University of Virginia Library

LIB. 5.

SAT. 1. Sit pæna merenti.

Pardon ye glowing eares; Needs will it out,
Tho brazen wals compast'd my tongue about,
As thicke as welthy Scrobtoes quick-set rowes,
In the wide Common that he did inclose.
Pull out mine eyes, if I shall see no vice,
Or let me see it with detesting eyes;
Renowmed Aquine, now I follow thee,
Farre as I may for feare of ieopardie;
And to thy hand yeeld vp the Iuye-mace,
From crabbed Persius, and more smooth Horace,
Or from that shrew, the Roman Poetesse,
That taught her gossips learned bitternesse,
Or Luciles muse whom thou did'st imitate,
Or Menips olde, or Pasquillers of late.
Yet name I not Mutius, or Tigilline;
Tho they deserue a keener stile then mine;
Nor meane to ransacke vp the quiet graue,
Nor burne dead bones, as he example gaue;
I taxe the liuing, let dead ashes rest,
Whose faults are dead, and nayled in their Chest;
Who can refraine, that's guiltlesse of their crime,
Whiles yet he liues in such a cruell time.
When Titius his grounds that in Grand-sires daies,
But one pound fine, one penny rent did raise
A sommer-snow-ball, or a winter-rose,
Is growne to thousands as the world now goes:
So thirst, and time sets other things on flote,
That now his Sonne sooups in a silken cote,
Whose Grandsire happily a poore hungry swayne,
Beg'd some cast Abby in the Churches wayne
And but for that, what euer he may vaunt,
Who now's a Monke, had beene a Mendicant;
While freezing Matho, that for one leane fee,
Wont terme ech Terme the Terme of Hilarie,
May now in steed of those his simple fees;
Get the fee-simples of fayre Manneryes.
What, did he counterfait his Princes hand,
For some braue Lord-ship of concealed land?
Or on ech Michaell, and Lady-day,
Tooke he deepe forfaits for an houres delay?
And gain'd no lesse by such iniurious braule,
Then Gamius by his sixt wiues buriall?
Or hath he wonne some wider Interest,
By hoary charters from his Grand-sires chest.
Which late some bribed Scribe for slender wage,
Writ in the Characters of another age,
That Ploydon selfe might stammer to rehearse,
Whose date ore-lookes three Centuries of yeares;
Who euer yet the Trackes of weale so tride,
But there hath beene one beaten way beside?
He, when he lets a Lease for life, or yeares,
(As neuer he doth vntill the date expeares;
For when the full state in his fist doth lie,
He may take vantage of the vacancy,)
His Fine affor'ds so many trebled pounds,
As he agreeth yeares to Lease his grounds
His Rent in faire respondence must arise,
To double trebles of his one yeares price;
Of one bayes bread'th, God wot, a silly cote,
Whose thatched sparres are furr'd with sluttish soote
A whole inch thick; shining like Black-moors brows
Through smok that down the head-les barrel blows:
At his beds-feete feeden his stalled teme.
His swine beneath; his pullen ore the beame:
A starued Tenement, such as I gesse,
Stand stragling in the wasts of Holdernesse.
Or such as shiuer on a Peake-hill side,
When Marches lungs beate on their turfe-clad hide:
Such as nice Lipsius would grudge to see,
Aboue his lodging in wild West-phalye:
Or as the Saxon King his Court might make,
When his sides playned of the Neat-heards cake.
Yet must he haunt his greedy Land-lords hall,
With often presents at ech Festiuall;
With crammed Capons euery New-yeares morne,
Or with greene-cheeses when his sheepe are shome,
Or many Maunds-full of his mellow fruite,
To make some way to win his waighty suite,
Whom cannot giftes at last cause to relent,
Or to win fauour, or flee punishment?
When griple Patrons turne their sturdy steele
To waxe; when they the golden flame doe feele;
When grand Mæcenas casts a glauering eye,
On the cold present of a Poesie:
And least he might more frankly take then giue,
Gropes for a french crowne in his emptie sleeue:
Thence Clodius hopes to set his shoulders free,
From the light burden of his Naperie.
The smiling Land-Lord shows a sun-shine face,
Faining that he will grant him further grace;
And lear's like Æsops Foxe vpon the Crane,
Whose necke he craues for his Chirurgian;
So lingers of the lease vntill the last,
What recks he then of paynes or promise past?
Was euer fether, or fond womans mind,
More light then words; the blasts of idle wind?
What's sib or sire, to take the gentle slip;
And in th'Exchequer rot for surety-ship;
Or thence thy starued brother liue and die,
Within the cold Cole-harbour sanctuary?
Will one from Scots-banke bid but one grote more
My old Tenant may be turned out of dore,
Tho much he spent in th'rotten roofes repayre,
In hope to haue it left vnto his heyre;
Tho many a lode of Marle and Manure led,
Reuiu'd his barren leas, that earst lay dead.
Were he as Furius, he would defie,
Such pilfring slips of Pety land-lordrye.
And might dislodge whole Collonyes of poore,
And lay their roofe quite leuell with their floore,
Whiles yet he giues as to a yeelding fence,
Their bagge and baggage to his Citizens,
And ships them to the new-nam'd Virgin-lond,
Or wilder wales, where neuer wight yet wound:
Would it not vexe thee where thy syres did keepe,
To see the dunged foldes of dag-tayld sheepe,
And ruined house where holy things were said,
Whose free-stone wals the thatched roofe vpbraid,
Whose shrill Saints bell hangs on his louerie,
While the rest are damned to the Plumbery.
Yet pure deuotion lets the steeple stand,
And ydle battlements on eyther hand;
Least that perhaps, were all those reliques gone,
Furious his Sacriledge could not be knowne.

