All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet Being Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author [i.e. John Taylor]: With sundry new Additions, corrected, reuised, and newly Imprinted |
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 | All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet |  |
92
A Bavvd.
My Verse is honest, seemely, neat, and cleane,Yet is my Theame polluted and obsceane:
Ile touch foule pitch, yet will not be defilde,
My Muse shall wade through dirt, and not be soild.
The Sun on noysome Dunghils shines as well,
As on faire flowers that doe fragrant smell:
The Ayre by which wee liue, doth euery where
Breathe still alike vpon the poore and Peere.
The Sea beares many an old despised Boat,
Yet on the Sea the best ships doe but float,
And Earth allowes to all her scatterd brood,
Food, Clothes and lodging, to the bad and good.
Yet Sun, Ayre, Sea, nor Earth receiue disgrace
By any bounty which they giue the base.
Euen so my Muse, (free from all foule intents)
Doth take example from the Elements,
In laying better studies by a while,
And in cleane fashion write a beastly stile:
Yet will I not my sense or meaning marre,
With tearmes obscure, or phrases fetcht from farre,
Nor will I any way equiuocate,
With words sophisticall, or intricate,
Utopian-Fustianisme, poore heathen Greeke,
To put my Readers wits to groape and seeke.
Small eloquence men must expect from me,
My Schollership will name things as they be.
I thinke it good, plaine English, without fraud,
To call a Spade a Spade, a Bawd a Bawd.
Two little Pamphlets I haue wrote before,
Which I was bold to call a Thiefe, and Whore,
Yet was my Whore so chaste, that shee had not,
From end to end, one foule offensiue spot,
Nor did my Thiefe from any man purloyne,
Or liu'd by filching either goods or coyne.
93
That with the Bawd my pen was much behind:
My Whore was honest, and my Thiefe was true,
And in this sort Ile giue the Bawd her due.
Strange fruit from my poore barren labours springs,
I modestly must vse immodest things,
'Tis somewhat hard, but yet it is no riddle,
All Bawdry doth not breed below the middle.
So many seuerall sorts of Bawdes doe grow,
That where theres not a Bawd, 'tis hard to know.
The first with spirituall Bawdes, whose honour high.
Springs from the whoredome of Idolatry.
Cast but your eyes vpon the Man of Rome,
That stiles himselfe the head of Christendome,
Christs vniuersall Uicar, and Vicegerent,
In whom fooles thinke the Truth is so inherent.
That he can soules to Heauen or hell preferre,
And being full of Errours, cannot erre:
And though his witchcraft thousands hath entic'd,
He will be call'd Lieutenant vnto Christ.
How hath that false Conuenticle of Trent,
Made lawes, which God, or good men neuer meant,
Commanding worshipping of stones and stockes,
Of Reliques, dead mens bones, and senslesse blocks,
From which adultrate painted Adoration,
Men (worse then stocks or blockes) must seeke saluation?
The Soules of men are His that dearly bought them,
And he the onely way to Heauen hath taught them.
And whoso forceth them to false adoring,
Is the maine Bawd, vnto this Spirituall Whoring.
Besides, it is apparent, and most cleere,
That hee's the greatest Bawd the Earth doth beare:
For he that tolerates the Stewes erection,
Allowes them Priuiledges and protection,
Shares in the profit of their sordid sweat,
Reapes yeerely Pensions and Reuennues great,
Permits the Pole-shorne Fry of Fryers and Monks,
For Annuall stipends to enioy their Punckes.
When Paul the third the Romish miter wore,
He had contributary Truls such store,
To fiue and forty thousand they amount,
As then Romes Register gaue true account.
Besides, it was approu'd, the gaine was cleere
Full twenty thousand Duckats euery yeere.
Moreouer, once a Bishop (boasting) said,
He had Ten Thousand Priests that paid
(Some more, some lesse) by way of Rent or fines,
Each one of them for keeping Concubines.
And he that keepes none, payes as much as he
As for his vse doth keepe one, two, or three.
All's one, the Priests must pay t'augmēt the treasure,
Keepe or not keepe, Whore or not Whore at Pleasure.
Now iudge, good Reader, haue I said amisse,
Was euer any Bawdry like to this?
