name, And in them praise himself, his wit, his might, All to be deem'd his country's lanthorn-light? 130 Whilst my tongue's tied with bonds of blushing shame, For fear of broaching my concealèd name? Shall Balbus, the demure Athenian, Dream of the death of next vicarian, Cast his nativity, mark his complexion, Weigh well his body's weak condition, That, with gilt sleight, he may be sure to get The planet's place when his dim shine shall set? Shall Curio streak[467] his limbs on his day's couch, In summer bower, and with bare groping touch 140 Incense his lust, consuming all the year In Cyprian dalliance, and in Belgic cheer? Shall Faunus spend a hundred gallions Of goat's pure milk to lave his stallions, As much rose-juice? O bath! O royal, rich, To scour Faunus and his salt-proud bitch. And when all's cleans'd, shall the slave's inside stink Worse than the new cast slime of Thames ebb'd brink, Whilst I securely let him over-slip, Ne'er yerking him with my satiric whip? 150 Shall Crispus with hypocrisy beguile, Holding a candle to some fiend a while-- Now Jew, then Turk, then seeming Christian, Then Atheist, Papist, and straight Puritan; Now nothing, anything, even what you list, So that some gilt[468] may grease his greedy fist? Shall Damas use his third-hand ward as ill As any jade that tuggeth in the mill? What, shall law, nature, virtue be rejected, Shall these world-arteries be soul-infected 160 With corrupt blood, whilst I shall Martia task, Or some young Villius all in choler ask How he can keep a lazy waiting-man, And buy a hood, and silver-handled fan, With forty pound? Or snarl at Lollius' son, That with industrious pains hath harder won His true-got worship and his gentry's name Than any swineherd's brat that lousy came To luskish[469] Athens and, with farming pots, Compiling beds, and scouring greasy spots, 170 By chance (when he can, like taught parrot, cry "Dearly belov'd," with simpering gravity) Hath got the farm of some gelt[470] vicary, And now, on cock-horse, gallops jollily; Tickling, with some stol'n stuff, his senseless cure, Belching lewd terms 'gainst all sound literature? Shall I with shadows fight, task bitterly Rome's filth, scraping base channel roguery, Whilst such huge giants shall affright our eyes With execrable, damn'd inpieties? 180 Shall I find trading Mecho never loath Frankly to take a damning perjured oath? Shall Furia broke her sister's modesty, And prostitute her soul to brothelry? Shall Cossus make his well-faced wife a stale,[471] To yield his braided[472] ware a quicker sale? Shall cock-horse, fat-paunch'd Milo stain whole stocks Of well-born souls with his adultering spots? Shall broking panders suck nobility, Soiling fair stems with foul impurity? 190 Nay, shall a trencher-slave extenuate Some Lucrece rape, and straight magnificate Lewd Jovian lust, whilst my satiric vein Shall muzzled be, not daring out to strain His tearing paw? No, gloomy Juvenal, Though to thy fortunes I disastrous fall.

[453] "Come on five," "at all,"--old terms in dice-playing.

[454] Ed. 1599 "her."

[455] A low part of Clerkenwell.

[456] Hoxton,--in Elizabethan times a favourite resort for pleasure-seekers. See particularly the opening of _The Passionate Morrice_ (pt. ii. of _Tell-Trothes New Yeares Gift_), 1593.

[457] There is an allusion to a scandalous story told of Diogenes the Cynic. See Plutarch's _De Stoicorum Repugnantiis_, cap. xxi., and Diogenes Laertius' _Philosophorum Vitæ_, vi. 2, 46.

[458] So I understand the "Velvet-cap't" of the old eds.

[459] Old eds. "S. Homers."

[460] So Hall in _Virgidem_., iv. 4:-- "Virginius vow'd to keep his maidenhead, And eats _chaste lettuce_ and drinks poppy head, And smells on camphire fasting."

[461] See vol. i. p. 239.

[462] Hall has this word in _Virgidem._, iv. 1.

[463] The name of a disease (Gr. sukon, Lat. _ficus_).--Aretine was styled _Il divino_.

[464] Juvenal, _Sat._ vi. 130.

[465] See Cowell's _Interpreter_.

[466] Rusty, rancid. Hall has the expression "reez'd bacon" in _Virgidem_., iv. 2.

[467] Stretch. So Hall in _Virgidem._ vi. 1. 207: "When Lucan _streakèd_ on his marble bed, &c."

[468] "Gilt" (or gelt)--money.--Old eds. "guilt."

[469] Clownish.--"Maudolé. Misshapen, ill-framed, ill-favoured, _luskish_, without proportion."--_Cotgrave._ Athens is evidently Cambridge; and Marston is again glancing at Hall.

[470] It seems to have been too common a practice for the patron of a living to pocket the best part of the incumbent's income--to "geld" the vicarage. Cf. _Jack Drum's Entertainment_:-- "Sir, it were good you got a benefice, Some eunuch'd vicarage or some fellowship" (Simpsons's _School of Shakspere_, ii. 172); Hall's _Virgidem._,