COLAX

How far they sin against humanity That use you thus! Believe me it's a Symptom Of Barbarism, and rudeness so to vex A gentle, modest nature as yours is. I? Heaven defend! My breeding has been better; I vex you? You that I know so virtuous, just, and wise, So pious and religious, so admired So loved of all? The world is grown too vile then. You ridiculous? But it's as impious Age; There was a time, (And pity it's so good a time had wings To fly away,) when reverence was paid To a grey head; 'twas held a sacrilege Not expiable to deny respect To one, Sir, of your years and Gravity. How? Decrepit sir! I see young roses bud within your cheeks; And a quick active blood run free and fresh Through your veins. Still Dyscolus Nay worthy Sir Pardon my error, 'twas without intent Of and offence. I'll find some other name To call you by— Still you take all worse then it was meant, You are too Jealous. I mean suspicious. Sir we strive To please you, but you still misconstrue us. A feather stuck upon your cloak. Pray be pleased. I brushed it off for mere respect I bore you. I do commend your valour, That fixes your great soul fast as a Centre, Not to be moved with dangers, let slight cock-boats Be shaken with a wave, while you stand firm Like and undaunted rock, whose constant hardness Rebeats the fury of the raging Sea, Dashing it into froth. Base fear does argue A low degenerate soul. 'Tis your discretion. Every thing has danger, And therefore every thing is to be feared. I do applaud this wisdom: 'Tis a symptom Of wary providence. His too confident rashness Argues a stupid ignorance in the soul, A blind and senseless judgement; give me fear To man the fort, it's such a circumspect And wary sentinel —But daring valour Uncapable of danger sleeps securely, And leaves and open entrance to his enemies. Will that serve?—I fear It threatens general ruin to the Kingdom. There's danger too to cross the Seas. You sir are far above such frivolons thoughts. You fear not death. 'Twas the shadow Sir of your self. Trust me a mere reflection. A trick to fright the Idiot Out of his wits, a glass so full of dread Rendering unto the eye such horrid spectacles As would amaze even you. Sir I do think Your optic nerves would shrink in the beholding This if your eye endure, I will confess you The Prince of Eagles. Sir I continued ̄ mend this temperance; your armed soul Is able to contemn these petty baits, These slight temptations, which we title pleasures; That are indeed but names; He'ven it self knows No such Like thing; the stars nor eat, nor drink, Nor lie with one another; and you imitate Those glorious bodies, by which noble abstinence You gain the names of moderate, chased, and sober; While this effeminate gets the infamous terms Of Glutton, Drunkard, and Adulterer; Pleasures, that are not men, as man is man, But as his nature sympathies with beasts. You shall be the third Cato. This grave look And rigid eyebrow will become a censor. But I will fit you with and object Sir, My noble Anaisthetus that will please you. It is a Lookingglass, wherein at once You may see all the dismal groves and caves, The horrid vaults, dark cells, and barren deserts, With what in Hell it self can dismal be. It shows you a man of a soft moving clay, Not made of flint; Nature has been bountiful To provide pleasures, and shall we be niggards At plenteous boards? He's a discourteous guest That will observe a diet at a feast. When Nature thought the earth alone too little To find us meat, and therefore stored the air With winged creatures, not contented yet She made the water fruitful to delight us. Nay I believe the other Element too Does nurse some curious dainty for men food, If we would use the skill to catch the Salamander: Did she do this to have us eat with temperance? Or when she gave so many different Odours Of spices, unguents, and all sorts of flowers, She cried not—stop your noses: would she give us So sweet a choir of winged Musicians To have us deaf? or when she placed us here, Here in a Paradise, where such pleasing prospects So many ravishing colours entice the eye, Was it to have us wink? when she bestowed So powerful faces, such commanding beauty's On many glorious Nymphs, was it to say Be chased and continent? Not to enjoy All pleasures, and at full, were to make nature Guilty of that she never was guilty of, A vanity in her works. Sir, I overheard your wise instructions, And wonder at the gravity of your counsel. This wild unbridled boy is not yet grown Acquainted with the world; He has not felt The