FAUNUS and Melliflora. OR, THE ORIGINAL of our English satires.  
john Weever.  
Sit voluisse, Sat valuisse.  
LONDON Printed by Valentine Simmes. 1600.   

TO THE RIGHT Valorous and excellent accomplished Gentleman, Master Edward Stanley of Winwicke Esquire, all fortunes, suitable to the ancient worth of the Stanley's.  
Howsoever (most bounteous Sir) this subject which I present, may be either disagreeing to your disposition, or being but a shepherds lowly pastoral, far unworthy so worthy a Patron: yet the willingness of my soul, to show some sign of good will to my countrymen, enforceth me to consecrate my chiefest studies to the setting forth of their admired virtues: which considered, I doubt not but your Worship with courtesy, will accept my rustic incivility, and with favourable Patronage, pardon my wood-borne imperfections.  
Yours in all john Weever.   


Of the Author.  
THe Greek Comadian fitly doth compare  
Poets to Swans, for both delicious,  
Both in request, both white, both precious are,  
Both sing alike, and both melodious:  
I but the swan remaineth dumb so long,  
(As though her Music were too good to spend)  
That so at last her soule-enchanting song,  
Is but a funeral dirge to her end.  
Weever, herein above the Swan I praise,  
Which freely spends his sweet melodious ditty,  
Now in the budding of his youthful days,  
Delightsome, pleasant, full of Art, and witty,  
Yet heavens forbid he should be near his death,  
Though like the dving Swan he sweetly breath.  M. D.  

In Laudem Authoris.  
TExuit eximio Weverus carmina cultu,  
Texuit & magni grand stuporis opus:  
Si peterem meritis, meritas expromere laudes,  
Vox raucisset iners, arida penna foret:  
Te decorat Pallas, te lauro cinxit Apollo,  
Te gaudent Charites, Pueridumque chorus:  
Dum cupimus musis vestras mulcere camaenas,  
Fundimus in pelagi flumina flumen inops.  R. H.  


MEthinks I hear some foul-mouthed Momus say,  
What have we here? a shepherds roundelay?  
More love-truks yet? will this gear never end,  
But slight lascivious toys must still be penned?  
Content thee Momus, thou hast lost thy sight,  
For this is neither vain, obscene, nor slight.   

If for to write o' Love and loves delights,  
Be not fit objects for the graver sights,  
Then still admired Chaucer, thou mayst rue  
And write thy ancient stories all anew:  
And that same Fairy Muse may rise again,  
To blot those works that with us do remain.   

Then fear not Weever let thy Muse go on,  
Thy maiden Muse, thy chaste Endimeon:  
To blazon forth the love of shepherd swains,  
As well in Cottage as in Court Love rains.  
And whosoever shall chance thy book to see,  
In it shall read ripe wit, sweet Poetry.  I. F.   

FAunus a sylvan god, and Melliflora  
A sacred Nymph, that used among the woods,  
Rose every morning with the bright Aurora,  
To gather garlands made of muskrose buds:  
In love they lived long, and in love they died,  
(O wonder not, that gods, and Nymphs can perish)  
Oblivion buried them in their chief pride:  
So all men die whom no sweet Muse doth cherish:  
This Aesculapius by his cunning pen,  
Revines the dead from their obscured grave,  
Such sacred skill hath Art inspired in men,  
And such a sweet reviving may I have:  
All Poets with green Luirell crown his head,  
Whose pen makes live, such as have long been dead.  T. H.  

To the true favourite of Heroical Poetry M. Thomas Bromley of Deeresolde, Esquire.  
Sigh that the Author, and the Author's pen,  
At thy command are both as much as mine,  
Thou mayst demand, and justly wonder then,  
Above all other, why this book is thine?  
Or why this Poem, to a Poet send I,  
Whose quick invention, judgement, learning, wit,  
Will soon perceive, and see wherein offend I:  
And where I might more scholarlike have writ.  
The Sun guides altogether, yet alone  
And singular the seat is of the Sun:  
To celebrate, and praise, all is not one,  
I strive to stir, before I stir to run:  
And Melliflora (for the name) is meet  
For thee, whose pen is slower and honey sweet.  I. W.   

