SCENE V.

_Pavia.--A street._

_Enter_ Don SAGO _solus, with a case of pistols_.

_Sago._ Day was my night, and night must be my day;

The sun shined on my pleasure with my love,

And darkness must lend aid to my revenge.

The stage of heaven is hung with solemn black,

A time best fitting to act tragedies.

The night's great queen, that maiden governess,

Musters black clouds to hide her from the world,

Afraid to look on my bold enterprise.

Cursed creatures, messengers of death, possess the world;

Night-ravens, screetch-owls, and voice-killing[288] mandrakes,

The ghosts[289] of misers, that imprison'd gold 11

Within the harmless[290] bowels of the earth,

Are night's companions. Bawds to lust and murder,

Be all propitious to my act of justice

Upon the scandalisers of her fame,

That is the lifeblood of deliciousness,

Deem'd[291] Isabella, Cupid's treasurer,

Whose soul contains the richest gifts of love:

Her beauty from my heart fear doth expel:

They relish pleasure best that dread not hell! 20

Who's there?

_Enter_ Count MASSINO.[292]

_Mass._ A friend to thee, if thy intents

Be just and honourable.

_Sago._ Count Massino,[292] speak, I am the watch.

_Mass._ My name is Massino:[292] dost thou know me?

_Sago._ Yes, slanderous villain, nurse of obloquy,

Whose poison'd breath has speckled clear-faced[293] virtue,

And made a leper of Isabella's fame,

That is as spotless as the eye of heaven!

Thy vital thread's a-cutting; start not, slave;

He's sure of sudden death, Heaven cannot save! 30

_Mass._ Art not Gniaca turn'd apostata?[294]

Has pleasure once again turned thee again

A devil? art not Gniaca--hah?

_Sago._ O that I were, then would I stab myself,

For he is mark'd for death as well as thee!

I am Don Sago, thy mortal enemy,

Whose hand love makes thy executioner!

_Mass._ I know thee, valiant Spaniard, and to thee

Murder's more hateful than is sacrilege.

Thy actions ever have been honourable. 40

_Sago._ And this the crown of all my actions,

To purge the earth of such a man turn'd monster!

Mass. I never wrong'd thee, Spaniard--did I? speak:

[_Tell_[295] _him all the plot._

I'll make thee satisfaction like a soldier,

A true Italian, and a gentleman.

Thy rage is treachery without a cause.

_Sago._ My rage is just, and thy heart blood shall know,

He that wrongs beauty, must be honour's foe.

Isabel's quarrel arms the Spaniard's spirit!

_Mass._ Murder should keep with baseness, not with merit. 50

I'll answer thee to-morrow, by my soul,

And clear thy doubts, or satisfy thy will.

_Sago._ He's war's best scholar can with safety kill.

Take this to-night; now meet with me to-morrow.

[_Shoots._ MASSINO _falls dead_.

I come, Isabella; half thy hate is dead;

Valour makes murder light, which fear makes lead.[296]

_Enter_ Captain _with a band of_ Soldiers.

_Capt._ The pistol was shot here; seize him!

Bring lights. What, Don Sago, colonel of the horse?

Ring the alarum-bell, raise the whole city;

His troops are in the town; I fear treachery. 60

Who's this lies murder'd? Speak, bloodthirsty Spaniard!

_Sago._ I have not spoil'd his face, you may know his visnomy.

_Capt._ 'Tis Count Massino;[297] go convey him hence;

Thy life, proud Spaniard, answers this offence.

A strong guard for the prisoner, 'less the city's powers

Rise to rescue him!

[_Begirt him with soldiers._

_Sago._ What needs this strife?

Know, slaves, I prize revenge above my life.

Fame's register to future times shall tell

That by Don Sago, Count Massino[297] fell!

[_Exeunt omnes._

[288] Ed. 1631 and some copies of ed. 1613, "vote-killing."--The

mandrake plant was supposed to shriek so poignantly when pulled

from the ground, as to cause madness or death in the person who

plucked it.

[289] An allusion to the well-known superstition (to which there

is a reference in _Hamlet_) that ghosts haunted the spot where

they had concealed treasure in their lifetime.

[290] The writer had certainly Hotspur's words in his memory:--

"That villainous salt-petre should be digg'd

Out of the _bowels_ of the _harmless earth_."--

_1 Henry IV._ i. 2.