weight of needs, that want is virtue's clog; Of what necessity, respect and valve Wealth is; how base and how contemptible Poverty makes us. Liberality In some circumstances may be allowed; As when it has no end but honesty, With a respect of person, quantity, Quality, time and place; but this profuse, Vain, injudicious spending speaks him Idiot. And yet the best of liberality Is to be liberal to our selves; and thus Your wisdom is most liberal, and knows How found a thing it is for discreet men To purchase with the lose of their estate The name of one poor virtue liberality. And that too only from the mouth of beggars. One of your judgement would not I am sure Buy all the virtues at so deer a rate. Nor are you sir, I dare presume, so found As for to weigh your gains by the strict scale Of equity, and Justice; Names invented To keep us beggars! I would counsel now Your son to tread no steps but yours, for they Will certainly direct him the broad way That leads unto the place where Plenty dwells, And she shall give him honour. How Like you now my art? is't not a subtle one? I do commend this zeal; you cannot be Too fervent in a cause so full of goodness. There is a general frost hath ceased devotion, And without such Like ardent flames as these There is no hope to thaw it. The word, Puritane, That I do glorify, and esteem rev'erend, As the most sanctified, pure, and holiest Sect Of all professors, is by the profane Used for a name of infamy, a byeword, a slander, That I sooth vice I do but flatter them, As we give children plums to learn their prayers, to entice them to the truth, and by fair means Work out their reformation. Excellent! It's charity to direct the wandering Pilgrim. It's wisely cast, And Like a careful steward of the Church, Of which the Steeple is no partly, at least No necessary one. It is the Doctrine sir that you respect. You have a care sir of your country's health. The Fens sir are not there. It'll put down Bodlies, and the Vatican. Royal Banausus! how many Spheres fly you Above the earthy dull Microprepes! I hope to live to see you built a stews Shall outbrave Venice; To repair old Tiburne And make it Cedar. This magnificent course Does purchase you and immortality. In them you built your Honour to remain Th-example and the wonder of Posterity. While other hidebound Churls do grutch the ̄ selves The Charges of a Tomb. All hail unto the honourable Canus. Sir I do know, and see, and so do all That have not wilful blindness, what rare skill Of wisdom, Policy, Judgement and the rest Of the state-virtues fit within this breast, As if it were their Parliament; but as yet I am not Sir the happy Messenger That tells you you are called unto the Helm; Or that the Rudder of great Britanny Is put into your Hands, that you may steer Our floating Delos till she be arrived At the blessed Port of Happiness, and surnamed The Fortunate Ifle from you that are the fortunate. You have worth Richly enameled with a modesty. And though your lofty merit might fit crowned On Caucasus, or the Pyrenean mountains, You choose the humbler valley, and had rather Grow a safe shrub below, then dare the winds, And be a Cedar: Sir you know there is not Half so much honour in the Pilots place As danger in the storm. Poor windy Titles Of Dignity, and offices that puff up The bubble pride till it swell big, and burst, What are they but brave nothings? Toys called Ho nours Make them on whom they are bestowed no better Then glorious slaves, the servants of the Vulgar: Men sweat at Helm, as much as at the Oar. There is a Glass within shall show you sir The vanity of these filke-wormes, that do think They toil not, because they spin so fine a thread. 'Tis a worthy confidence. Let Birds of night and shame, with their owls eyes Not dare to gaze upon the sun of Honour; They are no presidents for Eagles: Bats Like dull Micropsychus; things of earth, and led, May love a private safety; men in whom Prometheus has spent much of his stolen fire, Mount upward Like a flame, and court bright honour Hedged in with thousand dangers! Whats a man Without desert? and what's desert to him That does not know he has it? Is he rich That holds within his house some buried chests Of Gold, or Pearl, & knows not where to look the ̄ ? What was the Loadstone, till the use was found, But a fowl dotard on a fouler Mistress? I praise your Argus eyes, that not alone Shoot their beams forward, but reflect and turn Back on themselves, and find and object there More worthy their intentive contemplation. You are at home no stranger, but