FAUNUS and Melliflora  
WHen jove ambitious by his former sins,  
(From him all Muses, so my Muse begins)  
Deposed his Sire Saturnus from the throne,  
And so usurped the Diadem alone:  
Some higher power for aged Saturn strove,  
Gave him a gift, which angered lust-stung love:  
A lovely boy, whose beauty at his birth,  
Made poor the heavens to enrich the earth.  
(When jove no beauty in the heavens found,  
Was he not angry? yea, and to the ground  
Sent Mercury, to woo a shepherds swain,  
Whilst he himself came in a shower of rain:  
Whose drizzling drops fell into Danae's lap,  
Which to receive, (maids will receive such hap)  
She held her skirt, jove such abundance powered,  
Twenty to one but Danae was deflowered.)  
His name was Pycus, yet surnamed the Fair,  
Whom Circe chanted in her scorne-gold hair,  
Whom Ladies loved, and loved of so many,  
The wood-Nymphes wooed him, yet not won of any,  
Till Canens came, (who when she 'gan to sing,  
The airy Bird would hoover with her wing,  
To hear her notes, for Canens she was called,  
Of singing sweet) and Pycus heart enthralled:  
Not married long, but Canens did enjoy  
Of fairest father, far more fair a boy,  
(That heaven, & earth, in bringing forth these two,  
Made a great brag that so much they could do:)  
Faunus a boy whose amber-stragling hairs,  
So strangely trammeld all about his ears,  
The crisp dishevelled playing with the wind,  
Among the thickest, never way could find,  
But sweetest flowers would leap from Flora's lap,  
And so themselves within his tresses wrap.  
That glad he was those locks (those locks alone,  
Those locks that locked in bondage many one:)  
With careless art, or artless care enfold,  
And draw them in a coronet of gold.  
If bashfulness enveloped his face,  
A pretty paleness damasked such sweet grace,  
Like Daisy with the Gillyflower distilled,  
Or Roses on a bed of Lilies spilled:  
Or rather when the wood-Nimphs gazing stood,  
Love like a tyrant therein threatened blood:  
His eyes were such, my Muse yet hardly can  
Emblazon forth the beauty of a man:  
My dullard muse to sing it may suffice,  
Of his rich coat he wore in wondrous guise:  
The ground whereof was velvet, white as snow,  
Reaching unto the ankles down below,  
With buttons made of Diamonds upon,  
Such as our knights of th'order first put on:  
Upon the left side it no fastening had,  
But on the right side with a pearl staid,  
Upon th' one shoulder where the two ends met,  
Were both together, with a jewel set,  
On top whereof in lively form did stand,  
Great Hercules with distaff in his hand:  
To every seam were fastened ribonings,  
With stories wrought of Emperors and Kings:  
And at each ribbon hung a precious stone,  
(loves chief disport consists in these alone)  
Which were fair Ladies costly Amethysts,  
Tide to the tender small leau'de ozear twists,  
That so they might his ribbons interlace,  
When he pursued the nimble Hart in chase:  
And she grew proud, and held the rest in scorn,  
That knew her favour by young Faunus worn.  
Powdered upon so strange, that many thought  
With purple coloured silk it had been wrought:  
But (ah alas) it was the crimson stain,  
Of goddesses, which Faunus looks had slain:  
About his neck he wore a falling band,  
Which took it pride from his fair mother's hand:  
His ivory feet, appearing unto sight,  
In murrey velvet, buskins rich were dight,  
The middle slits with tyrian Bisse were laced,  
Whose pretty knots his manlike leg embraced.  
In many places bare as use hath been,  
To show the clearness of the naked skin.  
The wanton boy attired in this sort,  
Unto the Latian mountains did resort,  
Whose proud height garnished with such stately trees,  
Seemed to contemn the valley at his knees,  
The humble valley in as good a state:  
(But lofty Gallants lower minds do hate)  
Was still replenished with a pleasant river,  
(Proud of the gift, and yet more proud the giver,)  
Whose wanton streams the bank so oft do kiss,  
That in her lap (at length) he falling is:  
Her bubbling water with slow gliding pace,  
Shows her great grief to leave that pleasant place:  
And with a murmur when she goes away,  
Greatly laments she can no longer stay,  
Cause th'upper streams by violence would come,  
To take possession of that joyful room,  
With swift pursuit, and as they gi'en to chase it,  
The banks like arms do lovingly embrace it:  
Whose purling noise upon the pebble stones,  
For such departure are the doleful groans:  
Her tears exhalde such nourishment doth give,  
As on the tree-fringd banks made Pleasure live,  
Among these trees a goodly Cypress grew,  
That all the lofty pines did overview,  
Who bowed her fair head (in the sunny gleams,)  
To tress her green locks by those glassy streams.  
Her top, her shade, upon the River showed,  
For the kind moisture on her root bestowed,  
Running upon so delicate a ground,  
As that the truth could never yet be found:  
Whether it made the gravel precious look,  
Or else the gravel purified the brook:  
Whose meadows green enamelled with roses,  
('twas Paradise some Poet yet supposes)  
Added a show so ruddy, that most deemed  
The field to blush at his own beauty seemed.  
Near to this valley Shepherds often met,  
And by this valley sheepish squadrons set,  
Within this valley past the time away,  
With leaps and gambols, and with other play:  
Here the Nymphs played such summer games as Base,  
For it was summer always in this place,  
And barleybreak, the which when Faunus saw,  
So many wood-Nymphes standing on a row:  
The boy, though young, (yet who so young that loves not,  
Or who so old that women's beauty moves not?)  
Spied Melliflora: Melliflora was  
Among the number sitting on the grass:  
Sweet Melliflora I can tell ye true,  
The grass grew proud that under her it grew.  
Fair Melliflora, amorous, and young,  
Whose name, nor story, never Poet sung:  
She wore a garland wrought with Amorets,  
With orphrates overlaid and violets,  
Whose lacinth love-locks hanged out so fair,  
As dressed the garland, garland dressed the hair,  
And interlaced with a pearl band.  
(Like crystal Tagus through his golden sand)  
Which hiding now, then hidden by the hair,  
At fast and loose to play it did appear,  
Fair was her face yet fairer might have been,  
If that the Sun so often had not seen  
Her lovely face, for half the day he spent  
In kissing her, yet never was content:  
(For God or man thinks he the Cushion misses,  
That woos all day, and wins nought else but kisses)  
Until the sun with overmuch desire  
Of love (for love is hotter than the fire)  
Consumed the wreath of Diamonds in his throne:  
(Ouid's beguiled, it was not Phaeton)  
For Melliflora was the cause he burned,  
His chariot, and the world to cinders turned.  
Strange were her weeds to Faunus, yet not strange,  
For in such weeds the wood-Nymphes use to range,  
A petticoat tucked even with the knees,  
Garnished about with leaves of sundry trees:  
And sometimes like a net drawn up, and wrought,  
(Which net the eagle- jove might well have caught)  
And all her garments made so light and thin,  
(Who could restrain but think what was within)  
And black silk laces whereon silver bells  
Did hang above her elbows, and of shells  
Her slippers were, her legs, her arms, her breast,  
In many places naked, yet so dressed,  
As nakedness another raiment scorned,  
For she her clothes, her clothes not her adorned.  
Faunus a far off stood stone-still and gazed,  
The more he looked, the more Love inly blazed,  
He would have quenched it with his tears, but then  
(A spark of beauty burns a world of men)  
It burned the more, yet who can well refrain  
From drinking water, when he feels the pain  
Of burning fever, though that water drenches,  
And turns to fire, which like Love never quenches:  
But youth may love, and youngmen may admire,  
If old age cannot, yet it will desire.  
For since that time old men of sixty years.  
(Bearing a beard, or rather, beard them bears)  
Will heat their bloods with love and young wives choose,  
(At such sweet weddings youngmen nothing lose)  
Faunus kneeled down and unto Venus prayed,  
Before his prayers were the one half said,  
He thought it best unto the Nymph to write  
And show his love, but beginning to indite,  
He tried the Muses with his often changes,  
(Love never loves to rest, but always ranges.)  
If once on Melliflora he did think,  
He wet his paper both with tears and ink:  
Fearing to end before he had begun,  
Mistrusting each word which his wit had done:  
One was too dark, another was too plain,  
This word too lofty, and the other vain.  
That set not down the sorrow of his heart,  
This show'd his passion, but it show'd no Art:  
He tore his papers, cast away his pen,  
Sore was he grieved, and yet not angry (men  
In true love are not angry) for he knew,  
The more he studied, still the worse it grew:  
Then he resolved to take the rose-strowne way,  
Into the valley where he saw them play,  
Accosted all with Venus and the Graces:  
With white hair hiding their enticing faces,  
Which hand in hand would make a circle round,  
With often turning, than themselves confound,  
In Pyrrhus' dance like soldiers armed twine them,  
And wedge-wise yoked in array combine them.  
And when he came, that wood-Nymph was most fain,  
That to their play might Faunus entertain.  
And if he spoke, the Nymphs drew somewhat near him,  
To taste the syrup of sweet words, and hear him.  
And grey-eyed Dorys she would always eye him,  
Till she was struck purblind she could not see him:  
Some wished him sooner (though he came too soon)  
Before the pleasure of the day was done:  
Some said, the night for Lovers was the day,  
And Love delighted in the night to play,  
For now the day his office gave to night,  
To lend our adverse hemisphere his light.  
The Nymphs requested Melliflora than,  
To move this suit to Faunus, she began:  
I would we had such eloquence as might  
Entreat your highness lodge with us all night,  
We and our arbour evermore would rest  
Content, and honoured with so great a guest:  
You shall but lie upon a bed of roses,  
Your sheets white lilies, pillows fragrant poses,  
Your blankets flowerdeluces shall be drawn  
With pretty pinks, your curtains leasie lawn,  
And in my bed, My, unawares out slipped,  
Her face bewrayed how that her tongue had tripped,  
Which Faunus seeing, would have kissed her then,  
To hide those blushes (oh how kind are men!)  
Fresh she begins, thinking that word to alter,  
The more she speaks, the more her tongue doth falter,  
And 'gainst her will that My she spoke again,  
(Love will not let such words be spoke in vain.)  
This past as unregarded: Faunus said,  
I were inhuman if this were denayed,  
O'ercome with joy, they in the mid rank set him,  
He thought their arbour in the midway met him,  
Such force of Music conquered length of way,  
With torches making artificial day.  
Above all trees in th' odoriferous meads,  
(With green vine branches, curling their proud heads,  
And honni-suckles) at their lodging door,  
Doth grow the pleasing broad leau'de Sycamore:  
Her entrances adorned with precious stone,  
Built in the form of a pavilion:  
Ridings cut out, so that the eye might judge,  
What Angels did inhabit in the lodge,  
And like a comet (yet more precious far)  
Stretching her tale unto a lesser star,  
He pointed at a pleasant summer hall,  
Wherein the Nymphs did use to banquet all,  
The coloured marble beautified the top,  
Whose pillars served the house to underprop,  
And underneath whereas a river road,  
Was mineral, her streams an handful broad,  
Her shaking Crystal was a perfect mirror,  
To all the beauties in the garden near her,  
Whose water washed them rather they did wash it.  
For when their snowwhite ivory hands would plash it,  
(Like honie-bubbling Ladon, or Pirene,  
Clear Castalie, or lukewarm Hippocrene)  
Upon her face she makes ten thousand lines,  
Ten thousand Saphir coloured bubbles shines,  
As not content in large to have their pinctures,  
In each of them sets forth their lively tinctures:  
And comes again to play, embrace, and threaten,  
And laughs, and smiles, and leaps to be so beaten  
Behind this brook or thicket was a green,  
Whereas five hundred grasie rounds had been  
Made one in one, like to these water rings,  
Thence to a gallery Melliflora him brings,  
There was Diana: when Acteon saw her,  
Bathing herself (alas he did not know her)  
(A goldsmith's wife once nakt without her pearl,  
Hard to be known is from a country girl)  
A foolish Nymph sat weeping (for love can  
Make goddesses like women love a man)  
The posture of whose limbs so lively seated,  
As Art and Nature Love and Anger ●reated:  
Within this gallery when as Faunus comes,  
The grapes with child, and divers coloured plums,  
Gave to the eye a pleasant taste, before  
Unto the mouth they came, and evermore  
The cool wine sild into the goblet skips,  
And laughs for joy to come unto such lips:  
As Faunus drunk, still would he steal a look,  
(Thus Faunus swallowed Cupid's golden hook)  
Then laid his eyes wide open his love to view,  
(Thus he received the darts which Cupid threw)  
Then closed his eyelids from that glorious light,  
(Thus he preserved the riches of his sight)  
And thus fair words and power attractive beauty,  
Bring men to women in subjective duty.  
But supper ends, and all the Nymphs expected  
Some amorous talk of Faunus: he neglected  
Vntiil a Nymph (this order yet we use)  
Said, let us husbands in the ashes choose,  
In lovers rites, Faunus though rude and raw,  
It was no dallying, yet with Nymphs he saw,  
Then smiling said: Fair Nymphs, the shepherds lasses,  
Thus choose them husbands, turning crabs in ashes;  
If in these woods good husbands be so scant,  
Will you sweet Nymphs with me supply some want.  
But some said nothing, these gave full consent,  
And some said twice No, which affirms content,  
And some said once No, these would grant and give,  
In women's mouths, No is no negative:  
Whereat he blushed, and fearing to offend,  
The fondling thus abruptly made an end.  
Sorry (God knows) the Nymphs were he had done,  
Then Deiopeia 'mongst them all begun  
To speak, whose words to Beril strait distilled,  
As from her lips the orient peade trilld,  
Looking at Faunus smilingly then said:  
A cumbersome companion to a maid  
Is modesty, our elders all contemned it.  
For cowardice most valiant men condemned it,  
Blushing and sighing Theseus never strove,  
To woe and win Antiope his love.  
Nor would he have his time so spent and lavished,  
But laid her down, and some say she was ravished,  
And so she was, but ravished with content,  
And got with child, belike both did consent:  
Stout Hercules young loles' father slew,  
And then by force his force fair jole knew.  
Yet this unfathered Lady would begin,  
Most sportfully put on the Lion's skin,  
And took his club betwixt her hands and viewed it,  
Though she was ravished, yet she never rued it.  
Soft Menelaus Helen could not brook,  
Yet what enforcing Paris gave, she took:  
Women are servants, servants unto men,  
But praise your servants, what will follow then?  
A ready horse strait yields when he hath found,  
One that will have him yield, else falls to bond:  
And thus she parl'de, thus she plainly wood,  
Yet childish Faunus hardly understood.  
Until to bedward all the Nymphs them dressed  
To take their rest, yet took no ease in rest:  
The night begins be angry, when she sees  
She can distill no sleep in lovers eyes,  
Tossing herself among the clouds now hath  
Sent the red morn as Herald of her wrath,  
Whose lover Phoebus rising from his bed,  
With his dewy mantle hath the world overspread,  
Shaking his tresses over Neptune's ebb:  
And giving tincture to the Spider's web:  
These fair nymphs rose, seeing the light did call them,  
And fairest Faunus equipaged all them.  
A fairer bevy of fair virgins never,  
The world's fair eye, the Sun could yet dissever:  
Their pretty pastimes, and their plates begun,  
At Barleybreak young Faunus needs must run,  
In couples, three, the mid place, called Hell,  
But since that time the play is known too well:  
With Deiopeia it was Faunus lot,  
First to be Hell: they ran, and Syrinx got:  
Syrinx and Spio so pursued the chase,  
That Melliflora had the middle place.  
Her partner at at Deiopeia ran,  
But first for Faunus she her course began:  
