Think’st thou, Kate, to put me down
Love commands the hands to dare
When the tongue of speech is spare,
Chiefest lesson in Love’s school,—
Put it in adventure, fool!
Fools are they that fainting flinch
For a squeak, a scratch, a pinch:
Women’s words have double sense:
‘Stand away!’—a simple fence.
If thy mistress swear she’ll cry,
Fear her not, she’ll swear and lie:
Such sweet oaths no sorrow bring
Till the prick of conscience sting.
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Think’st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning?
Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth:
He that courts us, wanting art, soon falters when he feigneth,
Looks asquint on his discourse and smiles when he complaineth.
Skilful anglers hide their hooks, fit baits for every season;
But with crooked pins fish thou, as babes do that want reason:
Gudgeons only can be caught with such poor tricks of treason.
Ruth forgive me (if I erred) from human heart’s compassion,
When I laughed sometimes too much to see thy foolish fashion:
But, alas, who less could do that found so good occasion!