[291] Qu. "Divine" or "Dear"?

[292] Old eds. "ROGERO."--The prefix to his speeches is

"_Rog._"

[293] Ed. 1631 "cleane fac't."

[294] An old form of "apostate."

[295] I suppose it was left to the actor to explain shortly the

history of Massino's relations with Isabella.

[296] Old eds. "dead."

[297] Old eds. "Rogero."

ACT V.

SCENE I.

_Pavia.--The place of execution._

_Enter_[298] MEDINA, _followed by soldiers with the dead body of_

Count MASSINO _on a bier_; DON SAGO _guarded_, Executioner. _A

scaffold laid out._

_Med._ Don Sago, quakest thou not to behold this spectacle--

This innocent sacrifice, murder'd nobleness--

When blood, the Maker ever promiseth,

Shall though with slow yet with sure vengeance rest?

'Tis a guerdon earn'd, and must be paid;

As sure revenge, as it is sure a deed;

I ne'er knew murder yet, but it did bleed.

Canst thou, after so many fearful conflicts

Between this object and thy guilty conscience,

Now thou art freed from out the serpent's jaws, 10

That vild adulteress, whose sorceries

Doth draw chaste men into incontinence--

Whose tongue flows over with harmful eloquence--

Canst thou, I say, repent this heinous act,

And learn to loathe that killing cockatrice?[299]

_Sago._ By this fresh blood, that from thy manly breast

I cowardly sluiced[300] out, I would in hell,

From this sad minute till[301] the day of doom,

To re-inspire vain Æsculapius,

And fill these crimson conduits, feel the fire 20

Due to the damnèd and this horrid fact![302]

_Med._ Upon my soul, brave Spaniard, I believe thee.

_Sago._ O cease to weep in blood, or teach me too!

The bubbling wounds[303] do murmur for revenge.

This is the end of lust, where men may see,

Murder's the shadow of adultery,

And follows it to death.

_Med._ But, hopeful lord, we do commiserate

Thy bewitch'd fortunes, a free pardon give

On this thy true and noble penitence. 30

Withal we make thee colonel of our horse,

Levied against the proud Venetian state.

_Sago._ Medina, I thank thee not; give life to him

That sits with Risus and the full-cheek'd Bacchus,

The rich and mighty monarchs of the earth;

To me life is ten times more terrible

Than death can be to me. O, break, my breast!

_Divines_[304] _and dying men may talk of hell,

But in my heart the several torments dwell._

What Tanais, Nilus, or what Tigris[305] swift, 40

What Rhenus ferier[306] than the cataract,--

Although[307] Neptolis cold, the waves of all the Northern Sea,

Should flow for ever through these guilty hands,

Yet the sanguinolent stain would extant be!

_Med._ God pardon thee! we do.

_Enter a_ Messenger.

_Mes._ The countess comes, my lord, unto the death;

[_A shout._

But so unwillingly and unprepared,

That she is rather forced, thinking the sum

She sent to you of twenty thousand pound

Would have assurèd her of life.

_Med._ O Heavens! 50

Is she not weary yet of lust and life?

Had it been Croesus' wealth, she should have died;

Her goods by law are all confiscate to us,

And die she shall: her lust

Would make a slaughter-house of Italy.

Ere she attain'd to four-and-twenty years,

Three earls, one viscount, and this valiant Spaniard,

Are known to ha' been the fuel to her lust;

Besides her secret lovers, which charitably

I judge to have been but few, but some they were. 60

Here is a glass wherein to view her soul,

A noble but unfortunate gentleman,

Cropp'd by her hand, as some rude passenger

Doth pluck the tender roses in the bud!

Murder and lust, the least of which is death,

And hath she yet any false hope of breath?

_Enter_ ISABELLA, _with her hair hanging down, a chaplet of flowers

on her head, a nosegay in her hand; Executioner before her, and

with her a Cardinal._

_Isa._ What place is this?

_Car._ Madam, the Castle Green.

_Isa._ There should be dancing on a green, I think.

_Car._ Madam,

To you none other than your dance of death. 70

_Isa._ Good my Lord Cardinal, do not thunder thus;

I sent to-day to my physician,

And, as he says, he finds no sign of death.

_Car._ Good madam, do not jest away your soul.

_Isa._ O servant, how hast thou betray'd my life!

[_To_ SAGO.

