Upon an Hermaphrodite.
Sir, or Madam, choose you whether!
Nature twists you both together
And makes thy soul two garbs confess,
Both petticoat and breeches dress.
Thus we chastise the God of Wine
With water that is feminine,
Until the cooler nymph abate
His wrath, and so concorporate.
Adam, till his rib was lost,
10Had both sexes thus engrossed.
When Providence our Sire did cleave,
And out of Adam carved Eve,
Then did man 'bout wedlock treat,
To make his body up complete.
Thus matrimony speaks but thee
In a grave solemnity.
For man and wife make but one right
Canonical hermaphrodite.
Ravel thy body, and I find
20In every limb a double kind.
Who would not think that head a pair
That breeds such factions in the hair?
One half so churlish in the touch
That, rather than endure so much
I would my tender limbs apparel
In Regulus's nailèd barrel:
But the other half so small,
And so amorous withal,
That Cupid thinks each hair doth grow
30A string for his invis'ble bow.
When I look babies in thine eyes
Here Venus, there Adonis, lies.
And though thy beauty be high noon
Thy orb contains both sun and moon.
How many melting kisses skip
'Twixt thy male and female lip—
Twixt thy upper brush of hair
And thy nether beard's despair?
When thou speak'st (I would not wrong
40Thy sweetness with a double tongue)
But in every single sound
A perfect dialogue is found.
Thy breasts distinguish one another,
This the sister, that the brother.
When thou join'st hands my ear still fancies
The nuptial sound, 'I, John, take Frances.'
Feel but the difference soft and rough;
This is a gauntlet, that a muff.
Had sly Ulysses, at the sack
50Of Troy, brought thee his pedlar's pack,
And weapons too, to know Achilles
From King Lycomedes' Phillis,
His plot had failed; this hand would feel
The needle, that the warlike steel.
When music doth thy pace advance,
Thy right leg takes the left to dance.
Nor is 't a galliard danced by one,
But a mixed dance, though alone.
Thus every heteroclite part
60Changes gender but thy heart.
Nay those, which modesty can mean
But dare not speak, are epicene.
That gamester needs must overcome
That can play both Tib and Tom.
Thus did Nature's mintage vary,
Coining thee a Philip and Mary.
Upon an Hermaphrodite.] (1647.) This poem appeared in the 1640 and all subsequent editions of Randolph's poems and in the 1653 edition of Beaumont's. Beaumont had preceded Cleveland as a 'dumping-ground' for odds and ends of all kinds. But see the following poem.
1 1647 and 1651 'Madame', which is not English, and which spoils the run of the verse.
2 twists] 1647, 1651, 1653, and others 'twist'd', which is very like the time.
10 both sexes] 1677 and later 'the sexes'.
13 I do not know whether it is worth while to point out that catalectic or seven-syllabled lines with trochaic effect (cf. 9. this, 16, and others), as well as complete trochaic dimeters (1, 2, &c.), occur more frequently here than in The Senses' Festival, Fuscara, &c. This, though of course Milton has it, was rather more frequent in Randolph's generation than in Cleveland's.
22 1647, 1651, 1677, and later 'faction', but 'factions' 1653.
25 1651, 1653 &c. 'It would', which can hardly be right. On the other hand 1677 and its follower have 'With Regulus his' (l. 26).
31 It can hardly be necessary to interpret this famous and charming phrase.
48 Line shortened to the trochaic run in 1677, &c. by dropping 'is'.
52 'Lycomedes' puzzled the earlier printers, who in 1647 and 1651 make it 'Nicomedes' (corrupted by 1653 to 'Nichomedes')—a curiously awkward blunder, as it happens.
56 the left 1647, 1653: thy left 1651.
58 The late edition of 1687, when 'regularity' was becoming a fetish, inserted 'all' before 'alone', though 1677—its standard for the genuine poems—has not got it, and it is not wanted.
59 heteroclite part] 1677 and its followers, puzzled by this, the original, reading, read 'apart' (apostrophating 'Het'roclite'), the sense of which is not clear; while Mr. Berdan would emend to 'heteroclitic', which is unnecessary. Cleveland may well have scanned 'heterōclite', which is by no means an extravagant licence, and has been paralleled by Longfellow in 'Eurōclydon'. Indeed, since I wrote this note Mr. Simpson has furnished me with a parallel of 'heterōclite' itself from Harl. MS. 4126, f. 102.
60 but thy heart 1649: not the heart 1651, 1653.
62 'But' 1677: 'And' in earlier texts.