He ran, but ran with eye cast o'er his shoulder,  
Not caring how, so that he might behold her:  
She took him strait, about his neck she clang,  
And on the grassy carpet Faunus flung.  
Willing he was, yet wrestled, strove, and fought,  
And fell to feel, and said he was not caught  
By law of Barleybreak, because he fell,  
It was his heaven, though thus to be in Hell:  
(For many one for Hell, not Heaven would pray,  
If such she devils were in Hell to play.)  
Longer he strove, that longer he might stay,  
But Deiopeia bade her come away:  
(For she poor soul was liver-sick of love,  
And feared such strife another strife would move.)  
And yield to Faunus, than she parts him fro,  
(Though she from him, nor he from her could go)  
Let us (she feared again they would contend)  
Of barleybreak for this time make an end,  
Some other play, some other sport begin,  
That standers by, and lookers on be in:  
It ended, thus the other play began,  
Some fifty maids, (too many for one man)  
took hand in hand, which made a spherie round,  
Or globe the perfectst figure to be found,  
Then one (whose lot is first among them all)  
Must go about and let a napkin fall:  
And whomsoe'er it lieth next behind,  
So soon as ever she the cloth doth find,  
Must with swift-running foot the other chase,  
Until she come unto her rank and place:  
If catch before, the fliers forfeit is,  
To gratify the follower with a kiss.  
The sport begins and Arethusa first,  
Would have drop-napkined Faunus if she durst,  
But she took Doris; Doris at next bout,  
Kissed Melliflora, she fetched Faunus out:  
She fled (yet took) he followed (not forsaken)  
She ran (yet caught) he followed (and was taken)  
Upon the back part, fixed she he her eyes  
So firmly, that before she nothing sees.  
Put down she falls (the Nymphs began to wonder)  
Faunus above (●●t women will lie under:)  
Gave her the kiss, she (willingly though took it,)  
Gave it again, the novice than forsook it:  
White Nisaee next for Deiopeia priest,  
And she at Faunus, he could never rest,  
But either catched, or else was to be caught,  
Until the freshman faint and breathless brought  
With tracing was, (the Nymphs much swifter were)  
(For love is heavenly light, compact of air)  
So that the slow'st among them never misses,  
But casts him down, and smothers him with kisses.  
These gamesome Nymphs, welnere seven days had spent  
In such like plays, and sportful merritment,  
Faunus thought oft loves fire for to display,  
Desire was bold, but Shamefastness said nay.  
If he began to come but somewhat near her,  
His body quaked as though his heart did fear her,  
All that he said was, Nymph when you are at leisure,  
Feign would I speak, he might have spoke his pleasure,  
She found this means, only that he might woo her,  
To lose her Necklace let her call forego her,  
Within the woods, that well she could not wear,  
Until she found them, her loose dangling hair,  
And as she sought them, softly thus would say,  
I prithee Faunus help me, come away,  
If thou shouldst go into these woods alone,  
Thy Melliflore would follow thee anon:  
Wilt thou not come? believe me I must chide,  
Yet he in love for all this would abide,  
When for his love, Love framed the time most fit,  
(●oyes love is foolish, Love to youth brings wit.)  
Then to the hedges walk they on a row,  
To pluck the sweets (how sharply sweets will grow:)  
From sharpest stinging hawthorn as they go,  
Fortune to turn their mirth to sudden woe:  
From out the woods did send a fierce wild boar,  
Which seen (such beasts they never saw before)  
A care, or fear, or both, did make them trudge,  
Some to the woods, and some towards the lodge:  
Some under hedges, some to holes would run,  
This way, and that, the best, the beast to shun:  
But Melliflore (whose beauty by that pass,  
Like a rubbed ruby much augmented was:  
Like musk, or civit kept in bosom hot,  
Her breath most sweet by running sweetness got,)  
Kept on her course, yet never looked behind,  
Whom Faunus followed, whilst a wanton wind,  
Like to some pleasant civit smelling breath,  
Would gently play him with her vail beneath,  
And come, and go, heave up, throw down, to show  
Twise-wounded Faunus, what he did not know:  
Something he stayed his swift pursuit with leisure,  
Fearing to be deprived of such pleasure,  
But what he saw, 'tis needless for to say,  
here shall your thoughts, and not my pen bewray:  
But as he 'gan his swifter running slack,  
The anger-froathing boar was at his back,  
Which made him turn, and at the boar to thrust,  
Into whose heart his hand he guided just:  
He was but armed with a little knife,  
Some destiny belike preserved his life:  
Yet by this fight he Melliflora lost,  
So Faunus thought him worse than ever crossed.  
In th'unknown woods, than up and down he rangeth,  
This way for that, that for another changeth:  
Losing himself, within a grove he found  
lovesick Adonis lying on the ground.  
For hating Love, and saying Venus nay,  
Yet meeting Melliflora in his way:  
Love made (Love weep to see thy tyranny,)  
Adonis frustrate his vowed chastity:  
Whilst narrowly upon her looks he spied,  
Struck with loves arrow, he fell down and died.  
For by the Boar (as all our Poets feign,)  
He was not killed, Faunus the Boar had slain.  
But tracing further, who but Venus met him,  
Thinking he had been Adonis, thus she great him:  
Welcome Adonis, in thy lovely breast  
Now do I see remorse and pity rest,  
Which to return my dear Adonis moved,  
Venus persuades herself she is beloved:  
Hoping to have some water from the rock,  
Which she had pierced, she stripped her to the sinocke:  
Wrought all in flames of chrysolite and gold,  
And 'bout his neck her arms she did enfold:  
So (at the least) she meaning to have kissed him  
He turned aside: then sorry cause she missed him,  
To Faunus said, fair Saint, shun not such kindness,  
Can these bright eyes be blemished with such blindness?  
If thou wert blind, and Venus could not see,  
Yet in the dark best sighted lovers be:  
Or give, or take, or both, relent, be kind,  
Lock not Love in the paradise of thy mind:  
Is Venus lovely? then Adonis love her.  
Is she the Queen of love? then what should move her  
To sue and not command? Is she loves mother?  
Shall she be loathed, which brings love to all other?  
With that she dost all to the ivory skin,  
Thinking her naked glory would him win.  
The shamefaced Faunus thereat something smiled,  
Venus looked on him, knew she was beguiled:  
Yet would have loved him for Adonis' sake,  
(Thus women will one for another take.)  
Faunus' resisted, Venus would no more  
Solicit him, but mounted as before  
In her light Chariot drawn with milk-white Doves,  
Away she flies: Faunus left in the groves  
No sooner had the wood him passage lent,  
But home to see his father Faunus went.  
Picus much wondered where his son had been,  
Whom of seven days and more he had not seen:  
But sleepless nights, his being soon revealed,  
With sighs and tears (Love cannot be concealed.)  
His father by his countenance espied him  
To be in love, and mildly thus 'gan chide him:  
Fond Boy, quoth he, and foolish cradle witted,  
To let base love with thy young years be fitted:  
This upstart love, bewitcher of the wit,  
The scorn of virtue, vices parasite:  
The slave to weakness, friendship's false bewrayer,  
Reason's rebel, Fortitudes betrayer:  
The Church-mens scoff, court, camp, and country's guiler,  
Arts infection, chaste thoughts and youth's defiler.  
And what are women? painted weathercocks,  
Nature's oversight, wayward glittering blocks:  
True, truebred, cowards, proud if they by coide,  
A servile sex, of wit and reason void:  
Shall women move thee, whom so many loathes,  
In gaudy plumes trickte, and newfangled clothes?  
Thus in our find-fault age, many a man  
Will fond rail with foul-mouthed Mantuan.  
Some sharp witted, only in speaking evil,  
Would prove a woman worse than any devil  
With prating Picus: though that women be,  
Fram d with the same parts of the mind as we.  
Nay, Nature triumphed in their beauteous birth,  
And women made the glory of the earth:  
The life of Beauty, in whose supple breasts,  
As in her fairest lodging virtue rests.  
Whose towering thoughts attended with remorse,  
Do make their fairness be of greater force.  
But of this subject every day who reads not,  
Which is so praised, as it praises needs not?  
And my conceit not able for to reach them,  
Might bring forth words for praise, which might impeach them:  
And so with love 'tis easy to find fault,  
Yet not so easy when it gives assault:  
Then to resist his force, whose excellence  
Is to transform the very soul and essence  
Of the lover, into the thing beloved:  
This heavenly love (no doubt) young Faunus moved:  
But (all this while being dumb) Faunus replied  
Unto his father, and withal denied  
He loved a woman: then his father knew  
From whence his grief and melancholy grew,  
And that he was by some wood-Nymph accosted,  
Because the pleasure of the woods he boasted,  
And Latian mounts. Then Picus thus again  
Sharply rebukte his son, but all in vain,  
Thou art no soldier for Diana's garrison,  
Nor twixt her Nymphs and Faunus is comparison:  
Nymphs are like Poets, full of wit, but poor,  
Unto thy kingdom, add a kingdom more  
By marriage: let Pycus counsel thee,  
Look not (my boy) at wit, and Poetry.  
Faunus no reckoning of such counsel makes,  
(Light is that love which any counsel takes)  
Then like Hermocrates the Physician,  
Seeing his patient with an incision  
Sore vexed, in steed of ministering to the sore,  
Began to chide, bade him be sick no more.  
Or like a friend, that visiting his friend  
Loaden with fetters in dark prison penned,  
With unkind words, and bitter terms doth move him,  
To leave those fetters, or he would not love him:  
This other way from love would Pycus reave him,  
And bade him leave to love, or love to leave him:  
Or if such love made Love not to regard him,  
His love would love, with hatred to reward him.  
Remember love, and Pycus would the rather,  
Forget his son, he should forego his father.  
Love all this while on Faunus' eyballs stood,  
Whose Envy, paleness, Anger, caused blood  
In Faunus' cheeks, to hear such blasphemy  
Pronounced by Pycus 'gainst his deity.  
With that he leaps from Faunus' face and flies  
Unto the self-prevented Destinies.  
He found them busy at a Parliament,  
Under their feet relentless Adamant,  
Above their heads the marble was for teele,  
The ribs of iron, and the raftrie steel,  
The walls of flint, and brazen was the gate,  
And every one upon a wooll-packe sat.  
Whose stern austere looks never moved to ruth,  
By gold, nor favour, beauty, age nor youth:  
Yet when love came (what hearts though made of stone,  
In which Love cannot make impression?)  
Welcome he was, Love then his speech began,  
To show th'unmanlike cruelty of man,  
How Nature first ordaining one for one,  
Made woman chief for procreation:  
But men like drudges, not content to use them,  
In blows (sometimes) and speeches will abuse them,  
love's will was this, that maids should have their will,  
Not overmuch, but to restrain from ill.  
Ill kepts-in-thought, with virtuous company,  
Restraining not from well-rulde liberty.  
For maids were made to make such harmless plays,  
Such honest sports, as dance upon the lays:  
The hey-de-guise, and run the wild-goose chase,  
And try the keels the barleybreak, and base,  
But with a barley when the pastimes end,  
And maids must needs for milking homewards wend:  
As some depart, some are constrained to stay,  
For when they end, than Love begins to play,  
His play is pain, but yet a pain with ease,  
His keels are coals, whose fire doth grieve and please,  
From play (for pray) Love takes two loving friars,  
Trained up alike, perhaps of equal years,  
Yet such is love of parents such begot,  
That wealth, nor worth, true love considers not.  
Sometime a King dotes on a country swain,  
Sometime a Lady loves a lad again:  
Sometime the meaner will the greatest reject,  
No not a person Loue'will once respect.  
And having pierced the soul's seven-doubled shield,  
Love makes the one unto the other yield.  
They yield (kind souls) but parents will not grant,  
With tedious brawlings still they find a want,  
One is too rich, the other is too poor,  
(So then twixt Faunus and fair Melliflore,  
Love told the Love,) and fearing father's ire,  
Love is defeated of his chief desire.  
This kind unkindness children yet must take,  
Until their parent's price of them do make,  
As in a market: then what man will crave them,  
And give the most, he shallbe sure to have them.  
Thus from loves mouth the honey as he spoke  
distilled, as from the broad-leaved builder oak,  
And opal pearl from his lips did fall,  
The Destinies began to gather all.  
Such precious jewels, if they fell but near them,  
And proud of such love-tokens yet do wear them,  
His sugared tale thus sweetened by his mouth,  
The Destinies did somewhat pity youth:  
With one consent and voice they all agreed,  
These statutes should for ever be decreed:  
That man for his unmanlike treachery  
Should be tormented with vile jealousy,  
That maids from honest liberty restrained,  
Should alway think from what they thus refrained:  
That 'twas some treasure from the which theyare tie,  
Some Indian jewel which men use to hide,  
Some strange conserve, sweet, dear, and precious,  
And women are by nature lickerous.  
These thoughts awaked, women grow manwood,  
Nor can these thoughts from actions be withstood.  
What bird is pleased, though in a silver cage?  
A dog tie up in golden chains will rage.  
That market marriages evermore should be  
Content the best, the worst to disagree,  
That shrewdness should possess the woman's heart,  
In stubbornness the husband act his part:  
Thus drawing opposite in one yoke, alive  
Long might they live, but they should never thrive:  
And since that time, all marriages enforced,  
Never agree until they be divorced.  
This sentence given, Love then back returned,  
To lovely Faunus, who in loves fire burned,  
But ere he came, Faunus had turned to hate,  
His father's speeches, and grew passionate,  
Who in the night (the best means for desire)  
Got up, and darklings, only his attire,  
And naked beauty with a tress of Amber,  
Gave a resplendance to the purle-hung Chamber:  
Sought for a suit, yet could not well devise,  
What garment best might please his fair Nymphs eyes:  
If costly, then for woody Nymphs too curious,  
If gay or gaudy, that was but penurious:  
This was too old, the other was not new,  
This the Tailor (Tailors will not be true)  
Had cut too short, that he might have a sharing,  
A garment than he took more rich than glaring,  
Of gold beat Samite to his heels which wrought,  
With knops and broochs, birds, and beasts, ywrought.  
In tufts of Cypress hung the Topaz stone,  
Which through the Cypress (yet obscurely) shone:  
As when we see a thin black cloudy cluster,  
Through which the stars do yield a darksome lustre:  
A gorgeous choler of dear cheua●all,  
Set with a white embroidered Pyronall,  
And Margarites, with workman's rare devise,  
It seemed like unto a shining Ice,  
That night (adorned in this princely sort)  
Faunus departed from his father's Court,  
And went, until for weariness he was  
Constrained to lie down on the yielding grass,  
And recommended his fair body's breath,  
To Morpheus the elder borne of death.  
There Faunus lie, and cease my pen to tell,  
What pain those nymphs abode for thy farewell:  
How sops of sorrow drenched in cups of care,  
In steed of Nectar and Ambrosia were:  
Grief great in all, yet great'st in Melliflore,  
Who thought her Faunus murdered by the Boar:  
She cut the trees, and caru'de the tender graffs,  
With doleful Sestines, mourning Epitaphs.  
And stopped with sighs, and drowned in kisse-cheeke tears.  
Her halfe-spoke words. A garment now she wears  
Right Raven-blacke, like sorrows livery,  
Cut all in rags, yet joined so cunningly,  
As by her clothes poor raggedness was bra●ed.  
And poverty no greater riches craved.  
The Sun this morn before he did appear,  
Got two hours journey in his Hemisphere.  
And Melliflora at the suns first peeping,  
With loves sharpsighted eye the thickets creeping.  
Under the broad head of a Pine-tree spies  
