 | The Workes of Benjamin Jonson |  |
No more let Greece her bolder fables tell
Of Hercules, or Theseus going to Hell,
Orpheus, Ulysses: or the Latine Muse,
With tales of Troyes just knight, our faiths abuse.
We have a Shelton, and a Heyden got,
Had power to act, what they to faine had not.
All, that they boast of Styx, of Acheron,
Cocytus, Phlegeton, our have prov'd in one;
The filth, stench, noise: save only what was there
Subtly distinguish'd, was confused here.
Their wherry had no saile, too; ours had none:
And in it, two more horride knaves, than Charon.
Arses were heard to croake, in stead of frogs;
And for one Cerberus, the whole coast was dogs.
Furies there wanted not: each scold was ten.
And, for the cryes of Ghosts, women, and men,
Laden with plague-sores, and their sinnes, were heard,
Lash'd by their consciences, to die affeard.
Then let the former age, with this content her,
Shee brought the Poets forth, but ours th' adventer.
Of Hercules, or Theseus going to Hell,
43
With tales of Troyes just knight, our faiths abuse.
We have a Shelton, and a Heyden got,
Had power to act, what they to faine had not.
All, that they boast of Styx, of Acheron,
Cocytus, Phlegeton, our have prov'd in one;
The filth, stench, noise: save only what was there
Subtly distinguish'd, was confused here.
Their wherry had no saile, too; ours had none:
And in it, two more horride knaves, than Charon.
Arses were heard to croake, in stead of frogs;
And for one Cerberus, the whole coast was dogs.
Furies there wanted not: each scold was ten.
And, for the cryes of Ghosts, women, and men,
Laden with plague-sores, and their sinnes, were heard,
Lash'd by their consciences, to die affeard.
Then let the former age, with this content her,
Shee brought the Poets forth, but ours th' adventer.
| The Workes of Benjamin Jonson | |