Virgidemiarvm :: :: University of Virginia Library

VVho say's these Romish Pageants bene too hy
To be the Scorne of sportfull Poesy?
Certes not all the worlde such matter wist
As are the seuen hils, for a Satiryst.
Perdy, I loath an hundreth Mathoes tongues.
An hundreth Gamsters shiftes, or Landlords wrongs;
Or Labeos Poems, or base Lolios pride.
Or euer what I thought or wrote beside.
When once I thinke if carping Aquines spright
To see now Rome, were licenc'd to the light;
How his enraged ghost would stampe and stare
That Cesars throne is turn'd to Peters chayre.

To see an olde shorne Lozell perched hy
Crossing beneath a golden Canopy,
The whiles a thousand hairelesse crownes crouch low
To kisse the precious case of his proude Toe,
And for the Lordly Fasces borne of olde,
To see two quiet Crossed keyes of golde,
Or Cybiles shrine, the famous Pantheons frame
Turn'd to the honour of our Ladies name,
But that he most would gaze and wonder at,
Is th'horned Miter, and the bloudy Hat.
The crooked staffe, their Coules strange forme and store,
Saue that he saw the same in hell before,
To see their broken Nuns with new-shorne heads,
In a blinde Cloyster tosse their idle Beades,
Or Louzy Coules come smoking from the stewes.
To raise the Leud Rent to their Lord accrewes,
(Who with ranke Venice doth his pompe aduance
By trading of ten thousand Curtizans)

Yet backward must absolue a females sin,
Like to a false dissembling Theatine,
Who when his skine is red with shirts of Male
And rugged haire cloth scoures his greazy nayle,
Or wedding garment tames his stubburne back,
Which his hempe girdle dyes all blew and blacke.
Or of his Almes-Boule three dayes sup'd & din'd,
Trudges to open stewes of either kinde:
Or takes some Cardinals stable in the way,
And with some pampered Mule doth weare the day
Kept for his Lords owne sadle when him list;
Come Valentine, and play the Satryist.
To see poore sucklings welcom'd to the light
With searing yrons of some sowre Iacobite,
Or golden offers of an aged foole
To make his Coffin some Franciscans coule.
To see the Popes blacke knight, a cloked Frere
Sweating in the channell like a Scauengere.

100

Whom earst thy bowed hamme did lowly greete,
When at the Corner crosse thou did'st him meet,
Tumbling his Rosaries hanging at his belt
Or his Barretta, or his towred felte,
To see a lasie dumb Acholithite,
Armed against a deuout Flyes despight,
Which at th'hy Alter doth the Chalice vaile
With a broad Flieslappe of a Peacockes tayle,
The whiles the likerous Priest spits euery tryce
With longing for his morning sacrifice.
Which he reres vp quite perpendiculare,
That the mid-church doth spite the Chancels fare,
Beating their emptie mawes that would be fed,
With the scant morsels of the Sacricts bread.
Would he not laugh to death, when he should heare
The shamelesse Legends of S. Christopher,
S. George, the Sleepers, or S. Peters well
Or of his daughter good S. Petronell,

101

But had he heard the Female Fathers grone,
Yeaning in mids of her procession.
Or now should see the needlesse tryall-chayre,
(When ech is proued by his bastard heyre)
Or saw the Churches, & new Calendere
Pestred with mungrell Saints, and reliques dere,
Should hee cry out on Codro's tedious Tomes,
Whē his new rage would aske no narrower rooms?