A free and offenceles iustification of a lately puvblisht and most maliciously misinterpreted Poeme: Entitvled Andromeda liberata [by George Chapman] |
 |
 | A free and offenceles iustification |  |
Dialogus.
The Persons Pheme and Theodines.Phe.
Ho! you! Theodines you must not dreame
Y'are thus dismist in Peace, seas too extreame
Your song hath stird vp, to be calmd so soone:
Your Perseus is displeasd, and sleighteth now
Your worke, as idle, and as seruile, yow.
The Peoples god-voice, hath exclamd away
Your mistie cloudes, and he sees cleere as day
Y'aue made him scandald for anothers wrong,
Wishing vnpublisht your vnpopular song.
Theo.
O thou with peoples breaths and bubbles fild,
Euer de iuered, euermore with childe:
How Court and Citty burnish with thy breede
Of newes and nifles? seasoning all their feede
With nothing, but what onely (drest like thee)
Of surfet tasts and superfluitie?
Let all thy bladder-blowers still inspire
And make embroderd foete-bals for the mire
With thy suggestions: On the clouen feete
Of thy Chymæra tost from streete to streete;
Our Perseus skornes to skuffle with the prease
Or like th'inconstant Moone be, that like these
Makes her selfe readie by her glasse the seas
The common Rendes vous of all rude streames:
And fed in some part, with our common Thames
As that is hourely seru'd with sewers and sinckes,
Strengthening and cleansing our sweet meats and drinkes,
Our Perseus by Mineruaes perfect Mirror
Informes his beauties: that reformd from th'error
Which Change and Fashion in most others finde,
Like his faire bodie, he may make his minde,
Decke that with knowing ornaments, and then
Effuse his radiance, vpon knowing Men,
Which can no more faile thenth sunne to show
By his in-sight, his outward ouerflow.
Which renders deathlesse, euery noble thing
Clarified in it, thrice washt hath his foode)
Take from a Sow, that washeth in her floode
(The common kennell) euery gut she feedes?
His food then thinking cleaner? And but then
Take it for manly, when vnfit for Men?
Can I seeme seruile to him, when ahlas
My whole Lifes freedome, shewes I neuer was?
If I be rude in speech, or not expresse
My Plaine Minde, with affected Courtlines
His Insight can into the Fountaine reach,
And knowes, sound meaning nere vsde glosing speach.
Phem.
Well, be he as you hope, but this beleeue,
All friends haue left you, all that knew you grieue
(For faire condition in you) that your Thrall,
To one Mans humour, should so lose them all:
Theo.
One may be worth all, and they thus implie
Themselues are all bad, that our Good enuie.
Goodnesse and Truth they are (the All-good knowes)
To whom my free Soule all her labours vowes.
If friends for this forsake me, let them flie;
And know that no more their inconstancie
Grieues, or disheartens my resolu'd endeauours
Then I had shaken off so many feavers.
My faire condition mones them: Euen right thus
Far'd the Phisition, Aristoxenus
With still poore Socrates; who terming rude,
Lustfull, vnlearnd, and with no wit indude
The most wise Man, did adde yet, he is iust.
And with that praise, would giue his dispraise trust.
For as a man, whom Arte hath flattery taught,
With long and varied praises, doth sometimes
Mixe by the way, some sleight and peruiall crimes
As sawce; to giue his flatteries taste and scope,
So, that Malignitie, may giue her hope
Of faults beleeu'd effect, she likewise laies
In her strowd passage, some light flowers of praise.
But tis not me ahlas, they thus pursue
With such vnprofiting, Cunning, nor embrue
Their bitter spent mouthes, with such bloud-mixt fome,
In chace of any action that can come
From my poore forme, but from the foot they tread
Those passages, that thence affect the head.
And why? who knowes? not that next spirit that is
Organe to all their knowing faculties,
Or else, I know I oft haue read of one
So sharpe-eyd, he could see through Oke and Stone,
Another that high set in Sicilie
As farre as Carthage numbred with his eye,
The Nauie vnder saile, which was dissite
A night and daies saile; with windes most fore-right;
And others, that such curious chariots made
As with a flies wing, they hid all in shade,
And in a Sesamine (small Indian graine)
Engrau'd a page of Homers verses plaine.
These farre-seene meruailes, I could neuer see
Being made of downe right, flat simplicitie,
How neere our curious Craftsmen come to these
They must demonstrate, ere they winne the wise:
Phe.
But who are those you reckon Homicides
In your rackt Poeme? I sweare, that diuides
Your wondering Beader, far from your applause.
Iioie in that, for weighing with this cause
Their other Reason, men may cleerely see,
How sharpe and pregnant their constructions be.
I proue by Argument, that he that loues
Is deade, and onely in his louer moues.
His Louer as t'were taking life from him:
And praising that kinde slaughter I condemne
As churlish Homicides, who will denie
In loue twixt two, the possibility
To propagate their liues into descent
Needefull and lawfull, and that argument
Is Platoes, to a word, which much commends
The two great personages, who wanting th'ends
Of wedlocke, as they were; with one consent
Sought cleere disfunction, which (with blest euent)
May ioine both otherwise, with such encrease
Of worthy Ofspring, that posterities
May blesse their fautors, and their fauoures now:
Whom now such bans and poisons ouerflow.
Phem.
Bound to a barraine rocke, and death expected,
See that with all your skill then cleane diffected.
That (barraine) cleere your edge of, if you can.
Theo.
As if that could applied be to a Man?
O barraine Malice! was it euer sayd
A man was barraine? or the burthen layd
Of bearing fruite on Man? if not, nor this
Epithete barraine, can be construed his
In least proprietie: but that such a one
As was Andromeda; in whose parts shone
All beauties, both of bodie and of minde
The sea dame to a barraine rocke should binde
In enuie least some other of her kinde
Encreast the cause of making all deplore
So deare an innocent, with all desert
No more then (for Humanities shame) peruert
For of your whole huge reckonings heere's the sum,
O sæclum insipiens, & inficetum.
Quod dignis adimit, transit ad Impios.
| A free and offenceles iustification | |