Faunus asleep, whose face to heaun-ward lies.  
She shrunk aside, aside again she started,  
Thinking he had been Adonis, she departed:  
But comes again, (for love leapt from his eyes  
And pulled her back) 'twas Faunus than she sees:  
She knew and feared, fear she knew before,  
Fearing he had been murdered by the Boar,  
She laid her eyelids to his eyes and wept,  
Then she perceiude her dearest Faunus slept.  
With that she joined her coral lips to his,  
Sucking his breath, and stealing many a kiss:  
Wishing the life of a Chameleon,  
That she might only live his breath upon:  
Which all unwilling his fair body left,  
And would not from that paradise be rest,  
Or heavenly mansion, which he did retain,  
But there in hope to be enclosed again:  
This soft sound sleep to Melliflore gave leisure,  
To see, to feel, to smell, to taste such pleasure,  
As none but only she could ever know,  
And none but Faunus on the earth could show.  
Oh for how oft (whilst love her marrow warms)  
Would she embrace twixt▪ Alabaster arms,  
And hug, and cull the snowwhite fronted Boy,  
Call him her love, her life, her soul, her joy?  
Then pry more nearly on his neck, with oft  
Quick moving looks, and with her fingers soft  
Dimple his breast, and hanging o'er his shoulder,  
Hold Faunus down (thrice blest with such an holder.)  
And then again, though yet he sleeping is,  
Thus she began to woe him for a kiss.  
More gracious far then-dawning of the day,  
Then Venus' star, or purple coloured May:  
Let not my begging dearest Faunus grieve thee,  
Upon a note ten thousand kisses give me:  
And then as many busses overplus,  
As Cinth●● gave her love Propentius.  
How many Cupids with the Grace's trip  
Upon thy left cheek, and thine upper lip?  
How many lives, deaths, joves, hopes, cares, and fears,  
Thy quicker moving eyeballs Faunus bears:  
So many collings, with kind clippings give me,  
As Cupid's golden headed arrows grieve me:  
And add enticements twixt thine amorous kisses,  
And pleasant murmurs with sweet sounding hisses.  
As Doves by turns be either other nibbing,  
And lovingly in blither words be snibbing:  
And bloodless in my bosom when thou lies,  
And I turn up my watery swimming eyes:  
Then will I glue thee in my limber arm,  
If cold as lead, my breast shall make thee warm▪  
And Melliflora with her kisses breath,  
Shall give her Faunus life in lookt-for death:  
Until my spirit in dewy kisses altering,  
Within my body faint and fall a faltering.  
Then take me Faunus twixt thy naked arms,  
And use thy hugging and thy kissing charms:  
And in thy heart's spoon college me lest I perish,  
As twixt thy breasts my frozen blood i'll cherish:  
And then, like mine, thy moisty kisses dew,  
At point of death life will again renew:  
Thus shall we enjoy the heaven of our age,  
And both together both our lives will suage.  
This said, she gathered fragrant smelling posies,  
And strewed him o'er with violets and roses:  
Then with a kiss fain would she him have raised,  
Yet stood stone still, and wishly on him gazed:  
And forth his sleep, as though she feared to fear him,  
She fixed her kisses to the roses near him.  
The roses warm by melliflora's mouth,  
A whispering gale of wind came West by South,  
How many roses than before she kissed,  
(If she had known this, none she would have missed:)  
Her former kisses kisses gained such plenty,  
That she receiu de for one kiss more than twenty.  
Such store of kisses on the sudden found,  
Some (slipping from her) fell upon the ground,  
That such an harvest came upon the earth,  
As since, we had of kisses never dearth.  
But stirring once, his pillow made of grass,  
Faunus awaked, and Venus thought she was:  
With that he rose, and like the blushing morn,  
Having all night the loathsome burden borne  
Of aged Tithon (old men do no good,  
Yet will be fumbling) angry then and wood:  
Among the clouds herself she headlong throws,  
To meet with Phoebus, what they do, all knows:  
Headlong he ran, such gamesome love he scorned,  
As Venus loved, to have his love suborned.  
But Melliflora ran and overtook him,  
And held him hard, and never once forsook him,  
Until his name was honoured by her tongue:  
As one that finds great treasure standeth long,  
Doubting he sleeps, so stood the lovely boy,  
lovesick, amazed, and surfeited with joy.  
But when he knew her, O what amorous greeting:  
Faunus devised to entertain his sweeting▪  
Like to the elm enclaspt with wanton vine,  
Or as the ivy doth the oak combine,  
About her neck his ivory arms did twine,  
Faint, feeble, weak, and languishing: in fine,  
A moystie kiss sealed up their lips, as never,  
Injurious death should their embracements sever,  
But with their kisses make two bodies one,  
And so their hearts with kisses live alone:  
Some tears betwixt them (tears of joy again)  
Did fall like silver drops in sunshine rain:  
Then Faunus told her how he scaped the boar,  
And both related th' accidents before:  
His ey-browes touch her roundie speaking eyen,  
Kissing her neck and lips like Corraline:  
Then busseth she his cheek, his chin, and brow,  
Red, comely-short, and like to Cupid's bow:  
Yet in this union thus displeased they be,  
Because themselves they kissing cannot see:  
Then like two culvers once again they cleave,  
Hug, cull, and clip, and sorry for to leave.  
She carries kisses on her doubtful eyes,  
In those two Diamonds pretty babes he spies:  
Until they smile, which as the sun doth chase,  
The mist-hung clouds than shows his cheerful face,  
From eyes, and cheeks, did drive away the tears,  
The sighs, the sobs, the cares and doubtful fears.  
Faunus' resolved now had intention,  
To woo (how love refines invention)  
And thus he courted: Faunus thus begun  
To woo a Nymph, who was already won.  
Sweet nameless Saint, (no name can set thee forth,  
All titles are but stains to such thy worth:)  
Whose ornaments and beauty pure divine,  
Do make the city at these woods repine,  
If that great highness can descend so low,  
Vouchsafe those eyes to see their overthrow,  
Disdain him not whose wit, whose life, whose days,  
Doth study, live, and serve, to show thy praise.  
Think not my suit of small weight in thine ears,  
Nor less regarded for my boyish years.  
With that in his he took her moisty hand,  
(How white God knows) and gently did demand.  
Shall these white hands (quoth he) (and then he kissed them.  
And turned and looked as though his kisses m●st them)  
Become as withered grass, dry, lean and yellow,  
And these ripe years be fruitless rotten mellow?  
Shall such a field lie leyes and not be tilled?  
Shall such rare sweets be spent and never spilt?  
Shall beauty fade, and earth enjoy this cover,  
And not remain and flourish in your lover?  
The heavens prevent from womankind that fall,  
Women were borne to bear and borne withal,  
That burdens borne that they might bear another,  
A mother's child must be a child's fair mother.  
Dear Nymph, enjoy the springtide of your age,  
These April flowers in winter will assuage:  
Spend that you cannot keep, it is not best  
That death should take his aim from beauty's rest.  
Beauty (fair Nymph) is woman's golden crown,  
Man's conqueress, and feminine, renown.  
Not joined with love, who dear yet ever sold it?  
For beauty's cheap, except loves eye behold it.  
You have the beauty Faunus heart to move,  
You have the body to reward his love.  
Impart them both unto the longest liver,  
It 〈◊〉 a gift which will enrich the 〈◊〉:  
〈◊〉, it sues, it offers to be taken:  
High, I sue, and would not be forsaken.  
If Beauty smile, than Faunus thinks him blessed.  
Then Melliflora with a smile expressed  
How hard it is true love not to discover,  
With that (not coy, nor lavish to her lover)  
She said, who taught thee eloquence, and wit,  
(Conceit was quickened, and his words made fit,  
She knew by love) whose force might well persuade,  
And make thee brag the conquest of a maid,  
Small were that boast, and smaller is my beauty,  
The smallest praise deserving, and less duty:  
You talk of beauty (if the truth were known,)  
Because so well acquainted with your own:  
For mine or any other excellence,  
Were all imparted to me by your presence,  
Which if I were, sole mistress of my mind,  
I would repay, and be to you as kind:  
But such a vow devoutly have I made  
To die a virgin: scarce the half word said,  
His wit and senses by desire set open.  
Sweet Saint (quoth he) that vow must needs be broken,  
It is not lawful you should make a vow,  
The which Religion cannot well allow:  
Our pure Precisians think themselves most wife,  
Yet in this one point are they not precise:  
No doubt, they marry when they feel the motion,  
Untimely timely subject to devotion  
Are then your years, to what end were you borne?  
Remember but, and you will be forsworn.  
A cloister woman mewed up in a cell,  
To die a maid, and then lead apes in hell.  
A Votaress, a Secluse, and a Nun,  
Nay you must be forsworn when all is done:  
For, can you study, fast, and pray among?  
No no, (fair nymph) your stomach is too young.  
Your beauty will dispense with this decree,  
You must be perjured of necessity.  
If you but come your Orisons to say,  
Diana's Huntsmen will forget to pray,  
Or rather leave before they do begin.  
Are you not then the Autresse of this sin?  
Or if her priests such fairness do espy,  
They will be conquered by your looks, and die,  
Committing murder, what will follow then?  
This odious name, The Murderess of men,  
Which is flat treason 'gainst all Deity:  
For murder is much worse than perjury.  
Save then my soul, and thousands more from spilling▪  
You get no praise (my Melliflore) by killing.  
Such coy account, such niceness of an oath.  
But they espied (not fully ended) both  
Clear Deiopeia coming from her sport:  
Love saw his journey long, and time but short,  
In fewer words he sealed up the match,  
And that though Argoes hundred eyes did watch,  
They should depart those Nymphs, and fly away.  
Faunus' kind entertainment spent the day:  
So Melliflora in the tongueless night,  
With snowy skinned Faunus took her flight.  
Which when heaven saw (what doth not heaven see?)  
With rain of tears she shows her dwellers be  
Rapt with that sight, nor trees from mourning keep,  
But every twig with dropping tears do weep.  
Such beauties past them, than the clouds gave place,  
That heaven might freely smile upon her face:  
The Moon at full was full proud of that duty,  
That she might bear the torch to such rare beauty,  
But to deprive the Moon of this her sight,  
The Sunset lovesick, ●ose within the night:  
With his approach, they both lay down oppressed,  
Whose length the earth in beauty's livery dressed:  
Under an hill whose lifted bittle brow,  
Would overlook his prospect then below,  
Whose proud high Pines, unto this day are prouder,  
They had the hap from summer's sun to shroud her:  
Now 'mong the Nymphs is Melliflora mist,  
And also Faunus, whither they went none wist:  
They seek the hills, the valleys, and plain ground,  
And this they find, they were not to be found.  
With eyes, with tears, and tongue, their errand shown:  
And this they knew, they were not to be known,  
The more they thought, they knew not what to think,  
But Deiopeia from the rest 'gan shrink,  
Thought she was gone with Faunus, was most likely,  
(Rivals in love will be suspicious quickly.)  
She offered incense to Diana's shrine,  
Even as sweet () I offer unto thine.  
But three dares rites and ceremonies ended,  
Unto Diana she her journey tended,  
With low obeisance to her deity,  
She told her melliflora's perjury,  
That she and Faunus prince of Italic,  
Were stolen away: at such impiety,  
(Though Melliflore she loved dearly) wroth  
And angry was Diana with them both:  
She swore her priests and huntsmen would not tarry,  
If thus her chastest Nymphs began to marry.  
No more they would, but then incontinent,  
Her purest priests and all a wooing went:  
But Deiopeia herself banished  
Diana's court, and in love languished.  
Faunus' alone, with her alone required,  
Alone with him, which she alone desired.  
Yet now she fears to be with him alone,  
Because no further in loves office gone:  
He would have sealed with the chiefest arms  
Of his desire, the wax that Venus warms.  
But as she did the contrary command,  
He was afraid, durst not her words withstand.  
Did not the boy therein a coward prove?  
Nay rather valiant, to withstand such love.  
The marriage was by one of Vesta's Nuns  
Solemnized, She Faunus never shuns:  
He gives, she takes, and nothing is denied,  
She his, he her love's force and valour tried.  
And still they strive, but who obtained the day,  
Let him be judge that ere fought such a fray:  
But faint and breathless here the quarrel ends,  
loves cause being righted, both again are friends.  
And Venus, to increase their amity,  
Considering words against her deity  
Were spoke by Pycus: she incontinent,  
In heat of rage her indignation spent:  
Transforming him into a bird of th'air,  
And where before, of all he was most fair,  
She makes him blackest, keeping nothing white,  
But breast and belly (for there dwelled delight)  
And by her power divine she so hath framed,  
That by his own name he is ever named.  
And seeming yet all womenkind to hate,  
Over their houses alway he will prate:  
And near their poultry build his nest and watch,  
How he their chickens and their ducks may catch.  
Faunus and Melliflora now are gone,  
To take possession of his father's throne:  
And being come, they find his mother dead,  
For grief her dearest son from court was fled.  
Almost a year with mirth the time was spent,  
When chaste Diana on fell mischief bent  
Entered the Court. (At that time Melliflore,  
Grieved with the burden which her fair womb bore.)  
And put upon stern Hecate's attire  
By magic, meaning to explain her ire:  
And so (to ease her hate which inly burned)  
The fair child to a monster she hath turned:  
His head was guarded with two little homes,  
A beard he had, whose hairs were sharp as thorns,  
Crooked his nose: his neck, his arms, and breast  
Were like a man, but like a goat the rest.  
No sooner was the fair Nymphs womb cut open,  
To give the monster largest room and scope,  
●ut out he flies, and to the wood doth run,  
(For there Diana pointed he should come)  
And tripping long time o'er the levy lawns,  
joined issue with the satires and the Fauns:  
But Faunus changing Melliflores complexion,  
(Thus man to woman giveth all perfection:  
And as our chief Philosophers will say,  
Woman by man is perfect made each way.  
These virgins then of sound and upright carriage,  
Are monsters plain without the stay of marriage)  
At length begot Latinus, he Lavinia:  
Aeneas her from Turnus took away,  
Succeeding him, his son Ascanius,  
And after him Aeneas Sil●i●s,  
Him Brutus killed, and at our English Dover  
Landed, and brought some satires with him over,  
And nimble Faëries. As most writers grant,  
London by Brute was named Troynovaunt.  
The Faëries' offspring yet a long time went,  
Among the woods within the wild of Kent,  
Until transformed both in shape and essence,  
By some great power or heavenly influence,  
The Faëries proved full stout hardy knights,  
In justs, in tilts in tournaments, a●d fights,  
As Spencer shows. But Spencer now is gone,  
You Faëry Knights, your greatest loss bemoan,  
This boon Diana then did ask of jove,  
(More to be venged on the Queen of Love,  
That 〈◊〉 late transformed sons satires,  
(So called because they satisfied her ires)  
Should evermore be utter enemies,  
To lovers pastimes, sportful veneries.  
jove granted her this lawful just demand,  
As we may see within our Fairy land:  
The satires jerking sharp fanged poesy,  
Lashing and biting Venus' luxury,  
Galling the sides of foul impiety,  
Scourging the lewdness of damned villainy,  
Shooting out sharp quills in each angry line,  
Through heaped-up vices like the porcupine.  
If this praiseworthy be, than first of all  
Place I the Satire Academical,  
His satires worthy are (if any one)  
To be engraved in brass, and marble stone:  
Detracting nothing from the excellency,  
Of the Rhamnusian Scourge of Villainy,  
Put I was borne to hate your censuring vain,  
Your enuions biting in your crabbed strain.  
Now let us show the satires enmity,  
Which Brutus left behind in Italy.   