SAT. 2. Heîc quærite Troiam.

Hous-keping's dead, Saturio; wot'st thou where?
For-sooth they say far hence in Brek-neck shire,
And euer since they say, that feele and tast,
That men may break their neck, soone as their fast;
Certes, if Pity died at Chaucers date,
He liu'd a widdower long behinde his mate:
Saue that I see some rotten bed-rid Syre,
Which to out-strip the nonage of his heire,
Is cram'd with golden broaths; and druges of price,
And ech day dying liu's; and liuing dies;
Till once suruiu'd his ward-ships latest eue,
His eies are clos'd with choyse to die or liue;
Plenty, and hee, dy'd both in that same yeare,
VVhen the sad skye did sheed so many a teare,
And now, who list not of his labour fayle;
Marke, with Saturio, my friendly tale:
Along thy way, thou canst not but descry,
Faire glittering Halls to tempt thy hopefull eye,
Thy right eye gines to leape for vaine delight,
And surbeate toes to tickle at the sight,
As greedy T. when in the sounding mold
Hee finds a shining pot-shard tip't with gold;
For neuer Syren tempts the pleased eares,
As these the eye of fainting passengers;
All is not so that seems; for surely than
Matrona should not bee a Curtizan.
Smooth Chrysalus should not bee rich with fraud,
Nor honest R. bee his owne wiues baude,
Looke not a squint, nor stride a crosse the way,
Like some demurring Alcide to delay.
But walke on cherely, till thou haue espide,
Sant Peters finger at the Church-yard side,
But wilt thou needs when thou art warn'd so well
Goe se who in so garish walls doth dwell?
There findest thou some stately Doricke frame
Or neate Ionicke worke;
Like the vaine bubble of Iberian pride,
That ouer-croweth all the world beside.
VVhich rear'd to raise the crazy Monarches fame,
Striues for a Court and for a Colledge name;
Yet nought within, but louzy coul's doth hold,
Like a scab'd Cuckow in cage of gold;
So pride aboue doth shade the shame belowe:
A golden Periwig on a Black-mores brow.
When Mæuios first page of his poesy,
Nayl'd to an hundreth postes for noueltie,
With his big title, and Italian mott
Layes siege vnto the backward buyers grote.
Which all within is drafty sluttish geere,
Fit for the Ouen or the Kitchin fire:
So this gay gate adds fuell to thy thought,
That such proud piles were neuer rays'd for nought;
Beate the broad gates; a goodly hollow sound,
With doubled Ecchoes doth againe rebound,
But not a Dog doth barke to welcome thee,
Nor churlish Porter canst thou chasing see,
All dumb and silent, like the dead of night,
Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite,
The marble pauement hid with desart weede,
With house-leeke, thistle, docke, and hemlock-seed.
But if thou chance cast vp thy wondring eyes,
Thou shalt descerne vpon the Frontispice,
ΟΨΔΕΙΣΕΙΣΙΤΩ grauen vp on hye,
A fragment of olde Platoes Poesie,
The meaning is: Sir foole, ye may be gone,
Go backe by leaue, for way here lieth none.
Looke to the towred chymneis which should bee
The winde-pipes of good hospitalitie,
Through which it breatheth to the open ayre,
Betokening life and liberall welfare
Lo, there th'vnthankfull swallow takes her rest,
And fils the Tonnell with her circled nest,
Nor halfe that smoke from all his chymneies goes
As one Tobacco-pipe driues through his nose;
So rawbone hunger scorns the mudded walls,
And gin's to reuell it in Lordly Halls;