are grown Acquainted with your virtues, and can tell What use the pearl is of, which Dunghill cocks Scrape into dirt again. This searching judgement Was not intended to work wood, but men. Honour attends you. I shall live to see A Diadem crown that head. There is within A Glass that will acquaint you with all places Of Dignity, authority, and renown, The State, and carriage of them: Choose the best, Such as deserve you, and refuse the rest. A good wish, Savouring as well discretion, as bold valour: Think not of such a baffled ass as this, More stone, then man: Medusa's head has turned him. There is in ants a choler, every fly Carries a spleen: Poor worms being trampled on Turn tail, as bidding battle to the feet Of their oppref ors. A dead palsy sure Hath struck a desperate numbness through his soul, Till it be grown insensible: Mere stupidity Hath ceased him: Your more manly soul I find Is capable of wrong, and Like a flint Throws forth a fire into the strikers eyes. You bear about you valours whetstone, anger; Which sets and edge upon the sword, and makes it Cut with a pirit: you conceive found patience Is and injustice to our selves, the suffering One injury invites a second, that Calls on a third, till wrongs do multiply And reputation bleed: How bravely anger Becomes that martial brow! A glass within 1 page duplicate 1 page duplicate Will show you sir when your great spleen does rise How fury darts a lightning from your eyes. It proves a sweetness in your disposition, A gentle winning carriage—deer Aorgus Oh give me leave to open wide my breast, And let so rare a friend unto my soul; Enter, and take possession: such a man As has no gall, no bitterness, no exceptions, Whom nature meant a Dove, will keep alive The am of amity, where all discourse Flows innocent, and each free jest is taken. He's a good friend will pardon his Friends errors, But he's a better takes no notice of them. How Like a beast with rude and savage rage Breathed the distempered soul of Orgylus? The proneness of this passion is the Nurse That fosters all confusion, ruins states, Depopulates Cities, lays great Kingdoms wast; It's that affection of the mind that wants The strongest bridle; give it reins it runs A desperate course, and drags down reason with it. It is the whirlwind of the soul, the storm And tempest of the mind, that raises up The billows of disturbed passion To shipwreck Judgement. Oh—a soul Like yours Constant in patience! Let the North wind me The South at sea, and Zephyrus breath opposite To Eurus; let the two and thirty sons Of Eolus break forth at once, to blow The Ocean, and dispeople all the woods, Yet here could be a calm, it is not danger Can make this cheek grow pale, nor injury Call blood into it. Their's a Glass within Will let you see your self, and tell you now How sweet a tameness dwells upon your brow. I needs not flatter these, they'le doe't themselves, And cross the Proverb that was wont to say One Mule does scrub another, here each Ass Hath learned to claw himself. Sweet Gentleman, proceed in bashfulness! It's virtues best preserver— Teach us to do so too in our discourse. Our Stoic, the gravest oh Philosophers, Is just of your opinion, and thus argues; Is any thing obscene, the fill hinesse Is either grounded in the things themselves, Or in the words that signify those things; Not in the things, that would make nature guilty, Who creates nothing filthy, and u clean, But chased, and honest; if not in the things, How in the words, shadows of those things? To ma re ground, a cham to honest ; Another word that signifies the same, Unlawful: every man endures to hear, He God a child; speak plainer, and he blushes, Yet means the same. The Stoic thus disputes, That would have men to breath as freely down'ward, As they do upward. Slow Luparus rise, or you'll be metamorphosed; Acteon's fate is imminent. I, or the Justices Maintain themselves—go on—The Land wants such As dare with rigor execute her Laws: Her festered members must be lanc't and tented. He's a bade Surgeon, that for pity spares The partly corrupted, Till the Gangrene spread, And all the body perish; he that's merciful Unto the bade, is cruel to the good. The Pillory must cure the ears disease; The stocks the foots offences; let the back Bear her own sin, and her rank blood purge forth By the Phlebotomy of a whipping post: And yet the secret, and purse punishment Is held the wiser course; because at once It helps the virtuous and corrects the vicious. Let not the sword of Justice sleep and rust Within her velvet sheath; preserve her edge, And keep it sharp with cutting. Use must whet her, Tame mercy is the breast that suckles vice, Till Hydra Like she multiply her heads. Tread you on sin, squeeze out the Serpents brains, All you can find—for some have lurking holes Where they lie hid. But there's within a glass Will show you every close offenders face. How? a Parasite? A cogging, flattering, slavish Parasite? Things I abhor and hate. 