HAEC-VIR: OR The Womanish-Man: Being an Answer to a late Book entitled Hic-Mulier.  
Expressed in a brief Dialogue between Haec-Vir the Womanish-Man, and Hic-Mulier the Man-Woman.  
London printed for I. T. and are to be sold at Christ Church gate. 1620.   

HAEC-VIR: OR, The Womanish-Man.  

The Speakers.  
Haec-Vir; The Womanish-Man.  
Hic-Mulier; The Man-Woman.   Haec-Vir. 
MOst redoubted and worthy Sir (for less than a Knight I cannot take you) you are most happily given unto mine embrace.  Hic-Mul: 
Is she mad? or doth she mock me? Most rare and excellent Lady, I am the servant of your virtues, and desire to be employed in your service.  Haec-Vir. 
Pity of patience, what doth he behold in me, to take me for a woman? Valiant and magnanimous Sir, I shall desire to build the Tower of my Fortune upon no stronger foundation than the benefit of your grace and favour.  Hic-Mul: 
O! proud ever to be your Servant.  Haec-Vir. 
No, the Servant of your Servant.  Hic-Mul: 
The Tithe of your friendship (good Lady) is above my merit.  Haec-Vir. 
You make me rich beyond expression. But fair Knight, the truth is I am a Man, and desire but the obligation of your friendship.  Hic-Mul: 
It is ready to be sealed and delivered to your use. Yet I would have you understand I am a Woman.  Haec-Vir. 
Are you a Woman?  Hic-Mul: 
Are you a Man? O juno Lucina help me.  Haec-Vir. 
Yes I am.  Hic-Mul: 
Your name; most tender piece of Masculine.  Haec-Vir. 
Haec-Vir. No stranger either in Court, City, or Country. But what is yours, most courageous counterfeit of Hercales and his Distaff?  Hic-Mul: 
near a kin to your goodness; and compounded of fully as false Latin. The world calls me, Hic-Mulier.  Haec-Vir. 
What, Hic-Mulier, the Man-Woman? She that like a Larum-Bell at midnight hath raised the whole Kingdom in Arms against her? Good, stand, and let me take a full survey, both of thee, and all thy dependants.  Hic-Mul: 
Do freely: and when thou hast daubed me over, with the worst colours thy malice can grind, then give me leave to answer for myself, and I will say thou art an accuser just and indifferent. Which done, I must entreat you to sit as many minutes, that I may likewise take your picture, & then refer to censure, whether of our deformities is most injurious to Nature, or most effeminine to good men, in the notoriousness of the example.  Haec-Vir. 
With like condition of freedom to answer. The Articles are agreed on: Therefore stand forth, half Birchen-Lane, half St. Thomas Apostles: The first lent thee a doublet, the later a nether-skirt: Halse Bridewell, half Blackfriars; the one for a scurvy Block, the other for a most profane Feather; half Mull'd-Sacke the Chimney-sweeper, half Garrat the Fool at a Tilting; the one for a Yellow Ruff, the other for a Skarseable to put a Soldier out of countenance; half Bedlam, half Brimendgham, the one for a base sale Boot, the other for a beastly Leaden gilt Spur: and to conclude, all Hell, all Damnation. For a shorn, powdered, borrowed Hair, a naked, lascivious, bawdy Bosom, a Leaden-Hall Dagger, a Highway Pistol, and a mind and behaviour suitable or exceeding every repeated deformity. To be brief, I can but in those few lines delineate your proportion, for the paraphrase or compartment, to set out your ugliness to the greatest extent of wonder. I can but refer you to your God-child that carries your own name, I mean the Book of Hic-Mulier, there you shall see your character, and feel your shame, with that palpable plainness, that no Egyptian darkness can be more gross and terrible.  Hic-Mul: 
My most tender piece of man's flesh, leave this lightning and thunder, and come roundly to the matter, draw mine accusation into heads, and then let me answer.  Haec-Vir. 