So the blacke Prince is broken loose againe
That saw no Sunne saue once (as stories saine)
That once was, when in Trinacry I weene
Hee stole the daughter of the haruest Queene;
And grip't the mawes of barren Suily,
With long constraint of pinefull penury;
And they that should resist his second rage,
Haue pen'd themselues vp in the priuate cage,
Of some blind lane; and their they lurke vnkowne,
Till th'hungry tempest once bee ouerblowne;
Then like the coward, after his neighbours fray,
They creepe forth boldly, and aske where are they?
Meane while the hunger-staru'd Appurtenance
Must bide the brunt, what euer ill mischance;
Grim Famine sits in their forepined face
All full of Angles of vnequall space
Like to the plaine of many-sided squares,
That wont bee drawen out by Geometars;
So sharpe and meager that who should them see
Would sweare they lately came from Hungary.
When their brasse pans and winter couerled,
Haue wipt the maunger of the Horses-bread;
Oh mee; what ods there seemeth twixt their chere,
And the swolne Bezell at an Alehouse fyre,
That tonnes in gallons to his bursten panch,
Whose slimy droughts, his draught can neuer stanch;
For shame ye Gallants grow more hospitall
And turne your needlesse wardrope to your Hall:
As lauish Virro that keepes open doores
Like Ianus in the warres;
Except the twelue-daies, or the wake day-feast
What time hee needs must bee his Cosens guest,
Philene hath bid him; can hee choose but come?
Who should pull Virroes sleeue to stay at home?
All yeare besides, who meal-time can attend,
Come Trebius welcome to the tables end:
What tho hee chires on purer manchets crowne,
Whiles his kind client grindes on blacke and brown;
A iolly rounding of a whole foote broad,
From of the Mong-corne heape shall Trebius load;
What tho hee quaffe pure Amber in his bowle
Of March-brewd wheat: yet slecks thy thirsting soule
With palish oat, froathing in Boston-clay
Or in a shallow cruce; nor must that stay,
Within thy reach, for feare of thy craz'd brain,
But call and craue; and haue thy cruse againe;
Else how shoulde euen tale bee registred
Of all thy draughts, on the chalk'd barrels head?
And if he list reuiue his hartles graine
With some French grape, or pure Canarian
When pleasing Bourdeaux fals vnto his lott,
Some sowrish Rochell cuts thy thirsting throte,
What tho himselfe carueth his welcome friend,
With a cool'd pittance from his trenchers-end?
Must Trebies lip hang toward his trencher-side?
Nor kisse his fist to take what doth betide?
What tho to spare thy teeth he emploies thy tongue
In busie questions all the dinner long?
What tho the scornfull wayter lookes askile,
And pouts and frowns, and curseth thee the while,
And takes his farewell with a iealous eye,
At euery morsell hee his last shall see?
And if but one exceed the common sise
Or make an hillocke in thy cheeke arise,
Or if perchance thou shouldest, cre thou wist
Hold thy knife vprights in thy griped fist,
Or sittest double on thy back-ward sear,
Or with thine elbow shad'st thy shared meat;
Hee laughs thee in his fellowes eare to scorne,
And asks aloud where Trebius was borne?
Tho the third Sewer takes thee quite away
Without a staffe: when thou would'st lenger stay
What of all this? Is't not inough to say
I din'd at Virro his owne boord to day?

SAT. 3. ΟΙΝΑ ΦΙΛΩΝ.

