Skialetheia :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fie on these Lydian tunes which blunt our sprights
And turne our gallants to Hermaphrodites:
Giue me a Doricke touch, whose Semphony,
And dauncing aire may with affinity
Moue our light vaulting spirits and capering.
Woo Alexander from lewd banquetting
To armes. Bid Haniball remember Cannas,
And leaue Salapian Tamyras embrace.

Hence with these fidlers, whose oyle-buttred lines,
Are Panders vnto lusts, and food to sinnes,
Their whimpring Sonnets, puling Elegies
Slaunder the Muses; make the vvorld despise,
Admired poesie, marre Resolutions ruffe,
And melt true valour with lewd ballad stuffe.

Heere one's Elegiack pen patheticall,
His parting from his Mistris doth bewaile:
Which when young gallant Mutio hath perus'd,

His valour's crestfalne, his resolues abusd,
For vvhatsoe're his courage erst did moue,
He'le goe no voyage novv to leaue his Loue.

Another vvith his supple passion
Meaning to moue his Pigsney to compassion,
Makes puisne Lucius in a simpathy
In loue vvith's pibald Laundres by and by.

A third that falls more roundly to his vvorke,
Meaning to moue her vvere she Ievv or Turke:
Writes perfect Cat and fidle, vvantonly,
Tickling her thoughts vvith masking bavvdry:
Which read to Captaine Tucca, he doth svveare,
And scratch, and svveare, and scratch to heare
His ovvne discourse discours'd: and by the Lord
It's passing good: oh good! at euery vvord:
When his Cock-sparrovv thoughts to itch begin,
He vvith a shrug svveares't a most sweet sinne.

Some others Lady Muse is comicall,
Thalia to the back, nay back and all,
And she vvith many a salt La volto iest
Edgeth some blunted teeth, and fires the brest
Of many an old cold gray-beard Cittizen;
Medea like making him young againe;
Who comming from the Curtaine sneaketh in,
To some odde garden no ed house of sinne.

But oh vvorse yet! for some Capritcious humor

Making an issue of his vlcerous tumor.
Some prophane Clodian pen daring display
(Like connicatching) bawdries Orgia,
With the prouost Martiall, ransacks euery roome
Of a vaulting house, and ribbald doth presume,
VVith Midwife Albert, or the womans booke
To anatomize each corner, and fond nooke.

Let Rablais with his durtie mouth discourse
No longer blush, for they'le write ten times worse:
And Aretines great wit be blam'd no more,
They'le storie forth the errant arrant whore:
And speaking painters excuse Titian,
For his Ioues loues; and Elephanticke vaine.

Thus all our Poets as they had carousde
A health to Circes, are in hogsties housde,
Or els transformd to Goates lasciuiously,
Filthing chast eares with theyr pens Gonorrhey,
For euen the staliest and most generous,
The heroicke Poeme is lasciuious,
Which midst of Mars his field, & hote alarmes,
VVill sing of Cupids chiualrie and armes.

The Satyre onely and Epigramatist,
(Concisde Epigrame, and sharpe Satyrist)
Keepe diet from this surfet of excesse,
Tempring themselues from such licenciousnes.
The bitter censures of their Critticke spleenes,

Are Antidotes to pestilentiall sinnes,
They heale with lashing, feare luxuriousnes,
They are Philosophicke true Cantharides
To vanities dead flesh. An Epigrame
Is popish displing, rebell flesh to tame:
A plaine dealing lad, that is not afraid
To speake the truth, but calls a iade, a iade.
And Mounsieur Guulard was not much too blame,
VVhen he for meat mistooke an Epigrame,
For though it be no cates, sharpe sauce it is,
To lickerous vanitie, youths sweet amisse.
But oh the Satyre hath a nobler vaine,
He's the Strappado, rack, and some such paine
To base lewd vice; the Epigram's Bridewell,
Some whipping cheere: but this is follies hell.
The Epigram's like dwarfe Kings scurrill grace,
A Satyre's Chester to a painted face;
It is the bone-ach vnto lechery,
To Acolastus it is beggery:
It is the scourge, the Tamberlaine of vice,
The three square Tyborne of impieties.

But to come neere the verses of our time,
It is (oh scuruey) to a Lenten rime;
It is the grand hisse to a filthy play,
Tis peoples howts and showts at a pot fray.
Itch farther yet, yet nerer to them, fie

Their wits haue got my Muse with Tympanie:
And with their loose tayld penns to let it loose,
It's like a Syring to a Hampshire Goose.
These critique wits which nettle vanitie,
Are better farre then foode to foppery:
And I dare warrant that the hangingst brow,
The sowrest Stoicke that will scarce allow
A riming stone vpon his fathers graue,
(Though he no reason haue no rime to haue:)
The stricktest (Plato) that for vertues health:
Will banish Poets forth his common-wealth.
VVill of the two affoord the Satyre grace,
Before the whyning loue-song shall haue place:
And by so much his night-cap's ouer awde,
As a Beadle's better states-man then a Bawde.

Explicit the Satyres flourish before his fencing.

Alterius qui fert vitia ferendo facit sua.