The first Satire of Horace.  
To his Patron Maecenas.  

Bounteous Maecenas, s'daining to peruse,  
And patronage the weakness of my Muse.   

WHat is the cause that none content will live,  
In that estate which choice or chance doth give,  
But evermore a novel life pursues,  
And praiseth that another man doth use?  
Th'unwieldy warrior bruised with toil, and spent  
With groveling ●ld, saith, most of all content  
O blissful life, O merchants fortunate:  
The Merchant saith misliking this estate,  
When Southern winds with rain bedagled wings  
Swell up the seas, and him near shipwreck brings:  
war's better, why? they fight, and presently,  
Or quick death comes, or joyful victory:  
The Counsellor when as the client waits,  
And fore the cock's crow knocketh at his gates,  
Cries, happy husbandman, his bed which keeps,  
And lullabies his thoughts with careless sleeps:  
The countryman, i● for a surety sent,  
Unto the city he is ever bend,  
To gape, and poor, and staring wide he pries  
On every mocke-Ape toy which he espies,  
jogging his mate upon the elbow, he  
Swears citizens the blessed people be.  
The residue of these new fangles would,  
(They are so many which I have enrolled)  
Tyre-prating Fabius, lest I thee delay,  
Hear in a word. Suppose some god would say,  
Your like all I wondrous well allow,  
I will effect your will: and soldier, thou  
Shalt be a Merchant, Counsellor I give  
To thee thy wish, a farmer thou shalt live:  
Your trades are turned, depart here from my sight,  
Why stand you still? they will not though they might  
Accept this blissful and their chiefest boon,  
Then what's the cause but jove of right may soon,  
In wrathful mood engorge his swelling cheek  
'Gainst all this sort, and hear not them which seek,  
And sue to change their present state hereafter?  
But lest some say, too much I mingle laughter,  
Though what forbids but that the jester may  
Speak truth in toys, and make the Reader stay,  
As fair spoke Pedants, teaching country schools,  
With buttered bread will lure the little fools,  
To learn their crossrow: but I'll make an end  
Of trifles now, and serious things unbend:  
The country swain which shares the yielding leas,  
The Mariner that furrows up the seas,  
The Taverner which reaks not much to lie,  
And Soldier, say, the cause they travail why,  
Is this, that when unnimble three-legged age,  
There stronger years, or moiling toil doth suage,  
That then they might of all sufficient have,  
Lest easeless need their body bring to grave.  
Not much unlike the little Ant that moils,  
(A little beast, but one of greatest toil)  
And draws her dainties thwart the hilly soil  
By might of mouth: and placed in her cell,  
In all she may, she housewives it so well:  
Lays it in piles, and shrouds it under roof,  
As one which were not for to learn the proof  
Of winter's wrath, when sleeting janivere,  
With sullen showers saddes the beginning year:  
Within her cave she keeps her festival,  
And feels the fruit of her provision all  
In Summer time. ●ut thee, nor scorching heat,  
Nor shuddering cold,  
Nor stormy seas, nor winter, fire, nor sword,  
Nor aught can keep from heaping up thy hord.  
Thy glutton mind with moath-consuming pelf,  
Whilst one thou seest be richer than thyself:  
What veils it thee to grub this weight of mould,  
So fearfully this Idol god thy gold,  
In evermore to hide,  
Which if thou spend, no farthing will abide,  
And if thou snudge, and coffered from the sun,  
What show makes it, what good is thereby won?  
Of corn 〈◊〉 admit thou hast in store,  
An hundredth thousand 〈◊〉 on thy barn flore,  
What comes thereby? thy belly holds no more  
Than mine, as if to hirelings thou wert sent,  
Thy shoulders fraught with bags of bread, thou went,  
And they receiving what thou thither brought,  
Thou gains no more than him which carried nought.  
Or answer this: to him which doth propound  
Nature his guide, what booteth him of ground,  
Whether that he an hundredth acres tills,  
Or else a thousand? But to him which fills,  
From a huge heap, thou sayst, It feeds the eye,  
And in the same we condescend to thee,  
Whilst our repast contents the mind always,  
Shunning all not: wherefore dost thou praise,  
Thy corn- 〈◊〉 gardeners, 'bove our sacks? we feed  
On them as well as you they serve our need.  
As if thou must thy pot with water ●ill,  
And by thy side a fountain doth distill:  
Yet for affection, and to please thine eye,  
Unto a river further off thoul thy:  
At which, whilst some have 〈…〉,  
The 〈…〉, and they have fallen in.  
But he that takes ●o serve his use, no more,  
The troubled water near the slimy shore,  
Needs not to drink, his fl●ming thirst to cool,  
Nor drowning fear within the muddy pool:  
But greatest part of men with poison d bait  
Of wealth bewitched, abundance in each state  
Is all their bliss, their God, and earthly store,  
A man is but his money, and no more.  
What punishment shall we devise or find,  
For him that hath this undereating mind?  
Let's suffer him in sin to wallow still,  
And wretched be so long as ere he will.  
Such one we read of dwelled in Athens town,  
In substance rich, but yet a niggard clown:  
Whose covetise the world would ever hiss,  
Of infamy he still regardless is.  
Let people hiss and mock me as they list,  
Whilst with my gold (quoth he) locked in my chest,  
I please myself, mine eye still viewing is  
My gold, my goods, my God and heavenly bliss.  
Dry Tantalus doth oft aspire to taste  
The gliding water, but his labour's waste.  
Why dost thou laugh? what pleasure dost thou take  
To love this gold, which endless grief doth make?  
For thou endur'st his fate, take but his name,  
This fable's told of thee, thou art the same.  
What though amidst thy heaped bags thou sleep,  
When fearful dreams thy mind awaking keep,  
And that (which thy confusion will bring,)  
Thou sparest it like to some holy thing:  
And Tymon-like thou dost but please thine eye,  
With that which should thine honour raise on high.  
As though it were in pictures to delight,  
Thou dost not know the use of money right,  
Disburse it so for to supply thy want:  
Let bread be bought, herbs, wine, or what is scant,  
By which abating Nature waxeth faint.  
To wake days, nights to stand in awe and fear  
Of thieves, lest of thy riches they should hear.  
Of fire, of servants, lest they pilfer thee,  
Be these thy gains? jove then this boon to me  
Grant, that devoid of wealth I ever be.  
But if the cough chance trouble sore thy head,  
Or some disease do cause thee keep thy bed,  
Thou hast thy friends still at thy elbow priest,  
Which will provide confections of the best:  
Cunning Physicians for thy help procure,  
And to thy sons and kinsfolk thee restore,  
With potions will in perfect health again.  
Thou art deceived, thy wife she works thy bane,  
Thy son, thy neighbour's maids, acquaintance all  
Weep, but lest death should linger in thy fall:  
What marvel is't when silver was thy Lord,  
None love thee? thou deseru●st no loving word,  
For if thy kinsmen and thy friends thou will  
With slight regard thus bind in friendship still,  
Thy labour's vain, perseverance in love,  
Discordeth much. Thou mayst as well above,  
The sluggish Ass a golden saddle set,  
And teach him chew the bit, play, and curvet:  
This be the end: when much thou hast in store,  
Then fear not want, and travail for no more:  
Thy will accomplished, live then at thine ease,  
Let not ovidius greedy mind thee please,  
It is too long to tell how he wo●ld turn  
His coomed coin which shoules nor would adorn,  
His corpse with clothes, but like the poorest wight,  
No better than his servant ever dight,  
Fearing his riches would in time assuage,  
And he sustain great penury in his age:  
But lo his wife (of Greekish dames most bold)  
Did cut his throat, so ended he and's gold▪  
What, is it best like 〈◊〉 to live?  
Or all my goods like 〈◊〉 gi●e  
To whores and bawds? why dost thou thus compare  
Extremities, all spend, or else all spare?  
I would not thee a greedy 〈◊〉 have,  
Wilt thou then be a drunkard and a knave?  
There is a difference twixt the Eunuch Taine,  
And Herm●s●s that most luxurious swain.  
A mean there is in all things, bonds be pight  
On this side or beyond which nought stands right.  
But now at length to come to my request,  
How happeneth it that no man liketh best  
His own estate? His neighbour's goat doth bear  
A bigger bag, her mil●e is far more clear.  
Comparing him not to the greater sort,  
Whose state is base, who lives in mean apport:  
But shoots at high●st, with him he doth contend  
To pass in coin, and so there is no end:  
For he that all men means to leave behind,  
In running 〈◊〉 some richer eue●find:  
As when to win some laurel crowned fame,  
The Charioteer (as in th●olympick game)  
Lashing his thundering Coursers makes the ground,  
(Whose rising face their fiery hooves doth wound.)  
To shake, and dandle, never looks behind  
At those he coats, but swifter than the wind.  
Scours forward still, to overgo the rest,  
And here it comes that he hath lived blest  
Not one will say: A man we seldom find,  
So cloyed with th'world, as one which hath new dined  
Is with his meat: none in●s extremest days.  
Will part from life, as from a feast his ways.  
But dread Maecenas, now this shall suffice,  
Lest thou suppose my volume would arise  
Greater than that which blear-eyed Crispin made.  
Not one word more at this time shall be said.    

