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!