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JOSEPH HALL

FROM

VIRGIDEMIARUM LIBRI SEX

BOOK I, SATIRE VI

Another scorns the home-spun thread of rhymes,
Matched with the lofty feet of elder times:
"Give me the numbered verse that Virgil sung,
And Virgil's self shall speak the English tongue."

"Manhood and garboils" shall he chaunt with chaungèd

feet,

And head-strong dactyls making music meet;
The nimble dactyl striving to out-go

The drawling spondees pacing it below;

The ling'ring spondees labouring to delay
The breathless dactyls with a sudden stay.
Whoever saw a colt, wanton and wild,
Yoked with a slow-foot ox on fallow field,
Can right areed how handsomely besets
Dull spondees with the English dactylets.

ΙΟ

If Jove speak English in a thund'ring cloud,

"Thwick thwack" and "riff raff" roars he out aloud.

Fie on the forgèd mint that did create

New coin of words never articulate!

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1597.

BOOK III, SATIRE I

Time was, and that was termed the time of gold,
When the world and time were young, that now are old;
When quiet Saturn swayed the mace of lead,
And pride was yet unborn and yet unbred;

Time was that, whiles the autumn fall did last,
Our hungry sires gaped for the falling mast
Of the Dodonian oaks.

Could no unhuskèd acorn leave the tree

But there was challenge made whose it might be.
And if some nice and liquorous appetite
Desired more dainty dish of rare delight,
They scaled the storèd crab with claspèd knee,
Till they had sated their delicious eye;
Or searched the hopeful thicks of hedgy-rows,
For briery berries or haws or sourer sloes;
Or when they meant to fare the fin'st of all,
They licked oak-leaves besprint with honey-fall.
As for the thrice-three-angled beechnut shell,
Or chestnut's armèd husk and hid kernel,
No squire durst touch, the law would not afford,
Kept for the court and for the king's own board.
Their royal plate was clay or wood or stone;
The vulgar, save his hand, else had he none.
Their only cellar was the neighbour brook;
None did for better care, for better look.
Was then no plaining of the brewer's scape,
Nor greedy vintner mixt the strainèd grape.
The king's pavilion was the grassy green,
Under safe shelter of the shady treen.
Under each bank men laid their limbs along,
Not wishing any ease, not fearing wrong;
Clad with their own, as they were made of old,
Not fearing shame, not feeling any cold.

ΙΟ

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But when, by Ceres' huswif'ry and pain,
Men learned to bury the reviving grain,
And father Janus taught the new-found vine
Rise on the elm with many a friendly twine,
And base desire bade men to delven low
For needless metals, then gan mischief grow.

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Then farewell fairest age, the world's best days,
Thriving in ill as it in age decays.

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Then crept in pride and peevish covetise,

And men grew greedy, discordous, and nice.

Now, man, that erst hail-fellow was with beast,

Wox on to ween himself a god at least.

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No aëry fowl can take so high a flight,

Though she her daring wings in clouds have dight;

Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea,

Though Thetis' self should swear her safety;

Nor fearful beast can dig his cave so low,

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All could he further than earth's center go;

As that the air, the earth, or ocean

Should shield them from the gorge of greedy man.

Hath utmost Inde aught better than his own?

Then utmost Inde is near, and rife to gone.
O Nature! was the world ordained for naught
But fill man's maw and feed man's idle thought?

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Thy grandsire's words savoured of thrifty leeks
Or manly garlic; but thy furnace reeks
Hot steams of wine, and can aloof descry

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The drunken draughts of sweet autumnity.
They naked went, or clad in ruder hide

Or homespun russet, void of foreign pride;

But thou canst mask in garish gaudery,

To suit a fool's far-fetchèd livery:

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A French head joined to neck Italian;

Thy thighs from Germany, and breast from Spain;
An Englishman in none, a fool in all;

Many in one, and one in several.

Then men were men; but now the greater part

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Beasts are in life, and women are in heart.

Good Saturn's self, that homely emperour,
In proudest pomp was not so clad of yore

As is the undergroom of the ostlery,
Husbanding it in workday yeomanry.

Lo, the long date of those expired days

Which the inspirèd Merlin's word foresays:
When dunghill peasants shall be dight as kings,
Then one confusion another brings.

Then farewell fairest age, the world's best days,
Thriving in ill as it in age decays.

1597.

JOHN MARSTON

THE SCOURGE OF VILLAINY

FROM

SATIRE VII

"A man, a man, a kingdom for a man!"
"Why, how now, currish, mad Athenian,

Thou Cynic dog, see'st not the streets do swarm
With troops of men?" "No, no; for Circe's charm
Hath turned them all to swine. I never shall
Think those same Samian saws authentical;
But rather, I dare swear, the souls of swine
Do live in men. For that same radiant shine,
That lustre wherewith Nature's nature decked
Our intellectual part, that gloss is soiled
With staining spots of vile. impiety

And muddy dirt of sensuality.

These are no men, but apparitions,

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80

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ΙΟ

Ignes fatui, glow-worms, fictions,

Meteors, rats of Nilus, fantasies,

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Colosses, pictures, shades, resemblances."

“A man, a man!” “Peace, Cynic, yon 's a man! Behold yon sprightly dread Mavortian;

With him I stop thy currish barking chops."

"What, mean'st thou him that in his swaggering slops Wallows unbraced all along the street?

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He that salutes each gallant he doth meet

With 'Farewell, sweet captain; kind heart, adieu';
He that, last night, tumbling thou didst view
From out the great man's head, and, thinking still
He had been sentinel of warlike Brill,

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Cries out, 'Que va la? zounds, que?' and out doth draw
His transformed poniard to a syringe straw,
And stabs the drawer. What, that ringo-root?
Mean'st thou that wasted leg, puff bumbast boot?
What, he that's drawn and quarterèd with lace?
That Wesphalian gammon clove-stuck face?
Why, he is naught but huge blaspheming oaths,

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Swart snout, big looks, misshapen Switzers' clothes:
Weak meagre lust hath now consumed quite

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And wasted clean away his martial sprite;
Enfeebling riot, all vices' confluence,

Hath eaten out that sacred influence
Which made him man."

"Peace

"Peace, Cynic; see, what yonder doth approach:

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A cart? a tumbrel? No, a badgèd coach.

What's in 't? Some man. No, nor yet womankind,

But a celestial angel, fair, refined."

"The devil as soon! Her mask so hinders me

'Tis the right resemblance of old Janus' brow.

Her mask, her vizard, her loose-hanging gown

(For her loose-lying body), her bright-spangled crown, Her long slit sleeve, stiff busk, puff verdingal,

Is all that makes her thus angelical.

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Alas! her soul struts round about her neck;

Her seat of sense is her rebato set;

Her intellectual is a feignèd niceness,

Nothing but clothes and simpering preciseness."