'Tis not the belly Shall make my brains a captive. Flatterers! Souls below reason will not stoop so low As to give up their Liberty; only flatterers Move by another's wheel. They have no passion Free to themselves. All their affections, Qualities, humours, appetites, desires, Nay wishes, vows, and prayers, discourse & thoughts Are but another's Bondman. Let me tug At the Turks Galleys; be eternally Damned to a Quarry: In this state my mind Is free: A flatterer has nor soul nor body What shall I say?—No I applaud your temper, That in a generous braveness take distaste At such whose servile nature strives to please you. 'Tis royal in you Sir. Not sudden death. A valiant course; And the right way to prevent death indeed. Your spirit is true Roman!—But yours greater That fear not death, nor yet the manner of it, Should Heaven fallen— Or should the earth yawn Like a sepulcher, And with and open throat swallow you quick? Had Enceladus Been half so valiant, Jove had been his prisoner. Sir walk in, There is they say a Lookingglass, a strange one Of admirable virtues, that will render you Free from enchantments. Sing no hope of gain, I pack them hence, It's gold gives flattery all her Eloquence. Within Sir is a Glass, that by reflection Does show the image of all sorts of pleasures That ever yet were acted, more variety Then Aretines pictures. And to such a one As you will be a willing Pupil to. Think you I meant all that I told your father? No, 'twas to blind the eyes of the old Hunks. I love a man Like you that can make much Of his blessed Genius: Miracle of Charity! That open hand becomes thee; Let thy Father Scrape Like the Dunghill cock the dirt, and mire, To find a precious Gem for thee, the Chicken Of the white Hen to wear. It is a wonder How such a generous branch as you, could spring From that old root of damned avarice! For every widows house the father swallows, The son should spue a Tavern. How are we Richer then others, not in having much, But in be stowing; And that shines glorious in you. The chuff crowns Imprisoned in his rusty chest me thinks I hear groan out, and long till they be thine, In hope to see the light again. Thou canst not Stand in a flood of Nectar up to the chin, And yet not dare to sup it; nor canst suffer The Golden Apples dangle at thy lips, But thou wilt taste the fruit. It's generous this! Very right: You aim at the prevention of a danger. The Persian Emperor Is desperately sick. The Turk they say prepares again for Poland. The State of Venice too is in distraction. Our Merchant's do report inhabitants there Are now in consultation, for the settling The Crown upon a more deserving head Then his that bears it. What pretty Gulls are these? I'll take they off; Alazon, you are learned. And virtuous. A good Historian. A rare Arithmetician. I commend your care That know your virtues! why should modesty Stop good men's mouths from their own praise? our neighbours Are envious, and will rather blast our memories With infamy, then immortalise our names: When Fame hath taken cold, and lost her voice, We must be our own trumpets; careful men Will have and Inventory of their goods, And why not of their virtues? should you say You were not wise, it were a sin to truth. 1 page duplicate 1 page duplicate Let Eirons modesty tell bashful lies, To cloak and masque his parts; he's a fool for't. It heavenly counsel bid us know our selves. You may be confident, chant your own encomiums, Ring out a Panegyric to your self And your self write the learned Commentary Of your own actions. Where is it? I know the thief, they call him Caesar. Go in good sir; there is within a Glass That will present you with the Felons face. Exit Alaz. Eiron, you hear the news! That you are held the only man of Art. Currant as the air, Every man breathes it for a certainty. You call it charity Which is their duty: Virtue sir, Like yours Commands men's praises. Emptiness and folly, Such as Alazon is, use their own Tongues, While real worth hears her own praise, not speaks it. Other men's mouths become your trumpeters, And winged fame proclaims you loudly forth From East to West, till