Then thus. In that Book you are arraigned, and found guilty. First of Baseness, in making yourself a slave to novelty, and the poor invention of every weak Brain that hath but an embroidered outside, Next, of Unnaturalness, to forsake the Creation of God, and Customs of the Kingdom, to be pieced and patched up by a French Tailor, an Italian Baby-maker, and a Dutch Soldier (beat from the Army for the ill example of Ruffianly behaviour) then of Shamelessness, in casting off all modest softness, and civility, to run thorough every desert and wilderness of men's opinions, like careless untamed Heifers, or wild Savages. Lastly, of foolishness, in having no moderation or temper, either in passions or affections: But turning all into perturbations and sicknesses of the soul, laugh away the preciousness of your Time, and at last dye with the flattering sweet malice of an incurable consumption. Thus Baseness, Unnaturalness, Shamelessness, Foolishness, are the main Hatchments, or Coat-Armours, which you have ta'en as rich spoils to adorn you in the deformity of your apparel: which if you can excuse, I can pity, and thank Proserpina for thy wit; though no good man can allow of the Reasons.  Hic-Mul: 
Well, then to the purpose: First, you say, 
Not Base.  I am Base, in being a Slave to Novelty. What slavery can there be in freedom of election? or what baseness, to crown my delights with those pleasures which are most suitable to mine affections? 
What Bondage is.  Bondage or Slavery, is a restraint from those actions, which the mind (of it own accord) doth most willingly desire: to perform the intents and purposes of another's disposition, and that not but by mansuetude or sweetness of entreaty; but by the force of authority and strength of compulsion. Now for me to follow change, according to the limitation of mine own will and pleasure, 
A defence of change.  there cannot be a greater freedom. Nor do I in my delight of change otherwise then as the whole world doth, or as becometh a daughter of the world to do. For what is the world, but a very shop or warehouse of change? Sometimes Winter, sometimes Summer; day and night: they hold sometimes Riches, sometimes Poverty, sometimes Health, sometimes Sickness: now Pleasure; presently Anguish; now Honour; then contempt: and to conclude, there is nothing but change, which doth surround and mix withal our Fortunes. And will you have poor woman such a fixed Star, that she shall not so much as move or twinkle in her own Sphere? That were true Slavery indeed, and a Baseness beyond the chains of the worst servitude. Nature to every thing she hath created, hath given a singular delight in change, as to Herbs, Plants and Trees a time to whither and shed their leaves, a time to bud and bring forth their leaves, and a time for their Fruits and Flowers: To worms and creeping things a time to hide themselves in the pores and hollows of the earth, and a time to come abroad and suck the dew; To Beast's liberty to choose their food, liberty to delight in their food, and liberty to feed and grow fat with their food. The Birds have the air to fly in, the waters to bathe in, and the earth to feed on. But to man, both these and all things else, to alter, frame and fashion, according as his will and delight shall rule him. Again, who will rob the eye of the variety of objects, the ear of the delight of sounds, the nose of smells, the tongue of tastes, & the hand of feeling? & shall only woman, excellent woman; so much better in that she is something purer, be only deprived of this benefit? Shall she be the Bondslave of Time, the Handmaid of opinion, or the strict observer of every frosty or cold benumbed imagination? It were a cruelty beyond the Rack or Strappado.  
But you will say it is not Change, 
What novelty is.  but Novelty, from which you deter us: a thing that doth evert the good, and erect the evil; prefer the faithless, and confound desert; that with the change of Opinions breeds the change of States, and with continual alterations thrusts headlong forward both Ruin and Subversion. Alas (soft Sir) what can you christian by that new imagined Title, when the words of a wiseman are; that what was done, is but done again: all things do change, & under the cope of Heaven there is no new thing. So that whatsoever we do or imitate, it is neither Slavish, Base, nor a breeder of Novelty.  
Next, 
Not unnatural.  you condemn me of Unnaturalness, in forsaking my creation, and contemning custom. How do I forsake my creation, that do all the rights and offices due to my Creation? I was created free, born free, and live free: what lets me then so to spin out my time, that I may dye free?  
