Emblemes (1635) and Hieroglyphikes (1638) :: :: University of Virginia Library

What never fill'd? Be thy lips skrew'd so fast
To th'earths full breast? For shame, for shame unseise thee
Thou tak'st a surfeit, where thou shouldst but tast,
And mak'st too much not halfe enough, to lease thee:
Ah foole, forbeare: Thou swallow'st at one breath
Both food and poyson down; Thou drawst both milk and death.

2

The ub'rous breasts, when fairely drawne, repast
The thriving Infant with their milkie flood,
But being overstraind, returne, at last,
Unwholsome Gulps compos'd of wind and blood,
A mod'rate use does both repast and please;
Who straines beyond a meane, draws in and gulps desease.

3

But, O, meane whose good the least abuse
Makes bad, is too too hard to be directed;
Can Thornes bring grapes, or Crabs a pleasing juce?
Ther's nothing wholsome, where the whole's infected:
Unseise thy lips; Earths milk's a ripned Core
That drops from her desease, that matters from her Sore.

4

Thinkst thou, that Paunch that burlyes out thy Coate,
Is thriving Fat; or flesh, that seemes so brawny?
Thy Paunch is dropsied, and thy Cheekes are bloat;
Thy lips are white and thy complexion, tawny;
Thy skin's a Bladder blowne with watry tumors:
Thy flesh, a trembling Bogge, a Quagmire full of humors.

5

And thou, whose thrivelesse hands are ever strayning
Earths fluent Brests, into an empty Sive,
That alwaies hast, yet alwaies art complaining;
And whin'st for more then earth has pow'r to give,
Whose treasure flowes, and flees away as fast,
That ever hast, and hast, yet hast not what thou hast.

6

Goe choose a Substance, foole, that will remaine
Within the limits of thy leaking measure;
Or else goe seeke an Urne that will retaine
The liquid Body of thy slipp'ry Treasure:
Alas, how poorely are thy labours crown'd?
Thy liquors neither sweet, nor yet thy vessell sound.

7

What lesse then Foole is Man, to progge and plott,
And lavish out the Creame of all his care,
To gaine poore seeming goods, which, being got,
Make firme possession, but a Thorowfare:
Or if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper,
And being kept with care, they loose their carefull keeper.

S. GREG. Hom: 3. secund. parte Ezech.

If wee give more to the flesh then wee ought, wee nourish an Enemy; If we give not to her necessity what we ought, we destroy a Citizen: The flesh is to be satisfied so farre as suffices to our good; whosoever allowes so much to her as to make her proud, knowes not how to be satisfied: To be satisfied, is a great Art; left by the saciety of the flesh wee breake forth into the Iniquity of her Folly.

HUGO. de Anima.

The heart is a small thing, but desires great matters: It is not sufficient for a Kites dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.

EPIGRAM 12.

[What makes thee foole so fat? Foole, thee so Bare?]

What makes thee foole so fat? Foole, thee so Bare?
Yee suck the selfe same milke; the self same aire:
No meane, betwixt all Paunch; and skinne and bone?
The meane's a vertue; and the world has none.