The Satyre should be like the Porcupine,
That shoots sharp quilles out in each angry line,
And wounds the blushing cheeke, and fiery eye,
Of him that heares, and readeth guiltily;
Ye Antique Satyres, how I blesse your daies,
That brook'd your bolder stile, their owne dispraise,
And wel-neare wish; yet ioy my wish is vaine,
I had beene then, or they were now againe:
For now our eares beene of more brittle mold,
Then those dull earthen cares that were of olde:
Sith theirs, like anuilles bore the hammers head,
Our glasse can neuer touch vnshiuered.
But from the ashes of my quiet stile
Hence forth may rise some raging rough Lucile,
That may with Eschylus both finde and leese
The snaky tresses of th'Eumenides:
Meane while, sufficeth mee, the world may say
That I these vices loath'd another day,
Which I haue done with as deuout a cheere
As he that rounds Poules-pillers in the eare,
Or bends his ham downe in the naked Queare.
T'was euer said, Frontine, and euer seene,
That golden Clearkes, but wooden Lawyers bene;
Could euer wise man wish in good estate
The vse of all things indiscriminate?
Who wots not yet how well this did beseeme,
The learned maister of the Academe?
Plato is dead, and dead is his deuise
Which some thought witty, none thought euer wise;
Yet certes Mæcha is a Platonist,
To all, they say, saue who so do not list;
Because her husband a farre-trafiq;'d man,
Is a profest Peripatecian,
And so our Grandsires were in ages past,
That let their Lands lye all so widely wast,
That nothing was in pale or hedge ypent,
Within some prouince or whole shires extent;
As Nature made the earth, so did it lye,
Saue for the furrows of their husbandry;
When as the Neighbour-lands so couched layne,
That all bore show of one fayre Champian:
Some head-lesse crosse they digged on their lea,
Or rol'd some marked Meare-stone in the way,
Poore simple men! For what mought that auayle,
That my field might not fill my neighbours payle?
More then a pilled sticke can stand in stead,
To barre Cynedo from his neighbours bed,
More then the thred-bare Clients pouerty;
Debarres th'Atturney of his wonted fee?
If they were thriftlesse; Mote not, we amend?
And with more care our dangered fields defend:
Ech man can gard what thing he deemeth deere,
As fearefull Marchants doe their Female heyre,
Which were it not for promise of their welth,
Need not be stalled vp for feare of stelth;
Would rather sticke vpon the Belmans cries
Tho proferd for a branded Indians price:
Then rayse we muddy bul-warkes on our banks
Beset around with treble quick-set rankes;
Or if those walls be ouer weake a ward,
The squared Bricke may be a better gard:
Go to my thrifty Yeoman, and vpreare,
A brazen wall to shend thy land from feare,
Do so; and I shall praise thee all the while,
So be, thou stake not vp the common stile;
So be thou hedge in nought, but what's thine owne
So be thou pay what tithes thy neighbours done,
So be thou let not lye in fallowed plaine.
That which was wont yeelde Vsurie of graine,
But when I see thy pitched stakes do stand
On thy incroched peece of common land,
Whiles thou discommonest thy neighbours keyne,
And warn'st that none feed on thy field saue thine;
Brag no more Scrobius; of the mudded bankes,
Nor thy deepe ditches, nor three quickset rankes:
Oh happy daies of olde Deucalion.
When one was Land-Lord of the world alone,
But now whose coler would not rise to yeeld,
A pesant, halfe-stakes of his new-mowne field
Whiles yet he may not for the treble price
Buy out the remnant of his royalties:
Go on and thriue my pety Tyrants pride
Scorne thou to liue if others liue beside,
And trace proud Castile that aspires to be
In his old age a young fift Monarchie
Or the red Hat that tries the lucklesse mayne,
For welthy Thames to change his lowly Rhene.

SAT. 4. Possunt, quia posse videntur.

Villius the welthy farmer left his heire,
Twise twenty sterling pounds to spēd by yeare;
The neighbours praysen Villios hide-bound sonne;
And say it was a goodly portion;
Not knowing how some Marchants dowre can rise
By sundaies tale to fiftie Centuries;
Or to weigh downe a leaden Bride with Golde;
Worth all that Matho bought, or Pontice sold;
But whiles ten pound goes to his wiues new gowne,
Nor litle lesse can serue to sute his owne,
Whiles one peece payes her idle wayting man,
Or buyes an hoode, or siluer-handled Fanne.
Or hires a Friezeland Trotter halfe yarde deepe,
To drag his Tumbrell through the staring Cheape;
Or whiles he rideth with two liueries,
And's treble rated at the Subsidies
One end a kennell keeps of thriftlesse hounds,
What thinke you rest's of all my younkers pounds;
To diet him, or deale out at his doore,
To cofer vp, or stocke his wasting store;
If then I reckon'd right, it should appeare,
That fourtie pounds serue not the Farmers heyre.