To alter creation, were to walk on my hands with my heels upward, to feed myself with my feet, or to forsake the sweet sound of sweet words, for the hissing noise of the Serpent: but I walk with a face erected, with a body clothed, with a mind busied, & with a heart full of reasonable and devout cogitations; only offensive in attire, in as much as it is a Stranger to the curiosity of the present times, and an enemy to Custom. Are we then bound to be the Flatterers of Time, or the dependants on Custom? O miserarable servitude chained only to Baseness and Folly! for then custom, nothing is more absurd, nothing more foolish.  
It was a custom amongst the Romans, 
Foolish Customs.  that as we wash our hands before meals, so they with curious and sweet ointments anointed all their arms and legs quite over, and by success of time grew from these unguents to baths of rich perfumed and compound waters, in which they bathed their whole bodies: holding it the greatest disgrace that might be, to use or touch any natural water, as appears by these Verses.  
She shines with ointments to make hair to fall, 
Mart. l. 2.   
Or with sour Chalk she over-covers all.  
It was a custom amongst the Ancients to lie upon stately and soft beds, when either they delivered Embassages, or entered into any serious discourse or argument, as appears by these Verses: 
Father Aeneas thus, 
Virg. Aen. l. 2.  'gan say,  
From stately Couch whereon he lay.   
Cato junior held it for a custom, never to eat meat but sitting on the ground: the Venetians kiss one another ever at the first meeting: and even at this day it is a general received custom amongst our English, that when we meet or overtake any man in our travel or journeying, to examine him whither he rides, how fare, to what purpose, and where he lodgeth? nay, and with that unmannerly boldness of inquisition, that it is a certain ground of a most insufficient quarrel, not to receive a full satisfaction of those demands which go fare astray from good manners, or comely civility; and will you have us to marty ourselves to these Mymicke and most fantastic customs? It is a fashion or custom with us to mourn in Black: yet the Argian and Roman Ladies ever mourned in White; and (if we will tie the action upon the signification of colours) I see not but we may mourn in Green, Blue, Red or any simple colour used in Heraldry. For us to salute strangers with a kiss, is counted but civility, but with foreign Nations immodesty: for you to cut the hair of your upper lips, familiar here in England, every where else almost thought unmanly. To ride on Side-Saddles at first was counted here abominable pride, etc. I might instance in a thousand things that only Custom and not Reason hath approved. To conclude Custom is an Idiot; and whosoever dependeth wholly upon him, without the discourse of Reason, will take from him his pied coat, and become a slave indeed to contempt and censure.  
But you say we are barbarous and shameless, 
Nor shameless.  and cast off all softness, to run wild through a wilderness of opinions. In this you express more cruelty then in all the rest, because I stand not with my hands on my belly like a baby at Bartholomew Fair, that move not my whole body when I should but only stir my head like jacke of the Clock house which hath no joints, that am not dumb when wantoness court me, as if ass-like I were ready for all burdens, or because I weep not when injury gripes me, like a woorried Deer in the fangs of many Curs: am I therefore barbarous or shameless? He is much injurious that so baptised us: we are as freeborn as Men, have as free election, and as free spirits, we are compounded of like parts, and may with like liberty make benefit of our Creations: my countenance shall smile on the worthy, and frown on the ignoble, I will hear the Wise, and be deaf to Idiots, give counsel to my friend, but be dumb to flatterers, I have hands that shall be liberal to reward defert, feet that shall move swiftly to do good offices, and thoughts that shall ever accompany freedom and severity. If this be barbarous, let me leave the City, and live with creatures of like simplicity.  
To conclude, you say we are all guilty of most infinite folly and indiscretion. I confess, 
Not foolish.  that Disoretion is the true salt which seasoneth every excellency, either in Man or Woman, and without it nothing is well, nothing is worthy: that want disgraceth our actions, staineth our Virtues, and indeed makes us most profane and irreligious, yet it is ever found in excess, as in too much, or too little: and of which of these are we guilty; do we wear too many  or too few? if too many, we should oppress Nature, if too few, we should bring sickness to Nature: but neither of these we do, for what we do wear is warm, thrifty and wholesome, than no excess, and so no indiscretion: where is then the error? only in the Fashion, only in the Custom. Oh for mercy sake bind us not to so hateful a companion, but remember what one of our famous English Poets says: 

Round-headed Custom th' apaplexie is 
G.C.   
