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As the last day; and that great officers

Do with the pirates share and Dunkirkers.

Who wastes in meat, in cloaths, in horse, in notes;
Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats.
I, more amaz'd than Circe's prisoners, when
They felt themselves turn beasts, felt myself then 130
Becoming traitor, and methought I saw

One of our giant statues ope his jaw

To suck me in for hearing him: I found
That as burnt venomous leachers do grow sound
By giving others their sores, I might grow
Guilty, and he free: therefore I did show
All signs of loathing; but since I am in,

I must pay mine and my forefathers' sin
To the last farthing: therefore to my power
Toughly and stubbornly I bear this cross; but th' hour
Of mercy now was come: he tries to bring
Me to pay a fine to 'scape his torturing,

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And says, Sir, can you spare me? I said, Willingly. Nay, Sir, can you spare me a crown? Thankfully I Gave it as rar som. But as fiddlers still,

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Tho' they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
Thrust one more jigg upon you; so did he
With his long complimental thanks vex me..
But he is gone, thanks to his needy want,
And the prerogative of my crown. Scant
His thanks were ended when I (which did see
All the court fill'd with such strange things as he)

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Ran from thence with such or more haste than one
Who fears more actions doth haste from prison.
At home in wholesome solitariness,

My piteous soul began the wretchedness

Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance
Like his who dream'd he saw hell, did advance
Itself o'er me: such men as he saw there

I saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear 160
Becomes the guilty, not th' accuser; then

Shall I, none's slave, of high-born or rais'd men
Fear frowns, and my mistress, Truth! betray thes
To th' huffing, braggard, puff'd nobility?
No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
O sun! in all thy journey, vanity

Such as swells the bladder of our court? I
Think he which made your waxen garden, and
Transported it from Italy, to stand

With us at London, flouts our courtiers; for
Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor
Taste have in them, our's are; and natural
Some of the stocks are, their fruits bastard all.
'Tis ten o'clock, and past; all whom the Meuse,
Baloun, tennis, diet, or the stews..

Had all the morning held, now the second

Time made ready, that day in flocks are found

In the presence, and I, (God pardon me!).

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As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be

The fields they sold to buy them. For a king
Those hose are, cries the flatterer; and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell.

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Wants reach all states. Me seems they do as well
At stage as court. All are players; whoe'er looks
(For themselves dare not go) o'er Cheapside books,
Shall find their wardrobe's inventory. Now
The ladies come. As pirates, which do know
That there came weak ships fraught with cochineal,
The men board them, and praise (as they think) well
Their beauties; they the men's wits: both are bought.
Why good wits ne'er wear scarlet gowns I thought
This cause these men men's wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all reds which scarlets die.
He call'd her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net:
She fears her drugs ill laid, her hair loose set.
Would n't Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe himself at door refine,
As if the presence were a Moschite; and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift, 200
Making them confess not only mortal

Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate?
And then by Durer's rules survey the state

Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waste to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes and symmetry

Perfect as circles, with such nicety

As a young preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady, which owes
Him not so much as good-will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests;

So much as at Rome would serve to 'have thrown
Ten cardinals into the Inquisition,

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And whispers by Jesu so oft', that a
Pursuivant would have ravish'd him away
For saying of our Lady's psalter. But 'tis fit
That they each other plague; they merit it.
But here comes Glorius, that will plague them both,
Who in the other extreme only doth

Call a rough carelessness good fashion;

Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him; he rushes in, as if Arm, arm,
He meant to cry; and tho' his face be as ill

As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe,
Jests like a licens'd foo!, commands like law.
Tir'd, now, I leave this place, and but pleas'd so
As men from gaols to execution go;
Go thro' the great Chamber (why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?) being among
Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw
Charing-cross for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth but queen's man and fine
Living, barrels of beef and flagons of wine,

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I shook like a spy'd spy.. Preachers! which are

Seas of wit and arts, you can, then dare

Drown the sins of this place; for, for me,

Which am but a scant brook, it enough shall be 240

To wash the stains away; altho' I yet

(With Machabee' modesty) the known merit Of my work lessen, yet some wise men shall, I hope, esteem my writs canonical.

SATIRE V.

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THOU shalt not laugh, in this leaf, Muse! nor they
Whom any pity warms. He which did lay
Rules to make courtiers, he being understood
May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good?
Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme
Are wretched or wicked; of these two a theme,
Charity and liberty, give me. What is he
Who officers' rage and suitors' misery

Can write in jest? If all things be in all,

As I think, since all which were, are, and shall

Be, be made of the same elements,

Each thing each thing implies or represents;
Then man is a world, in which officers

Are the vast ravishing seas, and suitors

Springs, now full, now shallow, now dry, which to That which drowns them run: these self-reasons do

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