either Pole admire you. Self-praise is bragging, and begets the envy Of them that hear it, while each man therein Seems undervalved: You are wisely silent In your own worth, and therefore 'twere a sin For others to be so: The fish would lose Their being mute, ere such a modest worth Should want a speaker: yet sir I would have you Know your own virtues, be acquainted with them. There is a glass within shows you your self By a reflection; go and speak they there. This vanity, in your nice Ladies humours Of being so curious in her toys, and dresses, Makes me suspicious of her honesty. These Cobweb-lawns catch spiders sir, believe it You know that clothes do not commend the man, But it's the living; though this age prefer A cloak of Plush, before a brain of art. You understand what misery it's to have No worth but that we owe the dram er for; No doubt you spend the time your Lady looses In tricking up her body, to cloth the soul. That being gone The rest soon follow, and a swarm of vice Enter the soul, no colour but a blush Becomes a young men cheek: pure sha efastnesse Is to the psalm; and ears, that nothing Might enter, or come out of man, but what Is good, and modest: Nature strives to hide The parts or shame, let her, the best of guides, As you have done With Clemency, most Reverend Justice Nihil; A gentle mildness thrones it self within you. Your Worship would have justice, use her balance More then her sword; nor can you endure to die The robe she wears, deep scarlet, in the blood Of poor offenders: How many men hath rigour By her too hasty, and severe proceedings Prevented from amendment, that perchance Might have turned honest and have proved good Chri stians? Should Jove not spare his thunder, but as often Discharge at us, as we dart sins at him, Earth would want men, and he himself want arms, And yet tire Vulcan, and Pyracmon too. You imitate the Gods! and he sins less Strikes not at all, then he strikes once amiss. I would not have justice too falcon-eyed; Sometime a wilful blindness much becomes her; As when upon the bench she sleeps and winks At the transgressions of Mortality: In which most merciful posture I have seen Your pitiful Worship snorting out pardons To the despairing sinner: there's within A Mirror sir Like you! go see your face How Like Astraea's it's in her own Glass. They cared not then so much for speaking well As to mean honest, and in you still lives The good simplicity of the former times: When to do well was Rhetoric, not to talk. The tongue disease of Court spreads her infections Through the whole Kingdom, flattery, that was wont To be confined within the virge, is now Grown Epidemical, for all our thoughts Are born between our lips: The heart is made A stranger to the tongue; as if it used A language that she never understood. What is it to be witty in these days, But to be bawdy, or profane, at least Abusive? Wit is grown a petulant wasp, And stings she knows not whom, nor where, nor why; Spews vinegar, and gall on all she meets Without distinction—buys laughter with the lose Of reputation, father, kinsman, friend; Hunt's Ordinaries only to deliver The idle Timpanies of a windy brain, That beats and throbs above the pain of childbed, Till every ear she meets be made a mid wife To her light Bastard-issue, how many times Bomolochus sides, and shoulders ache, and groan! He's so witty—here he comes—away— Hail sacred wit!—Earth breeds not Bays enough To crown thy spacious merit. Cratinus, Eupolis, Aristophanes, Or whatsoever other wit did give Old Comedies the reins, and let her lose To stigmatize what brow she pleased with slander Of people, Prince, Nobility—All must yield To this Triumphant brain! They say you'll lose a friend before a jest; It's true, there's not a jest that comes from you, That is the true Minerva of this brain, But is of greater valve then a world Of friends, were every prayre of men we meet A Pylades and Orestes. Some say you will abuse your Father too, Rather then lose the opinion of your wit; Who would not that has such a wit as yours? 