Of Bedrid Nature, and lines led amiss,  
And takes away all feeling of offence.    
Again, another as excellent in the same Art, saith, 

Custom the World's judgement doth blind so fare, 
D'Bart.   
That Virtue is oft arraigned at Vice's Bar.    
And will you be so tyrannous then, to compel poor Woman to be a mistress to so unfaithful a Servant? Believe it, than we must call up our Champions against you, which are Beauty and Frailty, and what the one cannot compel you to forgive, the other shall enforce you to pity or excuse: and thus myself imagining myself free of these four Imputations, I rest to be confuted by some better and graver judgement.  Haec. Vir. 
You have wrested out some wit, to wrangle forth no reason; since every thing you would make for excuse, approves your guilt still more ugly: what base bondage, or what more servile baseness, then for the flattering and soothing of an unbridled appetite, or delight, to take a wilful liberty to do evil, and to give evil example? this is to be Hell's Apprentice, not Heaven's Freewoman. It is disputable amongst our Divines, whether upon any occasion a woman may put on man's attire, or no: all conclude it unfit; and the most indifferent will allow it, but only to escape persecution. Now you will not only put it on, but wear it continually; and not wear it; but take pride in it, not for persecution, but want on pleasure; not to escape danger, but to run into damnation; not to help others, but to confound the whole sex by the evilness of so lewd an example. Phalaris (though an extreme tyrant) when he executed the inventor of the Brazen Bull in the Bull) did it not so much for the pleasure he took in the torment, as to cut from the earth a brain so devilish and full of uncivil and unnatural inventions. And sure had the first inventor of your disguise perished with all her cooplements about her, a world had been preserved from scandal and slander; for from one evil to beget infinites, or to nourish sin with a delight in sin, is of all habits the lowest, ignoblest and basest.  
Now, who knows not, that to yield to baseness, must needs be folly? (for what Wisdom will be guilty of its own injury?) To be foolishly base, how can there be an action more barbarous? and to be base, foolish and barbarous, how can there appear any spark, twinkle, or but ember of discretion or judgement? So that notwithstanding your elaborat plea for freedom, your severe condemnation of custom, your fair promise of civil actions, and your temperate avoiding of excess, whereby you would seem to hug and embrace discretion; yet till you wear hats to descend the Sun, not to cover shorn locks, Cawls to adorn the head, not Gregorians to warm idle brains, till you wear innocent white Ruffs, not jealous yellow iaundised bands, well shaped, comely and close Gowns, not light skirts and French doublets, for Poniards, Samplers, for Pistols prayerbooks, and for ruffled Boots and Spurs, neat Shoes and cleane-garterd Stockings, you shall never lose the title of Baseness, Vnnaturalnes, Shamelessness, and Foolishness, you shall feed Ballads, make rich shops, arm contempt, and only starve and make poor yourselves and your reputations. To conclude, if you will walk without difference, you shall live without reverence: if you will contemn order, you must endure the shame of disorder; and if you will have no rulers but your wills, you must have no reward but disdain and disgrace, according to the saying of an excellent English Poet: 

A stronger hand restrains eur wilful powers, 
C. M.   
A Will must rule above this will of ours;  
Not following what our vain desires do woe,  
For Virtue's sake but what we ought to deo.    Hic-Mul. 
Sir, I confess you have raised mine eyelids up, but you have not clean taken away the film that covers the sight: I feel (I confess) cause of belief, and would willingly bend my heart to entertain belief, but when the accuser is guilty of as much or more than that he accuseth, or that I see you refuse the potion, and are as grievously infected, blame me not then a little to stagger, and till you will be pleased to be cleansed of that leprosy which I see apparent in you, give me leave to doubt whether mine infection be so contagious, as your blind severity would make it.  
