Cras.
Ay, marry, sir, here’s perfect honesty,
When Martius will forswear all villainy
(All damn’d abuse of payment in the wars,
All filching from his prince and soldiers),
When once he can but so much bright dirt glean
As may maintain one more Whitefriars quean,
One drab more; faith, then farewell villainy,
He’ll cleanse himself to Shoreditch purity.
As for Stadius, I think he hath a soul;
And if he were but free from sharp control 10
Of his sour host, and from his tailor’s bill,
He would not thus abuse his rhyming skill;
Jading our tirèd ears with fooleries,
Greasing great slaves with oily flatteries.
Good faith, I think he would not strive to suit
The back of humorous Time (for base repute
’Mong dunghill peasants), botching up such ware
As may be saleable in Sturbridge fair,
If he were once but freed from specialty;
But sooth, till then, bear with his balladry. 20
I ask’d lewd Gallus when he’ll cease to swear,
And with whole-culverin, raging oaths to tear
The vault of heaven—spitting in the eyes
Of Nature’s nature loathsome blasphemies.
To-morrow, he doth vow, he will forbear.
Next day I meet him, but I hear him swear
Worse than before. I put his vow in mind.
He answers me “To-morrow;” but I find
He swears next day far worse than e’er before,
Putting me off with “morrow” evermore. 30
Thus, when I urge him, with his sophistry
He thinks to salve his damnèd perjury.
Silenus now is old, I wonder, I,
He doth not hate his triple venery.
Cold, writhled[473] eld, his life-sweat[474] almost spent,
Methinks a unity were competent.
But, O fair hopes! he whispers secretly,
When it leaves him he’ll leave his lechery.
When simp’ring Flaccus (that demurely goes
Right neatly tripping on his new-black’d toes) 40
Hath made rich use of his religion,
Of God himself, in pure devotion;
When that the strange ideas in his head
(Broachèd ’mongst curious sots, by shadows led)
Have furnish’d him, by his hoar auditors,
Of fair demesnes and goodly rich manors;
Sooth, then, he will repent when’s treasury
Shall force him to disclaim his heresy.
What will not poor need force? But being sped,
God for us all! the gurmond’s[475] paunch is fed; 50
His mind is changed. But when will he do good?
To-morrow,—ay, to-morrow, by the rood!
Yet Ruscus swears he’ll cease to broke a suit,
By peasant means striving to get repute
’Mong puffy sponges, when the Fleet’s defrayed,
His revel tire, and his laundress paid.
There is a crew which I too plain could name,
If so I might without th’ Aquinians’[476] blame,
That lick the tail of greatness with their lips—
Labouring with third-hand jests and apish skips, 60
Retailing others’ wit, long barrellèd,
To glib some great man’s ears till paunch be fed—
Glad if themselves, as sporting fools, be made
To get the shelter of some high-grown shade.
To-morrow yet these base tricks they’ll cast off,
And cease for lucre be a jeering scoff.
Ruscus will leave when once he can renew
His wasted clothes, that are ashamed to view
The world’s proud eyes; Drusus will cease to fawn
When that his farm, that leaks in melting pawn, 70
Some lord-applauded jest hath once set free:
All will to-morrow leave their roguery.
When fox-furr’d Mecho (by damn’d usury,
Cut-throat deceit, and his craft’s villainy)
Hath raked together some four thousand pound,
To make his smug girl bear a bumming sound
In a young merchant’s ear, faith, then (may be)
He’ll ponder if there be a Deity;
Thinking, if to the parish poverty,
At his wish’d death, be doled a halfpenny, 80
A work of supererogation,
A good filth-cleansing strong purgation.
Aulus will leave begging monopolies
When that, ’mong troops of gaudy butterflies,
He is but able jet it jollily
In piebald suits of proud court bravery.
To-morrow doth Luxurio promise me
He will unline himself from bitchery;
Marry, Alcides thirteenth act must lend
A glorious period, and his lust-itch end, 90
When once he hath froth-foaming Ætna past,
At one-and-thirty,[477] being always last.
If not to-day (quoth that Nasonian),
Much less to-morrow. “Yes,” saith Fabian,
“For ingrain’d habits, dyed with often dips,
Are not so soon discolourèd. Young slips,
New set, are easily mov’d and pluck’d away;
But elder roots clip faster in the clay.”
I smile at thee, and at the Stagyrite,[478]
Who holds the liking of the appetite, 100
Being fed with actions often put in ure,[479]
Hatcheth the soul in quality impure
Or pure; may be in virtue: but for vice,
That comes by inspiration, with a trice.
Young Furius, scarce fifteen years of age,
But is, straightways, right fit for marriage—
Unto the devil; for sure they would agree,
Betwixt their souls there is such sympathy.
O where’s your sweaty habit, when each ape,
That can but spy the shadow of his shape, 110
That can no sooner ken what’s virtuous,
But will avoid it, and be vicious!
Without much do or far-fetch’d habiture,
In earnest thus:—It is a sacred cure
To salve the soul’s dread wounds; omnipotent
That Nature is, that cures the impotent,
Even in a moment. Sure, grace is infused
By Divine favour, not by actions used,
Which is as permanent as heaven’s bliss,
To them that have it; then no habit is. 120
To-morrow, nay, to-day, it may be got,
So please that gracious power cleanse thy spot.
Vice, from privation of that sacred grace
Which God withdraws, but puts not vice in place.
Who says the sun is cause of ugly night?
Yet when he veils our eyes from his fair sight,
The gloomy curtain of the night is spread.
Ye curious sots, vainly by Nature led,
Where is your vice or virtuous habit now?
For Sustine[480] pro nunc doth bend his brow, 130
And old crabb’d Scotus, on the Organon,
Pay’th me with snaphance,[481] quick distinction.
“Habits, that intellectual termèd be,
Are got or else infused from Deity.”
Dull Sorbonist, fly contradiction!
Fie! thou oppugn’st the definition;
If one should say, “Of things term’d rational,
Some reason have, others mere sensual,”
Would not some freshman, reading Porphyry,
Hiss and deride such blockish foolery? 140
“Then vice nor virtue have from habit place;
The one from want, the other sacred grace;
Infused, displaced; not in our will or force,
But as it please Jehovah have remorse.”
I will, cries Zeno. O presumption!
I can. Thou mayst, doggèd opinion
Of thwarting cynics. To-day vicious;
List to their precepts, next day virtuous.
Peace, Seneca, thou belchest blasphemy!
“To live from God, but to live happily” 150
(I hear thee boast) “from thy philosophy,
And from thyself.” O ravening lunacy!
Cynics, ye wound yourselves; for destiny,
Inevitable fate, necessity,
You hold, doth sway the acts spiritual,
As well as parts of that we mortal call.
Where’s then I will? Where’s that strong deity
You do ascribe to your philosophy?
Confounded Nature’s brats! can will and fate
Have both their seat and office in your pate? 160
O hidden depth of that dread secrecy,
Which I do trembling touch in poetry!
To-day, to-day, implore obsequiously;
Trust not to-morrow’s will, lest utterly
Ye be attach’d with sad confusion,
In your grace-tempting lewd presumption.
But I forget. Why sweat I out my brain
In deep designs to gay boys, lewd and vain?
These notes were better sung ’mong better sort;
But to my pamphlet, few, save fools, resort. 170
[473] Writhed, crooked.
[474] Old eds. “liues-wet.”