Satire I

Away, thou changeling motley humourist,
Leave me, and in this standing wooden chest,
Consorted with these few books, let me lie
In prison, and here be coffin’d when I die.
Here are God’s conduits, grave divines, and here
Nature’s secretary, the philosopher,
And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie
The sinews of a city’s mystic body;
Here gathering chroniclers, and by them stand
Giddy fantastic poets of each land.
Shall I leave all this constant company,
And follow headlong, wild, uncertain thee?
First, swear by thy best love, here, in earnest
—If thou, which lovest all, canst love any best⁠—
Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street,
Though some more spruce companion thou dost meet;
Not though a captain do come in thy way
Bright parcel-gilt, with forty dead men’s pay;
Not though a brisk perfumèd pert courtier
Deign with a nod thy courtesy to answer;
Nor come a velvet justice with a long
Great train of blue coats, twelve or fourteen strong,
Wilt thou grin, or fawn on him, or prepare
A speech to court his beauteous son and heir?
For better or worse take me, or leave me;
To take and leave me is adultery.
O monstrous, superstitious puritan,
Of refined manners, yet ceremonial man,
That when thou meet’st one, with enquiring eyes
Doth search, and like a needy broker prize
The silk and gold he wears, and to that rate,
So high or low, dost raise thy formal hat;
That will consort none, until thou have known
What lands he hath in hope, or of his own,
As though all thy companions should make thee
Jointures, and marry thy dear company.
Why shouldst thou, that dost not only approve,
But in rank itchy lust, desire and love
The nakedness and bareness to enjoy
Of thy plump muddy whore, or prostitute boy,
Hate virtue, though she be naked and bare?
At birth, and death, our bodies naked are;
And, till our souls be unapparelled
Of bodies, they from bliss are banished.
Man’s first blest state was naked; when by sin
He lost that, he was clothed but in beasts’ skin;
And in this coarse attire, which I now wear,
With God and with the Muses I confer.
But since thou, like a contrite penitent,
Charitably warn’d of thy sins, dost repent
These vanities and giddinesses, lo!
I shut my chamber door; and come, let’s go.
But sooner may a cheap whore, who hath been
Worn by as many several men in sin,
As are black feathers, or musk-coloured hose,
Name her child’s right true father ’mongst all those;
Sooner may one guess who shall bear away
Th’ infant of London, heir to an India;
And sooner may a gulling weather-spy,
By drawing forth heaven’s scheme, tell certainly
What fashion’d hats, or ruffs, or suits next year
Our subtle-witted antic youths will wear,
Than thou, when thou depart’st from me, can show
Whither, why, when, or with whom thou wouldst go.
But how shall I be pardon’d my offence
That thus have sinn’d against my conscience?
Now we are in the street; he first of all,
Improvidently proud, creeps to the wall;
And so imprison’d, and hemm’d in by me,
Sells for a little state high liberty.
Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet
Every fine, silken, painted fool we meet,
He them to him with amorous smiles allures,
And grins, smacks, shrugs, and such an itch endures,
As ’prentices or schoolboys, which do know
Of some gay sport abroad, yet dare not go.
And as fiddlers stop lowest, at highest sound,
So to the most brave, stoops he nighest the ground.
But to a grave man he doth move no more
Than the wise politic horse would heretofore,
Or thou, O elephant, or ape, wilt do,
When any names the King of Spain to you.
Now leaps he upright, jogs me, and cries, “Do you see
Yonder well-favoured youth?” “Which?” “O, ’tis he
That dances so divinely.” “O,” said I,
“Stand still, must you dance here for company?”
He droop’d, we went, till one⁠—which did excel
Th’ Indians in drinking his tobacco well⁠—
Met us; they talk’d; I whisper’d, “Let us go,
’T may be you smell him not; truly I do.”
He hears not me, but, on the other side
A many-colour’d peacock having spied,
Leaves him and me; I for my lost sheep stay;
He follows, overtakes, goes on the way,
Saying, “Him whom I last left, all repute
For his device in handsoming a suit,
To judge of lace, pink, panes, print, cut, and pleat,
Of all the court to have the best conceit.”
“Our dull comedians want him, let him go;
But O, God strengthen thee, why stopp’st thou so?”
“Why!” “Hath he travell’d long?” “No.” “But to me,
Which understand none, he doth seem to be
Perfect French and Italian,” I replied,
“So is the pox.” He answer’d not, but spied
More men of sort, of parts and qualities.
At last his love he in a window spies,
And like light dew exhaled, he flings from me
Violently ravish’d to his lechery.
Many were there; he could command no more;
He quarrell’d, fought, bled; and turn’d out of door
Directly came to me, hanging the head,
And constantly a while must keep his bed.