Therefore to take your proportion in a few lines, 
The description of a Womanish Man.  (my dear Feminine Masculine) tell me what Charter, prescription or right of claim you have to those things you make our absolute inheritance? why do you curl, frizell and powder your hairs, bestowing more hours and time in deniding lock from lock, and hair from hair, in giving every thread his posture, and every curl his true sense and circumference then ever Caesar did in marshalling his Army, either at Pharsalia, in Spain, or Britain? why do you rob us of our Ruffs, of our Eareting, Carcanets, and Mamillions, of our Fans and Feathers, our Busks and French bodies, nay, of our Masks, Hoods, Shadows and Shapynas'? not so much as the very Art of Painting, but you have so greedily engrossed it, that were it not for that little fantastical sharp pointed dagger that hangs at your chins, & the cross hilt which guards your upper lip, hardly would there be any difference between the fair Mistress & the foolish Servant. But is this theft the uttermost of our Spoil? Fie, you have gone a world further, and even ravished from us our speech, our actions, sports and recreations. Goodness leave me, if I have not heard a Man court his Mistress with the same words that Venus did Adonis, or as near as the Book could instruct him; where are the Tilts and Tourneys, and lofty Gallyards that were danced in the days of old, when men caperd in the air like wanton kids on the tops of Mountains, and turned above ground as if they had been compact of Fire or a purer element? Tut all's forsaken, all's vanished, those motions shown more strength than Art, and more courage than courtship; it was much too robustious, and rather spent the body than prepared it, especially where any defect before reigned; hence you took from us poor Women our traverses and tourneys, our modest stateliness and curious slidings, and left us nothing but the new French garb of puppet hopping and letting. Lastly, poor Sheetle-cock that was only a female invention, how have you taken it out of our hands, and made yourselves such Lords and Rulers over it, that though it be a very Emblem of us, and our lighter despised fortunes, yet it dare now hardly come near us; nay, you keep it so imprisoned within your Bedde-Chambers and dining rooms, amongst your Pages and Panders, that a poor innocent Maid to give but a kick with her Battle-dore, were more than half way to the ruin of her reputation. For this you have demolished the noble schools of Horsemanship (of which many were in this City) hung up your Arms to rust, glued up those swords in their scabbards that would shake all Christendom with the brandish, and entertained into your minds such softness, dulness and effeminate niceness, that it would even make Heraclitus himself laugh against his nature to see how pulingly you languish in this weak entertained sin of womanish softness: To see one of your gender either show himself (in the midst of his pride or riches) at a Play house, or public assembly how; (before he dare enter) with the jacobs' Staff of his own eyes and his Pages, he takes a full survey of himself, from the highest sprig in his feather, to the lowest spangle that shines in his Shoestring: how he prunes and picks himself like a Hawk set a weathering, calls every several garment to Auricular confession, making them utter both their mortal great stains, and their venial and less blemishes, though the moat be much less than an Atom: Then to see him pluck and tug every thing into the form of the newest received fashion; and by Durer's rules make his leg answerable to his neck; his thigh proportionable with his middle, his foot with his hand, and a world of such idle disdained foppery: To see him thus patched up with Symmetry, make himself complete, and even as a circle: and lastly, cast himself amongst the eyes of the people (as an object of wonder) with more niceness, than a Virgin goes to the sheets of her first Lover, would make patience herself mad with anger, and cry with the Poet: 

O Hominum mores, O gens, O Tempora dura,  
Quantus in urbe Dolour; Quantus in Orb Dolus!    