'Twere better twenty Parents were exposed To scorn and laughter, then the simplest thought Or least conceit of yours, should die abortive, Or perish a brain-embrio. How's this? that tongue grown silent that sirens Stood still to admire? And that will be for very good use and moral. Sir you are wise; what serve Egyptian Pyramids, Ephesian Temples, Babylonian Towers, Carrion Coloss's, Traians waterworks, Domitians Amphitheaters, the vain cost Of ignorance and prodigality! Room flourished when her Capitol was that ch'd, And all her Gods dwelled but in Cottages. Since Parian marble and Corynthian brass Entered her gawdy Temples, soon she fell To superstition, and from thence to ruin. You see that in our Churches, glorious Statues Rich Copes, and other ornaments of state Draw wandering eyes from their devotion, Unto a wanton gazing, and that other Rich edifices, and such gorgeous toys Do more proclaim our countries wealth then safety, And serve but Like so many guilded baits T'entice a foreign Foe to our invasion. Go in, there is a Glass will show you sir, What sweet simplicity our Grands res used, How in the Age of Gold no Church was guilded. Put it up good Orgylus, Let him not glory in so brave a death, As by your hand; it stands not with your honour To stain your rapier in a cowards blood. The Lybian Lions in their noble rage Will prey on Bulls, or mate the Unicorn; But trouble not the painted butterfly; Ants crawl securely by him. She's gone with a young Snip, and and old baud. It better that the spheres should lose their harmony, And all the Choristers of the wood grow hoarse! What wolf hath spied you first? Sure Hermes envying that there was on earth And eloquence more then his, has struck you dumb! Malicious deity! Go in sir there's a Glass that will restore That tongue, whose sweetness Angels might adore. Yonder is a Glass Will show you plots and models of all monuments Formed the old way, you may invent a new It'll make for your more glory. Madame Superbiam You're studying the Ladies library, The Lookingglass; it's well! so great a beauty Must have her ornaments—Nature adorns The Peacocks tail with stars; it's she attires The Bird of Paradise in all her plumes; She decks the fields with various flowers; it's she Spangled the Heavens with all those glorious lights; She spotted ermine's skin; and armed the fish In silver male: But man she sent forth naked Not that he should remain so, but that he Endued with reason should adorn himself With every one of these. The silkworm is Only men spinster, else we might suspect That she esteemed the painted Butterfly Above her masterpiece: you are the Image Of that bright Goddess: therefore wear the Jewels Of all the East; let the read sea be ransacked To make you glitter, look on Luparus Your Husband there, and see how in a sloven All the best characters of Divinity, Not yet worn out in man, are lost and buried. Now there's none left here, whereon to practice, I'll flatter my deer self—oh that my skill Had but a body, that I might embrace it, Kiss it; and hug it, and beget a brood, Another brood of pretty skills upon it! Were I divided I would hate all beauty's, And grow enamoured with my other half! Selflove, Narcissus, had not been a fault, Hadst thou, instead of such a beauteous face, Had but a brain Like mine: I can guild vice, And praise it into Alchemy, till it go For perfect gold, and cozen almost the touchstone. I can persuade a toad into and ox, Till swelled too big with my Hyperboles She burst a sunder; and it's virtues name Lends me a mask to scandalise herself. Vice, if it be no more, can nothing do; That art is great makes virtue guilty too. I have such strange varieties of colours, Such shift of shapes, blue Proteus sure begotten me On a Chameleon, and I change so quick That I suspect my mother did conceive me, As they say Mares do, on some wind or other. I'll peep to see how many fools I made With a report of a miraculous Glass. —Heaven bless me, I am ruined! oh my brain Witty to my undoing, I have jested My self to and eternal misery. I see le ne hunger with her meager face Ride post to overtake me, I do prophesy A Lent immortal: Phœbus I could curse Thee and thy brittle gifts, Pandora's box Compared with this might be esteemed a blessing. The Glass which I conceived a fabulous humour Is to the height of wonder proved a truth. The two Extremes of every Virtue there Beholding how they either did exceed, Or want of just proportion, joined together, And are reduced into a perfect Mean: As when the skilful and deep learned Physician Does take two different poisons, one that's cold The other in the same degree of heat, And blend's them both to make and Antidote; Or as the Lutanist takes Flats and Sharps, And out of those so dissonant notes, does strike A ravishing Harmony. Now there is no vice It's a hard world for Colax: What shift now? Dyscolus does expect me—since this age Is grown too wise to entertain a Parasite, I'll to the Glass, and there turn virtuous too, Still strive to please, though not to flatter you.