Thou art my dearest lover now, I see;

Thou wilt not leave me till my very death.

Bless'd be thy hand! I sacrifice a kiss

To it and vengeance. Worthily thou didst;

He died deservedly. Not content to enjoy 80

My youth and beauty, riches and my fortune,

But like a chronicler of his own vice,

In epigrams and songs he tuned my name,

Renown'd me for a strumpet in the courts

Of the French King and the great Emperor.

Did'st thou not kill him drunk?[308]

_Med._ O shameless woman!

_Isa._ Thou should'st, or in the embraces of his lust;

It might have been a woman's vengeance.[309]

Yet I thank thee, Sago, and would not wish him living

Were my life instant ransom.

_Car._ Madam, in your soul 90

Have charity.

_Isa._ There's money for the poor.

[_Gives him money._

_Car._ O lady, this is but a branch of charity,

An ostentation, or a liberal pride:

Let me instruct your soul, for that, I fear,

Within the painted sepulchre of flesh,

Lies in a dead consumption. Good madam, read.

[_Gives a book._

_Isa._ You put me to my book, my lord; will not that

save me?[310]

_Car._ Yes, madam, in the everlasting world.

_Sago._ Amen, amen!

_Isa._ While thou wert my servant, thou hast ever said 100

Amen to all my wishes. Witness this spectacle.

Where's my lord Medina?

_Med._ Here, Isabella. What would you?

_Isa._ May we not be reprieved?

_Med._ Mine honour's past; you may not.

_Isa._ No, 'tis my honour past.

_Med._ Thine honour's past, indeed.

_Isa._ Then there's no hope of absolute remission?

_Med._ For that your holy confessor will tell you;

Be dead to this world, for I swear you die, 110

Were you my father's daughter.

_Isa._ Can you do nothing, my Lord Cardinal?

_Car._ More than the world, sweet lady; help to save

What hand of man wants power to destroy.

_Isa._ You're all for this world, then why not I?

Were you in health and youth, like me, my lord,

Although you merited the crown of life,

And stood in state of grace assured of it,

Yet in this fearful separation,

Old as you are, e'en till your latest gasp, 120

You'd crave the help of the physician,

And wish your days lengthen'd one summer longer.

Though all be grief, labour, and misery,

Yet none will part with it, that I can see.

_Med._ Up to the scaffold with her, 'tis late.

_Isa._ Better late than never, my good lord; you think

You use square dealing, Medina's mighty duke,

Tyrant of France, sent hither by the devil.

[_She ascends the scaffold._

_Med._ The fitter to meet you.

_Car._ Peace! Good my lord, in death do not provoke her. 130

_Isa._ Servant,

Low as my destiny I kneel to thee,

[_To_ SAGO.

Honouring in death thy manly loyalty;

And what so e'er become of my poor soul,

The joys of both worlds evermore be thine.

Commend me to the noble Count Gniaca,

That should have shared thy valour and my hatred:

Tell him I pray his pardon, and--

Medina, art [thou] yet inspired from heaven?

Show thy Creator's image: be like Him, 140

Father of mercy.

_Med._ Head's-man, do thine office.

_Isa._ Now God lay all thy sins upon thy head,

And sink thee with them to infernal darkness,

Thou teacher of the furies' cruelty!

_Car._ O madam, teach yourself a better prayer;

This is your latest hour.

_Isa._ He is mine enemy, his sight torments me;

I shall not die in quiet.

_Med._ I'll be gone: off with her head there!

[_Exit._

_Isa._ Takest thou delight to torture misery? 150

Such mercy find thou in the day of doom.

_Soul._ My lord, here is a holy friar desires

To have some conference with the prisoners.

_Enter_ ROBERTO, _Count of Cyprus, in friar's weeds._

_Rob._ It is in private, what I have to say,

With favour of your fatherhood.

_Car._ Friar, in God's name, welcome.

[ROBERTO _ascends to_ ISABELLA.

_Rob._ Lady, it seems your eye is still the same--

Forgetful of what most it should behold.

Do not you know me, then?

_Isa._ Holy sir,

So far you are gone from my memory, 160

I must take truce with time ere I can know you.

_Rob._ Bear record, all you blessèd saints in heaven,

I come not to torment thee in thy death;

For of himself he's terrible enough.

