VENUS

Ah my Contempt it will be spied too soon, So shall our pleasures have a bitter end. Provide some place for I am big with child, And clean undone if Mars my gilded espy. What its some Abbey or a Munnerie? Away for Mars is come, And thou hast found his all alone, half sickly by ill hap Fit for a while Mars and lay thy head upon my lap, I see my folks behind my back have much good talk of me. They are too Idle: soft Mars do you see, Rough shaped soldier enemy to love, Why dost thou thirst so much for bloody war, wherein the strong man by a stronger quelled, Or reached far off by dastard darters arm, Breathes forth his spirit with a booteles cry, Leaving behind is earth's anatomy: By war the Infant trampled under steeds, Holds to his mother out his feeble hand, And she is ravished while his youngling bleeds. Yet to abide death's stroke does quaking stand. The twice forced virgin Like the wounded lamb, Dejected at the mercy of the wolf, Holds up his throat in vain to bloody men, That will not kill his while his beauty stays, But stab her when her tears her fair decayeth: Away thou bloody man, vex not my Lord, By war true love is hindered and undone, And Ladies laps left empty of their loves, whose heads did beautify their tender knees. On that condition soldier I am wone, Receive this favour, Mars let it be done. Farewell poor soldier wear that for my sake And when go you sir? Go too sir fool, lets hear what you can say. My Lord, my Love. Why will ye trust a fool when he shall speak, And take his words to be as Oracles? Aye me! Revenge true Lovers wrongs immortal powers, And never let Lady trust a souldiet. Nay let me die, sith Mars hath wronged me. Yes, yes, base Cobblers utter Oracles, And all are sooth fast words against poor Love, Now comes your love too late, first have you slain Her whom your honey words cannot recure again. And know you not, unkindness kills a woman? I will forgive you now you beg so hard, But trust me next time I'll not be entreated. Folly come forth. Bid Niceness, New fangle, Dalliance and the rest bring forth their Music Mars intends to sleep. Hold on your Music, Folly leave thy play, Come hither lay his head upon thy knee. Fie what a loathed load was he to me. Come my Content, lets dance about the place, And mock God Mars unto his sleepy face. Yet once regard me as a thing regardless, Thou art the abjects wretch alive esteemed, I worse than vileness in the world am deemed: I scorned, thou hated, each Like other being, Live we together void of other being. So flies the murderer from the mangled limbs, Left limles on the ground by his fell hand. So runs the Tiger from the bloodless pray, Which when his fell stomach is of hunger staunched. Thou murderer, Tiger, glutted with my fair, Leaust me forsaken, map of grief and car Oh what is beauty humbled to the base, That never had a care of civil thought? Oh what is favour in and obscure place? Like unto Pearls that for the swine are bought: Beauty and favour where no virtue bides, Proves foul, deformed, and Like a shadow glides. Ah that my woe could other women warn, To love true wedlock or the virgins life: For me too late, for them fit time to learn, The honour of amaid and constant wife, One is adore by Gods with holy rites, The last Like Lamps both earth and heaven lights. But the foul horror of a harlots name, Even of the Lecher counted as a scorn: Whose forehead bears the mark of hateful shame, Of the lust-louer hated and forlorn. Oh such is Venus, so shall all such be As use base lust, and foul adultery. Is it a Gentleman's or a Farmers house? What where foul Lazers and loathed Lepors lie, Their stink will chooke thy Venus and his babe. But I have seen even very mean men's wives, Against their childbirth so provide for, As all their husbands wealth was scarce the worth Of the fine linnin used in that month. And shall not Venus be as kindly used. Ah my Content, prove not so much unkind, To fly and leave thy love alone behind, I will go with thee into hollow caves, To desert to the dens of furious beasts, I will descend with thee unto the graven, Look on me love let me some comfort have. Contempt still turns from Venus. What not a word to comfort me in woe? No look to give my dying heart some life? Nothing but frowns, but lowres, but scorns, disdains? Woe to my pleasures that have brought these pains. Have I for this set light the God of war, Against whose frowns nor death nor heaven can stand, Have I for this procured the angry Gods To make me exile from all blessedness. Have I for this lost honour and renown, Become a scandal to the vulgar world, And thus to be repayed ah break my heart, Had all these evils fallen upon my head, And millions of more harms than heaven could heap, Yet all were nothing, had not my Content, Rewarded me thus vilely with Contempt. Some Husbandmands, some Inn, some cleanly alehouse.