University of Virginia Library

A SHORT EMBLEME DESCANTING ON THE Worlds pleasure, entituled by the AVTHOR PLACENTIA.

Now my voluptuous Wanton that doest spend,
Thy Pilgrime dayes vnto a fruitlesse end;
Thou that consumes thy oyle and wasts thy labour,
In winning of a fickle Mistresse fauour:
Spending whole yeares in faces, and in fashions,
Like Æsops Crow, drawne from as many Nations,
As there be threeds in the Webb when it is spun,
Grasse-pils on Earth, or Atoms in the Sunne:
It's thou, I must encounter, and though I
In due respect I beare to modestie,
Will in any ruder Poems spare to name thee,
(For then I should goe very neere to shame thee)
Yet so I must vnripp thy vanities,
That thou may'st know I doe not write to please;
Humour, or sooth, no if thou wer't a Prince,
I would make bold thy errours to conuince;
And tell thee too when I had made them knowne,
Thy vices were not worthie of a Crowne.
I haue no Rhetoricke but bluntnesse I,
Nor knew I euer how to face a lye;
As many can, yea, and some great ones too,
As our Court-Apple-Squires, and fauns can doe:
I doe cashiere all priuate Parasites,
Ladie-fied Monkyes, lustful Catomytes,
Painting, and purfling, sleeking of the skin,
Poudring of hayre, to let temptation in;
Light-fether-dressings, Fardinggalls avant,
That makes a wench backt like an Elephant;
Open displayed brests, Sin-tempting eyes,
Crocodyles teares, and faithlesse periuries:
Vermillion cheeks, bought beauties, I do shun you,
For I am madd when I doe looke vpon you:
But first to thee will I addresse my way,
Who in a Loue-sicke passion thus doest say;
“Loue brookes no sharers, I'le not suffer Ioue
“To be a Riuall in the Wench I loue.
You will not Sir; why, what a Wood-cocke art,
To thinke thy-selfe a man of such desert:
That any Wench will so her loue confine,
To make her-selfe in Essence none but thine?
Herein thou show'st thy owne simplicitie,
To thinke a Woman will imprisoned be;
Since it is true which hath beene oft times sed,
Nor loue, nor lust can ere be limitted.

An instance produced by way of personall allusion.

Why, I will tell thee man I had a Wench,
Some thirteene dayes agoe no longer since,
And she did vow (as well I know she can)
Of all she lou'd I was the onely man:
If I but frown'd, so straitely I did keepe
My Wench in aw, she would begin to weepe;
If I but laugh'd, it cler'd her raynie day,
She would laugh too, and wipe her teares away;
In briefe what ere I did (so kind was she)
One note kept Measure 'twixt my loue and me:
Yet to ther day (I pray thee louer heare me)
She that was mine by vow, doth now cashere me,
Calling me foole that had so little sence,
To thinke that she with faith could not dispence;
Adding withall, that there was nought more cōmon
Then breach of faith, and promise with a woman.
Yet know (quoth she) tho th'greatest Prince assault,
“If woman yeeld it is the womans fault.
Thus by experience (Louer) I was crost,
Thus did I loue, thus was my labour lost.
If thine be constant, thou hast that reward,
Which I few louers euer yet haue heard;
But if she be, of thus much sure I am,
She is a Milke-white Crow, a cole-blacke Swan.
Next vnto thee, whose gaudie vanitie,
Makes thee forgetfull of mortalitie;
Thy glorie is not placed in thy minde,
For who the least of beautie there can finde,
Sith Vertue has no place, which euer giues
Life to the soule, by which it euer liues;
But odious vice, which blemisheth the eye
Of vnderstanding with obscuritie;
Thy glorie is in Clothing, yet behold
What that diuinest Salomon hath told;
Nought is more vaine then this? at least thou'l yeeld
In Beautie to the Lillies of the field,
Which neither spin, nor labour, yet they be
“Fairer then Salomon in his royaltie.
Yea, this Obseruance tells me, which by some
Hath beene reputed for an Axiome.
“The greatest Princes that are clad in Ermine,
“Take them at best, they are but food for vermine.
“And why should shapeles forms be so much loth'd,
“Since Bodies they are but, as they are cloth'd?
This comes not nere the Beautie of the soule,
Since th'fairest Bodies are oft times most fowle
In th'constitution of the inward man,
Which is the best of beautie, sure I am.
Vertue adorns her best, nor can she finde
Any Complexion purer then the minde:
Here, not improperly may I make vse,
Of th'Nuptiall song of wittie Claudius,
Which was composed for the marriage-bed
Of good Honorius to Maria wed.
“Tender Honorius, in the purple roome
“Borne, to his Fathers glorie now shall come,
“And giue that hope to such as see him raigne,
“As if that Saturne were return'd againe;
“For little can Porphyras Pallace doe,
“If that with Birth we haue not vertues too.
“He shall conclude my taske, no more I'le say,
“Pleas'd or displeas'd, this's my Placentia.