But call to mind a lady like yourself;

And think how ill in such a beauteous soul,

Upon the instant morrow of her nuptials,

Apostasy and vild revolt would show:

Withal imagine that she had a lord,

Jealous the air should ravish her chaste looks:[311] 170

Doting like the creator in his models,

Who views them every minute, and with care

Mix'd in his fear of their obedience to him.

Suppose he[r] sung through famous Italy,

More common than the looser songs of Petrarch,

To every several zany's instrument;

And he, poor wretch, hoping some better fate

Might call her back from her adulterate purpose,

Lives in obscure and almost unknown life,

Till hearing that she is condemn'd to die-- 180

For he once loved her--lends his pinèd corpse

Motion to bring him to her stage of honour,

Where drown'd in woe at her so dismal chance,

He clasps her: thus he falls into a trance.

_Isa._ O, my offended lord, lift up your eyes:

But yet avert them from my loathèd sight.

Had I with you enjoyed the lawful pleasure,

To which belongs nor fear nor public shame,

I might have lived in honour, died in fame!

Your pardon on my falt'ring knees I beg, 190

Which shall confirm more peace unto my death

Than all the grave instructions of the Church.

_Rob._ Pardon belongs unto my holy weeds,

Freely thou hast it.

Farewell, my Isabella! let thy death

Ransom thy soul. O die a rare example!

The kiss thou gavest me in the church, here take;

As I leave thee, so thou the world forsake!

[_Exit_ ROBERTO.

_Car._[312] Rare accident, ill welcome, noble lord.

Madam, your executioner desires you to forgive him. 200

_Isa._ Yes, and give him too. What must I do, my

friend?

_Exec._ Madam, only tie up your hair.

_Isa._ O, these golden nets,

That have ensnared so many wanton youths,

Not one but has been held a thread of life,

And superstitiously depended on.

Now to the block we must vail! What else?

_Exec._ Madam, I must entreat you, blind your eyes.

_Isa._ I have lived too long in darkness, my friend;

And yet mine eyes, with their majestic light,

Have got new muses in a poet's sprite. 210

They have been more gazed at than the god of day:

Their brightness never could be flatterèd,

Yet thou command'st a fixèd cloud of lawn

To eclipse eternally these minutes of light.

What else?

_Exec._ Now, madam, all's done,

And when you please, I'll execute my office.

_Isa._ We will be for thee straight.

Give me your blessing, my Lord Cardinal.

Lord, I am well prepared:

Murder and lust, down with my ashes sink, 220

But, like ingrateful seed, perish in earth,

That you may never spring against my soul,

Like weeds to choke it in the heavenly harvest.

I fall to rise; mount to thy Maker, spirit!

Leave here thy body, death has her demerit.

[_The executioner strikes off her head._

_Car._ A host of angels be thy convey [_sic_] hence.

_Re-enter_ MEDINA.[313]

_Med._ To funeral with her body and this lord's.

None here, I hope, can tax us of injustice:

She died deservedly, and may like fate

Attend all women so insatiate. 230

[_Exeunt omnes._

[298] Old eds. "_Enter_ MEDINA, _the dead body of_ GUIDO _alias

Count_ ARSENA, _and Souldiours, &c._"

[299] A creature resembling a serpent. It was bred from a cock's

egg, and had a cock's crest; the sight of it caused sudden

death.--The term was frequently applied to a wanton woman.

[300] See note, vol. i. p. 189.

[301] Ed. 1613 "still."

[302] "Fact"--guilty deed, crime.

[303] It was a common superstition that the wounds of a murdered

man bled in the presence of the murderer.

[304] This couplet is from a copy of verses in Nashe's _Pierce

Penniless_, 1592 (_Works_, ed. Grosart, ii. 10). It is also found

in the _Yorkshire Tragedy_, 1608.

[305] Ed. 1613 "Tioris."

[306] _Fere_ = proud, fierce. The word was obsolete in Marston's

time.

[307] Quy. "Though _Neptune_ cold"?--The passage smacks of

_Macbeth_.

[308] Cf. _Hamlet_, iii. 3:--

"Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:

When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage;

Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed," &c.

[309] Marston almost invariably makes a trisyllable of "vengeance."

[310] _i.e._, cannot I be saved by "benefit of clergy"?

[311] Cf. _Hamlet_, i. 2:--

"So loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly."

[312] Old eds. "_Clarid._"

[313] Medina's re-entrance is not marked in old eds.

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._