The first Satire of Persius.  
O 'Slight regard of sots, or brainless men!  
How great their blindfold vanities are, when  
nought they applaud but tingling Poesy,  
Lulling the sense with itchfull ribaudry.  
What means my tragic clamour, to what end,  
My airy breath to water do I spend?  
What man takes pleasure? who will lose his time  
In reading of my testy wayward rhyme?  
To me didst speak, no flatcap low prized swain,  
(Much less myself) to read my crabbed grain,  
Will leave a pleasing Poets sugared vain.  
Then to respect me, shall I find not one?  
Yea, two perhaps thou shalt, or rather none.  
This reckless care is much to be lamented,  
Wherefore? not that my soul is discontented,  
Fore me they should Polydemias prefer,  
Or blockish Labeo, these but trifles are,  
No: for what thing it please tempestuous Rome,  
To raise, or throw down by her bribed doom:  
Thereto assent, correct, nor make denial,  
Or in the balance poise that wicked trial.  
Know thou thyself, but not by others words,  
What man so vile but lustful Rome affords!  
Oh if my tongue might run at liberty,  
And now it may, I'm come to gravity:  
With sad rough-wrinkled age, and what I say,  
Is casting toys and childishness away:  
And also now stern uncles I resemble,  
Whose sharp correction make their nephews tremble:  
Now then forgive me. But I will not tho,  
How can I but a satires forehead show?  
And be a scorner in a saucy splen,  
We write shut up, within our studies, when  
He for to write in ordered syllables chose,  
Another at his liberty in prose,  
Some great great work the Romans have assigned,  
Which to procure (I fear me) of the mind  
The aurie lungs will troubled be for wind,  
This doubtless to the people he shall reed,  
Comed, in his new gown▪ and his richest weed:  
With his Sardonix birthdays jewel graced,  
In some high seat, or chair, imperial placed,  
When with some limber unguent he hath nointed,  
His moving throat, at all assays appointed,  
Faint, with a swimming, turned up Venus' eye,  
He of his speech will make delivery:  
Here mayst thou see in most lascivious guise,  
The greatest Romans play, and wantonize,  
When as their lungs his lust-stung words do pierce,  
And itching entrails, scratched are with his verse.  
Old-ore-worne trunk, and dost thou lay the bait,  
For tickling ears, for ears which itching wait,  
When in thy past recovery pocke-eate-skinn●,  
Thou know'st thine own, and dost excuse their sin.  
O stay, what profit doth thy learning show?  
Unless that foolish doctrine thou dost know,  
And barren fig tree so deep rooted in thee,  
Thy liver burst, come forth and honour win thee?  
I ●hold thy manners, and thy withered eld,  
O foolish manners now for virtue held,  
And is it nothing for to know thine own,  
Less what thou know'st, to all the world be known?  
O but it is a jolly thing to see,  
Men with their fingers point thee forth, 'tis he  
Which penned that learned egregious Poesy:  
deems thou it nothing openly t●haue been read,  
Of an hundred schoolboys yellow curled heads?  
Behold the Romans mid these gluttony,  
Inquire the most be praised Poetme,  
Some noble man t'whome 'bout his shoulders hangs,  
A divers coloured garment screaming sings,  
Or through the nose speaks some foul tragedy,  
Of Phillis and 〈◊〉, or 〈◊〉 hat po●sie,  
Is lamentable in 〈◊〉 surquedry,  
He melts and breaks it in delivery:  
They rise up all to him, they give the palm,  
And with these speeches they his words embalm.  
Are not the ashes of this Poet blest,  
The gentle coffin will not's bones have priest▪  
From's Manes, his happy cedar's, and his tomb,  
Will not the Violets, an● the Roses c●me?  
And dost thou scoff us? thy sharp hooked nose  
Most craftily thy sharp derision-showes:  
Will there be any willing to refuse  
The people's praise, when as his skilful Muse  
Doth leave works worth the juice of Cedar's tree,  
To after age, and all posterity?  
And verse, not fearing Salter's quick consume,  
Nor Pothecaries wrapping in perfume.  
Whosoe'er thou art moved with my reprehension,  
Which at this time 'gainst me doth make objection,  
I do not always when I write refuse  
The people's praise if so my dullard Muse  
(Which happens seldom) bring some legend forth,  
Witty conceited, sweet, and praises worth:  
Nor are my heart strings of obdurate horn,  
That such esteem and honour I should scorn.  
But the main point, and the extremest end,  
To which thy study and thy actions tend  
I do refuse. Thy well done, wondrous rare,  
Good, excellent examine with me here:  
This whole great praise, what hath it inwardly?  
Here is not Labeoe● sottish Poetry:  
His Iliads drunk, with sneezing Hellebore,  
No Elegies for fair mouth d Romans' more,  
Raw stomached at their banquets to rehearse,  
For to be writ in Citron beds no verse.  
Thou know●st what dainties are most meet to place  
Before thy flatterers, which thee alway grace:  
Thou knowst how to reward the need●e poor,  
With some cast garment, threadbare, raggd, and tore.  
And then thou sayst, the truth fain would I know,  
I love the truth, the truth unto me show:  
Both of myself, and of my poesy,  
What high regard we're in. Fool how can't be  
That they corrupted with thy bribery,  
Should speak the truth? Put without flattery  
Wouldst have me speak? Thy Poetry is vain,  
Thee and thy works the wisest do disdain:  
When such a hogge-trough, such a paunch thou hast,  
Reaching a foot and half above thy waist,  
And gurmondizing still in gluttony,  
How canst thou write (fool) witty Poesy?  
O janus, first made prince of Italy,  
Who can express thy great felicity,  
Whom never Stork-bild ●eerer yet did flout,  
Nor meddlers hand did asses ears point out,  
Behind thy back, nor put forth such a tongue,  
So far extended forth, drawn out so long?  
How far some dog of scorched Apulia  
Hangs out his tongue, upon the hottest day.  
But you O Roman peers, whom nature gave,  
As to other men, behind no eyes to have,  
Look warily unto these glaverers,  
These writhen-mouthed frumpers gullish flatterers,  
Do thou but ask the vulgars' true opinion,  
Of thy writ lines, thy scoffer in derision  
Will answer thee: Why who can but commend,  
Such a sweet flowing Poem rarely penned,  
Whose polished numbers do so smoothly end,  
He knows the best his verses to extend:  
As one that having shut one of his ●ine,  
With green vermilion draweth out a line,  
If need require to write a Comedy,  
A sharp fanged Satire or a Tragedy.  
Some fatal banquet of swart Atreus,  
Orestes, Progne, and of Tereus,  
Then doth his Muse give witful poesy,  
Unto our Poet most abundantly.  
Behold we see one to the hearing brings,  
Some lofty style of Emperors or Kings,  
Or some great Poem for to take in hand,  
When as the freshman doth not understand  
His rudiments, nor hath the salt of wit,  
For to describe a grove as doth befit,  
Nor praise the fruitful country how the wanes,  
Carry the liquor which the grape distrains,  
Nor fire, nor herds of swine fed fat with grains:  
Nor yet the feasts of P●les celebrate,  
The goddesses of shepherds consecrate,  
From whence the Emperor Remus did derive,  
His pedigree. How Quintus thou didst rive,  
And break thy ploughshare, with the furrow torn,  
Whenas thy stonisht wife stood thee before,  
With a Dictator's vesture thee t'adorn.  
The sergeant who this sudden news did know,  
Upon his shoulders carried home thy plow.  
Well done ingenious Poet, to express  
A lofty style, and gravelled in the less,  
But some there be who more obscurely write,  
Whom th●venemous book of Labeo doth delight,  
Some with Pacu●●us harsh A●tiopa,  
In reading o'er a winter's night will stay,  
Whose mournful heart in sorrows ecstasy,  
Is vnderpropt, he saith, with care and misery.  
When purblind fathers every day thou sees,  
Unto their children teach such words as these:  
Dost thou demand how this unpolished speech,  
Into the tougues of all men made a breach,  
From whence this ruin of the Roman tongue  
Did first arise, in which the Romans long  
Have took delight? fore all this they prefer,  
And act it on the amphitheatre,  
And doth this language nothing thee ashame?  
Will not grey hairs thy green affections tame,  
And wilt thou ever be so covetous,  
To hear this latin mingled barbarous,  
Call Pedius Thief, then what will Pedius say,  
He in smooth opposites will his trespass way:  
And for his sugared flowing eloquence,  
he's greatly praised and held in reverence,  
O eloquent Apol●o robbing wit!  
And is it so? lascivious Romans, yet  
Like fawning dogs this flattering do ye love?  
What? shall a shipwrecked man to pity move,  
My liberal mind some money to bestow,  
Whenas before me singing he doth go  
Thy shipwreck on thy shoulders thou dost bring,  
Upon a table painted, and dost sing.  
But such a whining speech premeditate,  
Cannot make me thy chance commiserate,  
Yea but in verse there is a comely grace,  
A secret couching of each word in place,  
The Poet did the Poem finish thus:  
Of Atis borne in Berecinthius,  
And not unlike the Poesy of him.  
The Dolphin took Nerea for to swim,  
Thus have I taken a part privily,  
Of Apenines mount dividing Italy:  
But like to these affecting evermore,  
To speak by some odd foolish Metaphor.  
Arma, Virum, what difference twixt them both,  
Virgil's beginning, 'tis a barmy froth,  
A grosse-puft style, like to some bough pulled down  
From the green corke-tree dried in the sun:  
Then in thy judgement what worth reading is?  
What Poem is most pleasing then? Why this  
Of some wise Roman in his Nioblis.  
Now they have filled their writhe unpleasing horns,  
With the hoarse sound of hissing Mimallones,  
Taking away the painted head by this,  
From the proud heiter of priest Bassaris,  
And Moenas wreathing th●ivie which, alone  
Makes Lynceus still redouble Euion,  
And the new Echo answers thereupon.  
Could these be writ, in us (Oh how I'm grieved)  
If any virtue from our fathers lived.  
This nice effeminate moving with our hips,  
This slime is ever swimming in our lips,  
Moenas and Atis ever in our mouth,  
Whose wanton speech corrupts both age and youth,  
Nor hath it yet a Poems trial biden,  
Nor know what means a Poet's nails off bitten,  
What need have we? or what will it auailes,  
To pull our tender ears, or bite our nails:  
Take heed, be not so malapert and bold,  
Lest that thy Patron's entrance waxen cold,  
Denying thee to come within their gates.  
Some churlish Porter thy approachment waits,  
To beat thee back, and ever as thou goes,  
This dogged letter R●ounds through his nose.  
I pass not for it, for my part I praise  
Your amorous Poems▪ and your wanton lays:  
O! all is good, all excellent you write,  
These, these my words thou sayst again delight:  
I do forbid now that there should be one,  
Twixt thee and me to make dissension.  
Paint here two Saints, say, children piss without,  
This place is holy sanctified about.  
I strait depart. But Lucils liberty  
Did lash and scourge the best of Italy.  
Blunting his teeth 'gainst thee Rutilius,  
Whetting them sharp for wilful Mutius,  
Sly subtle Horace taxed every sin,  
Unto Maecenas, once admitted in,  
Twixtiest and earnest witt●ly would forbid,  
More secret vices in the heartstrings hid.  
And craftily keep the longing Audience,  
With a gracious gesture ever in suspense.  
And was it lawful they their minds should utter,  
And such a heinous thing for me to mutter  
My half spoke word? nor spoke them privily,  
Nor in a reed like mida's family:  
Yet in my book i'll whisper secretly,  
O little book, I have seen openly,  
Myself hath seen: which of the Roman peers,  
But now adorned is with long asses ears?  
This in my book I insert covertly,  
Yet would not change my smiling Poesy  
For Labeos Illiads. Who delighted is,  
To read bold Cratine, or crabbed Eupoli●:  
Until with old age he wax bleakish wan,  
Read o'er my satires, if by chance he can,  
Some hidden knowledge find, the rather than,  
With fervent zeal my satires all will hear,  
And read me o'er with a prepared ear.  
But such a reader, such a tinckring slave,  
For to peruse my lines I do not crave,  
Whose dunghill Muse delights to look so low,  
As cavil at a Grecians crooked shoe,  
Or that can say unto the blind: thou'rt blind,  
One which all faults in outward parts doth find.  
Thinking himself one of authority,  
Raised to renown perhaps and dignity,  
By bearing office late in Italy.  
Because the false measures he hath broken,  
Of Aretus.  
Nor crave I him who takes his chief delight,  
Numbers and figures in a board to write,  
Or in the dust, as our Astromoners,  
Rejoicing much if from Philosophers,  
Some shameless whore do pull away the beard.  
But unto these, (when th'officers they have heard,  
And Dinner ends, in lustful sort to live)  
The Courtesan Callirrhoe I give.   

The first Satire of Iwenall.  
STill shall I then an hearer only be,  
And ne'er put forth my hidden poesy?  
With the big Theseods so often cumbered  
Of whewling Codrus, and unpunished:  
Shall one recite alow●d his histories  
To me, another his sad Elegi●●?  
Huge Telep●us, ought he t'have spent the day  
Scotfree, or on a ful-writ Margin astay?  
Of all the book with audience ever tended,  
Orestes, not as yet behind him ended.  
Venus (to whom it is dangerous denying any reasonable request) hearing glooming Inuenall threaten so great a punishment, entreats my Muse, that for a while she would leave him in his English tongue unperfect yet to Venus she makes a vow, that Juvenal, Horace, and Persius shall hereafter all be translated.  
love's Queen fair Venus all this while attended,  
Wishing they would their critic style have ended:  
Hearing them thus malign, snarl, rail, and bite,  
Spewing the rancour of their envious spite:  
Her Godhead being most of all abused,  
All possible means she for revengement used:  
Abhorring more their spiteful action,  
That they exposed her to detraction:  
Because she saved from juno's tyranny,  
Aeneas sometimes prince of Italy:  
Preserving than Ascanius his bratte,  
By sea and land from her malignant hate:  
Thus much by much entreaty she obtained:  
Or by her own power she thus much then gained,  
I know not whether, that (for satires spite)  
Italians should in fond loves take delight.  
In stranger sins, sins which she was ashamed,  
Among th' Italians rightly should be named.  
Sins, scarlet sins, sins who delights to use,  
In other regions, thus we him abuse  
(For through the world her wrath's inveterate)  
In odious terms, yond's one Italionate:  
And (to be brief) that lustful venery,  
Should be the downfall of all Italy:  
This is the cause Italians to this day,  
Are ever ready, apt, and prone that way.  
Not having fully quenched the flaming fire  
Of vengeance, with th'Italians. Now in ire  
She mounts her Chariot swifter than the wind,  
Or subtle comprehension of the mind.  
Which by two nimble Cocksparrowes was drawn,  
Caparisond but lightly, with the lawn  
took from the Flowerdeluces inner skin,  
Trapped and embossed with marigolds: within  
Sits Venus naked, holding in her hand,  
A tumbling shellfish, with a myrtle wand,  
Wearing a garland on her wimpled head,  
Compacted of the white rose and the red▪  
None but the blind boy Cupid durst approach,  
For to be whurried with her in the coach.  
The snowwhite Graces running by their sides,  
Were through the heavens their wagoners and guides,  
Lashing the sparrows under quivering wings,  
With whips of twisted gold, and silver strings:  
A Bevie of white Doves still flickering over,  
From the suns sight such beauty seemed to cover.  
And thus she road in triumph in her throne,  
Whose radiant lustre like the Sun beams shone.  
Darting her rays into the heavens above,  
As half dismayed the majesty of jove:  
All heavens beauty seemed far the less,  
Her naked beauty striving to suppress:  
And shrunk aside, not daring once come nigh her,  
jealous of jove, lest he by chance should spy her:  
Knowing he would their glorious beauty scorn,  
When one more fair appeared him before.  
The presence alway of the greater light,  
Doth make the lesser shine not half so bright.  
Take heed fair Ladies, standing in the place  
With one more f●re, you lose your former gra●e.  
Her journey tended to our English clime.  
And here she hovered, and remained a time.  
Hearing before the satires enmity,  
'Gainst her proceedings and her deity,  
Using all mischief 'gainst her enemies,  
Thrusting herself in bawdy elegies,  
Polluting with her damned luxury,  
All ears which vowed were unto chastity,  
And evermore thus on fell mischief bend,  
Until she found (she never was content:)  
Some of her Saints (belike) who every day,  
Unto her shrine their orisons did say:  
Which fore she asked, this boon to her was giving.  
That all the satires then in England living  
Should sacrificed be in the burning fire,  
To pacify so great a goddess ire,  
And from their Cinders should a Satire rise,  
Which their Satyric snarling should despise.  
All which performed, she left our English shore,  
Never I hope to trouble us any more.  
If travailers this year of jubilee,  
Bring her not o'er again from Italy:  
Which if they do, no sooner see her float,  
But satires pinch her spangled Petticoat:  
You know her malice plainly, as you see  
Your true descent, and lineal Pedigree.  
FINIS.   

A prophesy of this present year, 1600.  

— Who lives past ninety nine,  
Shall afterward speak of a blessed time.   

THen cease fond satires quipping Epigrammatists,  
S●e scoffing Critics, ●earing Lucianists,  
Stern censuring Cato's, full gorged Lucilians,  
Enuie-swolne Cynics aleyde Epidaurians,  
Vnringed routing hogs otter-toothd Rhamnusians',  
Cease cease to bawl, thou wasp-stung Satirist,  
Let none so testy petulant insist:  
Hold, stay thy lashing hand, and jerking rhymes,  
There is no lewdness in these Halcyon times.  
By heavens powdered rob, and fiery element,  
There is no sin in Albion permament,  
Vice lies deep smothered in his darksome tomb,  
And Virtue takes possession of his room,  
All spotless pure, this first of janivere,  
Propitiously began great Plato's year:  
Defer your rigorous envy-kindled rage,  
Until some other stranger sinning age,  
Let hellborn sin with your untimely spite  
Lie buried both in womb of silent night.  
Prophet (whosoe'er thou wert) heavens give thee meed,  
For this thy old-said saw, and truest reed,  
If I but knew where lay thy senseless urn,  
Upon the same sweet odours I would burn,  
And solemnize thy dated exequys,  
Hoping to be inspired with prophecies,  
That so I might the verriment unfold,  
What happen us the next seven hundred should:  
In every nook and angle now I burst,  
To all assemblies boldly do I thrust,  
To Paul's, to plays, to prizes, revel,  
To dicing houses, Tavern beverings,  
To bowling alleys, night-set merriments,  
To Mile-end trainings, Tyburn dreriments,  
To bearbaitings, and every wonderment,  
Each conduit-fray, and little blunderment.  
Ennaunter some odd toyish fopperies,  
Should he obscured from my searching eyes.  
But 'mong this rout I hear no foolish word,  
In serious earnest, or in jesting board:  
No scripture jests, no heaven profaning oaths,  
No sudden stabs, no French newfangled clothes.  
Gallus hath left his new-stampt blasphemies,  
Rubrine disclaims his damned heresies,  
Writhled Sylene his goatish bitchery,  
And Valodid his juggling witchery.  
Bawdy Melino needs not lust relieve,  
With cordial compounds, and preservative,  
Reine-running botches, pocks, are voided clean,  
Then Pod●lingus go and scrape again,  
In Florence stews with lustful Aretine:  
Seal up your Seringe, case up your implements,  
Truss up your trinkets, Leuca's instruments,  
None use in jolting coaches hurried.  
Now Lucia looks like one twice buried:  
Expecting hourly passage to her Grave,  
No muddy mind no slimy dunghill slave,  
But hates with Pickt-hatch t●haue his name defaced,  
Vices are loathed, and virtue is embraced,  
Give me akingdome Cynic, now I can  
Show thee a complete rightly perfect man.  
O wakeful prophet that so far away,  
Could spy the dawning of this New years day!  
And in thy true authentic prophesy,  
Foretell that brutish sensuality,  
Leopard-skind, soule-polluting Sodomy,  
dogs appetite, and damned impiety,  
Should be transported into Italy  
From England, this same year of jubilee:  
But tell me satires now in seriousness,  
Why ripped ye forth the guts of viciousness,  
Or dipped your pens in puddle beastliness?  
It is dishonour, and indignity,  
Unto a Poets great supremacy.  
For by the world's pure and immaculate  
Selfe-yeelding-all Saturnus maidens state,  
Not for a world of Indian treasury,  
Would I the world in terms so vilify,  
Or prove it in my wrangling poesy,  
A Broker's shop of vile iniquity:  
Nor should my lavish and malignant tongue,  
Tear out the bowels of sins hidden long,  
Hooke out abhorring-nature strange delights,  
Drowned in the red sea with the Sodomites,  
For whilst such covered sins you do unveil,  
Crabbde reprehension sets them but to sale.  
Not long ago● (by chance) these ears of mine,  
O'erheard young Tusco read a satires line,  
And gravelled (as it seemed) stood censuring,  
His eyes fixed on a weathercock, misconstruing  
The gloomy sense, and sembled thereupon,  
Of fries and puisnes a convocation:  
Slubbering the margin with their greafie thumbs,  
They found no meant, till court-boy Brisco comes.  
This agent patient in a moment spied  
Light in this dark line. Tusco then replied:  
I'm glad of this, I thought there had not been  
Such novel pastimes, such a new found sin:  
And since in Paul's (I walking) Tusco met,  
And at his heels I saw young Brisco jet.  
But by the sprightly essence of my soul,  
My reckless lines shall Brisco not control:  
Nor rub the botch sore on his ridden side,  
Nor gird the galled blisters on his hide:  
That would but more his grief exasperate,  
And all the world by him exulcerate.  
sin's like a puddle or a mattery sink,  
The more we stir them, still the more they stink.  
O could the circuit of my pulsive brain,  
Harbour but in it such a cynic strain,  
I would have scourged selfe-blind Bravortian,  
Keeping in Newgate his lewd courtesan,  
So lushiously with sack, and marrow pies,  
Whilst in the Fleet his Uncle starving lies,  
There fleet, or sink, or drown, his care is more,  
To snort in th'arms of his shape-altring whore.  
When (for a coach) Malberia in a cart,  
Was ioulted, than I crossed the streets athwart,  
With rapiers pendant Minke and Mario ran,  
After this fat luxurious Courtesan:  
With draffie pisspots still as she was crowned,  
Minks wept for Love, for Anger Mario frowned.  
This would have fazd a satires pisse-stept whip,  
They scape my jerking rhyme or jocund quip.  
Though 〈◊〉 not for kingdoms would I name him,  
That were enough for evermore to shame him)  
Maintain his servant, sister, and his whore,  
And yet maintain his sister and no more,  
Should I unveil incestuous luxury?  
Nay rather Curtaine-or●e such brothelry.  
Though Vicro bezzle on the alehouse bench,  
Till●s lacket's bawdy with the barmy drench:  
And thereupon unto his audience preach,  
At every full point ysking forth a belch:  
Slupping the Chalice like a drunken Scale,  
Where frothy lambs-woll swims in nappy ale:  
And thence return and guzzle off the Bowl,  
Tills eyes 'gan startle in his iobber noll,  
Though Dario brag, that for reward or fee,  
He never made his Muse a mercenary:  
Yet written, gives her unto Noble men,  
And in exchange receives their Angels then.  
Though Lacrion in a bravery disburse,  
For jingling spurs, the jingling of his purse,  
He spurs not me, nor do his rowels prick:  
And wherefore then 'gainst Lacre●n should I kick?  
Why should I Darios brag reiterate,  
Or damned Vicroes vice exaggerate.  
Burno exclaimed, as Cicero want to cry,  
Whe● Catiline did work conspiracy:  
O Times, O Manners lewd and impious,  
When his own Manners made the Time so vicious.  
What beastliness by others you have shown,  
Such by yourselves ti's thought that you have known:  
But Vice this year of Virtue makes an end,  
●ll at the worst, doth alway gi'en to mend.   
FINIS.