Pope Alexander, of that name the sixt,
With his owne childe incestuously commixt.
And Paul the third (affecting the said Game)
With his owne daughter did commit the same:
And after with his sister tooke such course,
That he with her did doe as bad or worse.
Iohn the thirteenth, and other more, 'tis plaine,
Haue with their sisters and their daughters laine,
And when their stomackes haue beene gone & past,
To Princes they haue married them at last.
Here's Bawdes of state, of high and mighty place,
Our Turnbull street poore Bawdes to these are base.
But those braue Doings better to disclose,
A little while Ile turne my Verse to Prose.
Lucrece was first married to her own brother the son of Pope Alexander the sixt, shee being daughter to the said Pope, and daughter in law to him by the marriage with his sonne. And being concubine to the said Pope, hee caused her after his sonne her husbands death, to be married to three Princes one after another; Fist to Duke Iohn Sforza, secondly, to Lewis sonne to Alphonsus King of Arragon, thirdly, to Alphonsus D'Est Duke of Ferara.
Her name was Constancia, shee was married to a Duke named Sforza, but the Pope her father poysoned her, because he could not lawfully enioy her. Also for the like, he poysoned his sister.
92
That for poore scraps, and a bare ten pounds fee,
Dares not his mighty Patron to offend,
Or any way his vices reprehend,
Nor preach 'gainst pride, oppression, vsury,
Dice, drinke or drabbes, vaine oathes or simonie,
Nor Veniall sinne or Mortall, or nothing
That may his Worship in the Withers wring:
But euery way must fit his Text and time,
To leaue vntoucht th'Impropriators crime.
Thus those whose functions Heauen doth dignifie,
(Who should like Trumpets lift their voyces high)
Are mute and muzzled, for a hireling price,
And so are Bawdes vnto their Patrones vice;
For he's a Bawd who doth his Liuing winne
By hiding, or by flattring peoples sinne.
The Prince of darknesse, King of Acheron,
Great Emperor of Styx and Phlegeton,
Cocitus Monarch, high and mighty Dis,
Who of Great Limbo-Lake Commander is,
Of Tartary, of Erebus, and all
Those Kingdomes which men Barathrum doe call,
He is the chiefest Bawd, and still he plods
To send vs Whoring after godlesse gods:
And by his sway, and powerfull Instigation,
Hath made the world stark drunk with fornication.
For since the first Creation, neuer was
The least degree of Bawdry brought to passe,
But he began it and contriu'd it still,
He laid the Plot, and did the Act fulfill.
So that of all the Bawdes that euer were,
The Deuill himselfe the bell away doth beare:
Yet all his whoring base Idolatry,
Did seeme Religious zealous sanctitie.
A flattring hireling preacher, is a Bawd to the vices of his surly Patrone, and an hypocriticall conniuer at the crying sinnes of his Audience.
104
To close vp all, the summe of all is this,
I'l end my booke as Ouid ended his.
I'l end my booke as Ouid ended his.
So long as on the Poles the spangled
firmament shall whirle,
So long as Procreation shall
beget a Boy or Girle,
So long as winter shall be cold,
or summer shall be hot,
So long as pouerty and spight
shall be true vertues lot,
When Phœbus in the West shall rise,
and in the East shall set,
When children (on their mothers)
their owne fathers shall beget;
Then shall this booke, or Bawd lye dead,
and neuer till that day,
Shall Booke or Bawd, or Bawd or Booke,
be scarce, if men will pay.
Till Sun and Moone shall cease to shine,
and all the world lye wast;
So long this Booke, or else a Bawd,
I'm sure, so long shall last.
firmament shall whirle,
So long as Procreation shall
beget a Boy or Girle,
So long as winter shall be cold,
or summer shall be hot,
So long as pouerty and spight
shall be true vertues lot,
When Phœbus in the West shall rise,
and in the East shall set,
When children (on their mothers)
their owne fathers shall beget;
Then shall this booke, or Bawd lye dead,
and neuer till that day,
Shall Booke or Bawd, or Bawd or Booke,
be scarce, if men will pay.
Till Sun and Moone shall cease to shine,
and all the world lye wast;
So long this Booke, or else a Bawd,
I'm sure, so long shall last.
FINIS.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |