BALTHAZAR

THou God of good Apparel, what strange fellows Are bound to do thee honour! Mercers books Show men's devotions to thee; heaven cannot hold A Saint so stately: Do not my Dons know me Because I'm poor in clothes? stood my beaten Taylor Plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking-man Drawing upon my Lordship's Courtly calf Pairs of Embroidered things, whose golden clocks Strike deeper to the faithful shopkeepers heart Than into mine to pay him.—Had my Barbour Perfumed my lousy thatch here, and poked out Me Tusks more stiff than are a Cats muschatoes, These pide-wing'd Butterflies had known me then Another flyboat thee, Illustrious Done. Sir is the King at leisure to speak Spanish With a poor Sculdier? No, sirrah, you, no! You Done with oaker face, I wish to would thee But on a Breach, stifling with smoke and fire, And for thy No, but whiffing Gunpowder Out ofan Iron pipe, I wooed but ask thee If thou wouldst on, and if thou didst cry No, Thou shouldst read Canon-Law, I'de make thee roar, And wear cut-beaten-sattyn; I wooed pay thee Though thou payest not thy Mercer: mere Spanish Ienne S, Signeor is the King at leisure? Are you of Court, Sir? That's his eare-picker: your name, I pray. I beg, you whoreson muscod! my petition Is written on my bosom in read wounds. You yellow hammer, why shaver: That such poor things as these, only made up Of Tailors shreds and Merchant's silken rags, And Apothecary drugs to lend their breath Sophisticated smells, when their rank guts Stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle; Such whalebond-doublet-rascals, that owe more To Laundresses and Sempsters for laced Linen Then all their raze from their great grandfather To this their reign, in clothes were ever worth: These excrements of Silkworms! o that such flies Do buzz about the beams of Majesty! Like earwigs, tickling a Kings yielding ear With that Court-Organ (Flattery) when a soldier Must not come near the Court gates twenty score, But stand for want of clothes, (though he win Towns) Amongst the Almesbasket-men! his best reward Being scorned to be a fellow to the black guard: Why should a Soldier (being the world's right arm) Be cut thus by the left? (a Courtier?) Is the world all Ruff and Feather, and nothing else? shall I never see a Taylor give his coat with a disterence from a Gentleman? My music is a Canon; a pitch field my stage; Furies the Actors, blood and vengeance the scene; death the story; a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the Poet a terrible buskind Tragical fellow, with a wreathe about his head of burning match instead of Baize. It's here without bloodshed: This our main Battalions, that the Van, this the Vaw, these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconco, and here ou sconces lay 17 Moons on the cold earth. The Battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest partly for a Soldier to play is to prate well; our Tongues are Fifes, Drums, Petronels, Muskets, Culverin and Canon, these are our Roarers; the Clocks whieh we go by, are our hands; thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven, and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then it's noon, that's the height and the heat of the day of battle. To that heat we came, our Drums Beatrice, Pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and Targets clashed and clat ter'd, Maskets rattled, Canons roared, men died groaning. brave laced Jerkings and Feathers looked pale, tottered ras calls fought pell mell; here fell a wing, there heads were ost Like footballs; legs and arms quarreled in the air, and yet lay quietly on the earth; horses trampled upon heaps of Carkafles, Troops of Carbines tumbled wounded from their horses; we besiege Moors, and famine us, Mu tinies bluster and are calm; I vowed not to doff mine Ar mour, though my flesh were frozen too't and turned into Iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded; my hairs and oath are of one length, for (with Caesar ) thus write I mine own story, Veni, vidi, vici. Only your love. Sir I would be private with you. Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech? You are a whore master; do you send me to win Towns for you abroad, and you loose a kingdom at home? The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, Your honour. I'll be plain with you; much mischief is done by the mouth of a Canon, but the fire begins at a little touch hold; you herd what Nightingale sung to you even now. Angels erred but once and fell, but you, Sir, spit in heavens face every minute, and laugh at it: laugh still; fol low your courses; do; let your vices run Like your Ken nels of hounds yelping after you, till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting blisle. Take sin as the English snufte Tobacco, and scorn fully blue the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery; but when it's out, the coal is black (your conscience,) and the pipe stinks; a sea of Rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom. It's Aquam Coelestis, no venom; for when you shall clasp up those two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fallen that Anchor, which can never more be weighed up, your mortal Navigation ends: then there's no playing at spurn-point with thunderbolts. A Vintner then for unconscionable reckoning, or a Taylor for unmeasura ble Items shall not answer in half that fear you must. I will follow Truth at the heals, though her foot Beatrice my gums in pieces. I care not. So: die! A Soldiers good wish bless you Lady. Do you not know me? I would been at Tennis, Madam, with the King: I gave him 15 and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toffe a ball with you. I conceit you, dare you trust your self alone with me? What would you say to him should kill this man That hath you so dishonoured? Shall I be that Germane Fencer, and Beatrice all the knocking boys before me? shall I kill him? That Fiddle then is in me, this arm can doo't, by poigniard, poison, or Pistol: but shall I doo't indeed? Stay; what made you love him? Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? it's a lie: the Burre that sticks in your throat is a throne; let him out of his mess of kingdoms; cut out but one, and lay Sicilia, Arra gone, Naples, or any else upon your trencher, and you'll praise Bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it: It's not because the man has left you, but because you are ot the woman you would be, that mads you: A shee-cuckold is and untameable monster. You spur me on too't. aist thou ne so! give me thy goll, thou art a noble girl; I did play the Devils partly, and roar in a feigned voy e, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spet fire: I would not drin e that inf rnall draught of a Kings blood, to go recling to damnation, for the weight of the world in Diamonds. Now by my skarres I am not. Your servant; Yet must I be aston upon a hill, For though I do no good, I'll not lie still. Not in? I am none, Sir. No hurt. Y'ave sheep enough for all that, Sir; I have killed none though; or if I have, mine own blood shed in your quar rels, may beg my pardon; my business was in haste to you. For a Grooms death? Well: farewell. Now! what hight poisoned Custard must I put my Spoon into now? It's a air gage, keep it. If I were, I loose nothing, I can make any Country mine: I have a private Coat for Italian Ste l tto's, I can be treacherous with the Wallowne, drunk with the Dutch, a Chimney-sweeper with the Irish, a Gentleman with the Welsh, and turn arrant thief with the English, what then is my Country to me? So: And what's the dish I must dress? I love no Red-wine healths. The Hangman? And office that will hold so long as hemp lasts, why do not you beg the office, Sir? Prove but that, it's done. No point. I do with gaping ears. A brave Done call you mother. Cannot much blame him. Riddance? o! the meaning on't is murder. Come, I le doo't, provided I hear Jove call though he rores; I must have the Kings hand to this war else I dare not serve it upon my Conscience Acquaint him. Their riddance? What way? by poison? Starving? or strangling, stabbing, smothoring? But I will have, Sir, This under your own hand, that you desire it, You plot it, set me on too't. And then as large a pardon as law and wit Can engross for me. A word more, Sir, pray will you tell me one thing? I wooed not have this sin scored on my head For all the Indaean Treasury. Is there no farther trick in't, but my blow, your purse, and my pardon? Then trust me: these knuckles work it. Yes: Subject's may stumble, when Kings walk astray; Thine Acts shall be a new Apocrypha. YOu meet a Hydra; see, if one head fails Another with a sulphurous beak stands yawning A great men vices, that can raise all hell. What wooed you call that man, who under-sail, In a most goodly ship, wherein he ventures His life, Fortune's, and honours, yet in a fury Should hew the Mast down, cast Sails overboard, Fire all the Tacklings, and to crown this maduesse, Sho ed blow up all the Decks, burn oaken ribs, And in that Combat betwixt two Elements Leap desperately, and drown himself i'th Seas, What were so brave a fellow? That's I; all that brave black villain dwells in me, If I be that black villain; but I am not, A Nobler Character prints out my brow, Which you may thus read, I was banished Spain For emptying a Court-Hogshead, but repealed, So I wooed (ever my reeking Iron was cold) Promise to give it a deep crimson die In—none hear,—stay—no, none hear. Basely to stab a woman, your wronged Niece, And her most innocent son Sebastian. My honesty; A sign at which few dwell: (pure honesty!) I am a vaslaile to Medina's house, He taught me first the A, B, C, of war: Ere I was Truncheon-high, I had the style Of beardless Captain, writing then but boy, And shall I now turn slave to him that fed me With Cannon-bullets' and taught me, Estridge-like, To digest Iron and Steel! no: yet I yielded With willow-bendings to commanding breathes. Of King and Queen: with supple Hams, And and ill-boding look, I vowed to doo't: Yet, lest some choak-pear of State-policy Shoo'd stop my throat, and spoil my drinking-pipe, See (Like his cloak) I hung at the Kings elbow, Till I had God his hand to sign my life. Think you me a quoyner? Else flay the skin off. My byter here, cats no such meat. This I'dle do. As Lightning. Come Moble Boy. Discovered? wooed there stood a troop of Moors Thrusting the paws of hungry Lions forth, To seize this prey, and this but in my hand, I should do something. Sweet child, within few minutes I'll change thy fate And take thee hence, but set thee at heavens gate. So Sir; and what disease troubles her now? What's here? a letter min ed into five morsels? What was she doing when thou camest from her? Some thinks, for here S nothing but sol-Re-me-fa-mi. What Crochet fills her head now, canst tell? What Instrument played she upon? Solemnizing, Re, me, Fa, Mi. The tune? come. Fa, why farewell and be hanged. O but your stick wants Rozen to make the strings found clearly: no, this double Virginal, being cunningly touched, another manner of Jack leaps up then is now in mine eye: Solemnizing, Re, me, fa, mi, I have it now, Solemnizing S Rex me m seram: Alas poor Lady, tell her no Apothecary in Spain has any of that Assafetida she writes for. A thing to be taken in a glister-pipe. What ails she? why when she cries out, Solus Rex me facit m seram, she says in the Hypocronicall language, that she is so miserably tormented with the wind-Chollicke that it racks her very soul. But go to her, and say the Oven is heating. Carp pies: and beside, tell her the hold in her Coat shall be mended: and tell her if the Dial of good days go true, why then bounce Buckrum. Or the Cony is dub worser, and three sheepskins Shall make the Fox a Nightcap. But, Sir, f evil days justle our prognostication to the wall, then say there's a fire in a Whoremasters Cod piece. The first cut be thine: farewell. Wilt not trust and Almanac? Away Otterhound. No, I was striking at the two Iron Bars that hin der your passage, and see Sir. The edge abated, feel. As blunt as Ignorance. I saw by chance hanging in Cardinal Alvarez Gall lery a picture of hell. There lay upon burned straw ten thousand brave fell lowes all stark naked, some leaning upon Crowns, some on Miters, some on bags of gold: Glory in another Corner lay Like a feather beaten in the rain; Beauty was turned in to a watching Candle, that went out stinking: Ambition went upon a huge high pair of stilts, but horribly rotten; some in another nook were killing Kings, and some would ving their elbows shoved forward by Kings to murder oh the; I was (me thought) half in hell my self while I sto worser to view this piece. Was't not enough to see that a man is more health full that eats dirty puddings, than he that feeds on a corrup ted Conscience. Nay, Sir, I have searched the records of the Low-Count ies, and find that by your pardon I needs not care a pin for Goblins, and therefore I will doo't Sir. I did but re coil because I was double charged. That music were worth hearing. Sirrah, you Salfa-Perilla Rascal, Toads-guts, you whoreson pocky French Spawn of a bursten-bellied Spy der, do you hear, Monsire. You Cur of erberus litter You'll poison the honest Lady? do but once toot into her Chamber-pot, and I'll make thee look worse then a witch does upon a closestool. I'll cut the Rat into Anchovies. The perfection of all Spaniards. Mars in little, the best book of the art of War pr nted in these Times: as a French Do tor I wooed have given you pellets for pills, but as my noblest Lord, rip my heart out in your service. It's your chest, With 3 good keys to keep it from opening, and honest heart, a daring hand, and a pocket which scorns money. It's done, Sir. Young Cub's flayed, But the shee-Fox shifting her hold is fled; The little Jackanapes the boy's brained. He shall never speak more Spanish. For a bargain you set your hand to. But half a Crown! that's nothing: His brains stick in my conscience more than yours. As Frenchmen loose their hair: here was too hight staying for him. Your gold, Sir. So men hate whores after lustest heat is spent: I'm gone, Sir. Dead. Sin is a Raven creaking her own fallen. Men show Like coarses, for I meet few but are stuck with Rosemary: every one asked me who was married to day, and I told they Adultery and Repentance, and that shame and a Would gman followed'em to Church. Who must dance with him? O this Colic of a kingdom, when the wind of treason gets amongst the small guts, what a rumbling and a roaring it keeps: and yet make the best of it you can, it goes out stinking: kill a King? If men should pull the Sun out of heaven every time 'tis cclips'd, not all the Wax nor Tallow in Spain wooed serve to make us Candles for one year. Is that your French Physic? if every one of us shoo'd be whipped according to our faults, to be lashed at a carts tail would be held but a ea-biting. No? more no's? I know him, let him enter. Will you be hanged? This is either Signeor No, or no Signeor. If any here arms his hand to cut off the head, le him first pluck out my throat: in any Noble Act I le wade chin-deep with you: but to kill a King? You were better, my Lord, sail 500 times to Bantom in the West-Indies, than once to Barathrum in the Low-Countries: It's hight going under the line there, the Callen ture of the soul is a most miserable madness. Good. Of this day? why as of a new play, if it ends well, all's well; all men are but Actors, now if you being the King, should be out of your partly, or the Queen out of hers, or your Dons out of theirs, here's No will never be out of his 'Twere a lamentable piece of stuff to see great Statesmen have vile Exits; but I hope there are nothing but plaudities in all your eyes. So good a work I'll hasten. It's no gobbling, I , feel; your own flesh and blood, and much younger than you though he be bald, and calls you son; had I been as ready to would cut his sheeps throat, as you were to send him to the shambles, he had bleated no more; there's less chalk upon you score of sins by these round o'es. To hear a Soldier speak. Rampant? let the Constable make a mittimus. Suppose I have your strongest pardon, can that cure My wounded Conscience? can there your pardon help me? you not only knock the Ewe a'th head, but cut the Inno cent Lambs throat too, yet you are no Butcher. Brother Cain wee'll shake hands. And honest housekeeper in Rosemary-lane too, If you dwell in the same parish.