Virgidemiarvm Sixe Bookes. First three Bookes. Of Tooth-lesse Satyrs. 1. Poeticall. 2. Academicall. 3. Morall: Corrected and amended |
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| 3. | SAT. 3. Fuimus Troës, VEL Vix ea nostra. |
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SAT. 3. Fuimus Troës, VEL Vix ea nostra.
VVhat boots it Pontice, tho thou could'st discourseOf a long golden line of Ancestors?
Or shew their painted faces gaylie drest,
From euer since before the last conquest;
Or tedious Bedroles of descended blood,
From Father Iaphet since Deucalions flood,
Or call some old Church-windowes to record,
The age of thy fayre Arms,
Or find some figures halfe Obliterate:
In rain-beat Marble neare to the Church-gate,
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To shew the rusted Buckle that did tie,
The Garter of thy greatest Grand-sires knee.
What to reserue their reliques many yeares,
Their siluer-spurs, or spils of broken speares;
Or cite olde Oclands verse, how they did weild,
The wars in Turwin, or in Turney field;
And if thou canst in picking strawes engage
In one halfe day thy fathers heritate,
Or hide what euer treasures he thee got,
In some deepe Cock-pit; or in desperate Lot
Vpon a sixe-square peece of Iuorie,
Throw both thy selfe, and thy Posteritie?
Or if (O shame) in hired Harlots bed
Thy wealthy heyre-dome thou haue buried,
Then Pontice little boots thee to discourse,
Of a long golden line of Ancestors:
Ventrous Fortunio his farme hath sold,
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Meeting perhaps, if Orenoque denye,
Some stragling pinnace of Polonian Rie.
Then comes home floting with a silken sayle,
That Seuerne shaketh with his Canon-peale;
Wyser Raymundus in his closet pent,
Laughs at such daunger and aduenturement;
When halfe his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And nowe his second hopefull glasse is broke.
But yet if haply his third fornace hold,
Deuoteth all his pots and pans to gold;
So spend thou Pontice, if thou canst not spare,
Like some stout sea-man or Philosopher;
And were thy fathers gentle? that's their praise,
No thanke to thee by whome their name decays;
By vertue got they it, and valourous deed,
Do thou so Pontice, and be honoured:
But els looke howe their vertue was their owne,
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Right so their titles beene, nor can be thine,
Whose ill deserts might blancke their golden line.
Tell me, thou gentle Troian; dost thou prise
Thy brute beasts worth by their dams qualities;
Say'st thou this Colt shall prooue a swift-pac'd steed,
Only because a Iennet did him breed?
Or say'st thou this same Horsse shall win the prize,
Because his dame was swiftest Trunchefice,
Or Runceuall his Syre; himselfe a Gallaway?
Whiles like a tireling Iade he lags half-waye;
Or whiles thou seest some of thy Stallion-race,
Their eyes boar'd out, masking the Millers-maze,
Like to a Scythian slaue sworne to the payle;
Or dragging froathy barrels at his tayle?
Albee wise Nature in her prouidence,
Wont in the want of reason and of sence,
Traduce the natiue vertue with the kinde,
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Vnto their cause, or place where they were sowne;
That one is like to all, and all like one;
Was neuer Foxe but wily cubs begets,
The Beare his feirce-nesse to his brood besets;
Nor fearefull Hare fals out of Lyons seede,
Nor Eagle wont the tender Doue to breede;
Creet euer wont the Cypresse sad to beare,
Acheron banks the palish Popelare;
The Palme doth rifely rise in Iury field,
And Alpheus waters nought but Oliues wild.
Æsopus breeds big-Bul-Rushes alone,
Meander heath; Peaches by Nilus growne;
An English Wolfe, an Irish Toad to see,
Were as a chast-man nurs'd in Italie.
And now when Nature giues another guide,
To humane-kind that in his bosome bides:
Aboue instinct his reason and discourse,
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Ah me! how seldome see we sonns succeed,
Their Fathers praise in prowesse, and great deed;
Yet, certes if the Syre be ill inclin'd
His faults befall his sonns by course of kinde;
Scaurus was couetous; his sonne not so,
But not his pared nayle will hee forgoe:
Florian the syre did women loue a life,
And so his sonne doth too; all, but his wife:
Brag of thy Fathers faults, they are thine owne;
Brag of his Lands, if those bee not for gone:
Brag of thine owne good deeds, for they are thine,
More then his life, or lands, or golden line.
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