Now since according to your own Inference, even by the Laws of Nature, by the rules of Religion, and the Customs of all civil Nations, it is necessary there be a distinct and special difference between Man and Woman, both in their habit and behaviours: what could we poor weak women do less (being fare too weak by force to fetch back those spoils you have unjustly taken from us) then to gather up those garments you have proudly cast away, and therewith to  both our bodies and our minds; since no other means was left us to continue our names, and to support a difference? for to have held the way in which our forefather's first set us, or to have still embraced the civil modesty, or gentle sweetness of our soft inclinations; why, you had so fare encroached upon us, and so over-brib'd the world, to be dease to any grant of Restitution, that as at our creation, our whole sex was contained in man our first Parent, so we should have had no other being, but in you, and your most effeminate quality. Hence we have preserved (though to our own shames) those manly things which you have forsaken, which would you again accept, and restore to us the Blushes we laid by, when first we put on your Masculine garments; doubt not but chaste thoughts and bashfulness will again dwell in us, and our Palaces being newly gilded, trimmed, and re-edified, draw to us all the Graces, all the Muses; which that you may more willingly do, and (as we of yours) grow into detestation of that deformity you have purloined, to the utter loss of your Honours and Reputations? Mark how the brave Italian Poet, even in the Infancy of your abuses, most lively describes you; 

About his neck a Carcanet rich he ware 
Ariost.   
Of precious Stones, all set in gold well tried;  
His arms that erst all warlike weapons bare,  
In golden Bracelets want only were tied:  
Into his ears two Rings conveyed are  
Of golden Wyer, at which on either side, 
A description Effeminateness.   
Two Indian Pearls, in making like two Pears,  
Of passing price were pendant at his ears.   

His Locks bedewed with waters of sweet savour,  
Stood curled round in order on his head;  
He had such wanton womanish behaviour,  
As though in Valour he had ne'er been bred:  
So changed in speech, in manners and in favour,  
So from himself beyond all reason led,  
By these enchantments of this amorous Dame;  
He was himself in nothing, but in name.    
Thus you see your injury to us is of an old and inveterate continuance, having taken such strong root in your bosoms, that it can hardly be pulled up, without some offence to the soil: ours young and tender, scarce freed from the Swaddling clouts, and therefore may with as much ease be lost, as it was with little difficulty found. Cast then from you our ornaments, and put on your own armours: Be men in shape, men in show, men in words, men in actions, men in counsel, men in example: then will we love and serve you; then will we hear and obey you; then will we like rich jewels hang at your ears to take our Instructions, like true friends follow you through all dangers, and like careful leeches pour oil into your wounds: Then shall you find delight in our words; pleasure in our faces; faith in our hearts; chastity in our thoughts, and sweetness both in our inward & outward inclinations. Comeliness shall be then our study; fear our Armour, and modesty our practice: Then shall we be all your most excellentest thoughts can desire, and have nothing in us less than impudence and deformity.  Haec-Vir. 
Enough: You have both raised mine eyelids, cleared my sight, and made my heart entertain both shame and delight at an instant; shame in my Follies past; delight in our Noble and worthy Conversion. Away then from me these light vanities, the only Ensigns of a weak and soft nature: and come you grave and solid pieces, which arm a man with Fortitude and Resolution: you are too tough and stubborn for a woman's wearing, we will here change our attires, as we have changed our minds, and with our attires, our names. I will no more be Haec-Vir, but Hic Vir, nor you Hic-Mulier, but Haec Mulier: from henceforth deformity shall pack to Hell: and if at any time he hide himself upon the earth, yet it shall be with contempt and disgrace. He shall have no friend but Poverty; no favourer but Folly, nor no reward but Shame. Henceforth we will live nobly like ourselves, ever sober, ever discreet, ever worthy; true men, and true women. We will be henceforth like well-coupled Doves, full of industry, full of love: I mean, not of sensual and carnal love, but heavenly and divine love, which proceeds from God; whose unexpressable nature none is able to deliver in words, since it is like his dwelling, high and beyond the reach of humane apprehension; according to the saying of the Poet, in these Verses following: 

Of love's perfection perfectly to speak,  
Or of his nature rightly to define,  
Indeed doth fare surpass our reasons reach,  
And needs his Priest t' express his power divine,  
For long before the world he was ybore,  
And bred above i'th' highest celestial Sphere,  
For by his power the world was made of yore,  
And all that therein wondrous doth appear.    
FINIS.