And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks. I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some May yet be there; and god-wit if we can; Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe'er, my man 20 Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Livy, or of some better book to us,
Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat; And I'll profess no verses to repeat.
To this if aught appear, which I not know of, That will the pastry, not my paper, show of. Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be; But that which most doth take my muse and me Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,
Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine: Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, Are all but Luther's beer to this I sing. Of this we will sup free, but moderately, And we will have no Pooly, or Parrot by; Nor shall our cups make any guilty men, But at our parting we will be as when We innocently met. No simple word, That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning, or affright The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot; Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible go see, Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till Age snow white hairs on thee; Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me All strange wonders that befell thee,
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know; Such a pilgrimage were sweet. Yet do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet. Though she were true when you met her, And last till you write your letter,
False, ere I come, to two or three.
I can love both fair and brown;
Call's what you will, we are made such by love; Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die, And we in us find th' eagle and the dove. The phoenix riddle hath more wit By us; we two being one, are it; So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit. We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love, And if unfit for tomb or hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms; As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs, And by these hymns all shall approve Us canonized for love;
One-half being made, thy modesty was such,
That thou on th' other half wouldst never touch.
When wilt thou be at full, great lunatic?
Not till thou exceed the world? Canst thou be like
A prosperous nose-born wen, which sometimes grows
To be far greater than the mother-nose?
Go then, and as to thee, when thou didst go, Münster did towns and Gesner authors show, Mount now to Gallo-Belgicus; appear As deep a statesman as a gazeteer.
Homely and familiarly, when thou comest back, Talk of Will Conqueror, and Prester Jack. Go, bashful man, lest here thou blush to look Upon the progress of thy glorious book.
BOOK I, SATIRE III
With some pot-fury, ravish'd from their wit, They sit and muse on some no-vulgar writ: As frozen dunghills in a winter's morn, That void of vapours seemèd all beforn, Soon as the sun sends out his piercing beams, Exhale out filthy smoke and stinking steams;
So doth the base, and the fore-barren brain, Soon as the raging wine begins to reign. One higher pitch'd doth set his soaring thought On crowned kings, that fortune hath low brought; Or some upreared, high-aspiring swain, As it might be the Turkish Tamberlain: Then weeneth he his base drink-drowned spright, Rapt to the threefold loft of heaven hight, When he conceives upon his feigned stage The stalking steps of his great personage, Graced with huff-cap terms and thund'ring threats,
That his poor hearers' hair quite upright sets. Such soon as some brave-minded hungry youth Sees fitly frame to his wide-strained mouth, He vaunts his voice upon an hired stage, With high-set steps and princely carriage; Now swooping in side robes of royalty, That erst did scrub in lousy brokery. There if he can with terms Italianate, Big-sounding sentences and words of state, Fair patch me up his pure iambic verse, He ravishes the gazing scaffolders. Then certes was the famous Corduban Never but half so high tragedian.
Now, lest such frightful shows of Fortune's fall, And bloody tyrant's rage, should chance appall The dead-struck audience, midst the silent rout, Comes leaping in a self-misformed lout,
And laughs, and grins, and frames his mimic face,
And justles straight into the prince's place; Then doth the theatre echo all aloud, With gladsome noise of that applauding crowd. A goodly hotch-potch! when vile russetings Are match'd with monarchs, and with mighty kings.
A goodly grace to sober tragic muse,
• When each base clown his clumsy fist doth bruise, And show his teeth in double rotten row, For laughter at his self-resembled show. Meanwhile our poets in high parliament Sit watching every word and gesturement, Like curious censors of some doughty gear, Whispering their verdict in their fellow's ear. Woe to the word whose margent in their scroll Is noted with a black condemning coal. But if each period might the synod please, Ho! - bring the ivy boughs, and bands of bays. Now when they part and leave the naked stage, 'Gins the bare hearer, in a guilty rage,
To curse and ban, and blame his likerous eye, That thus hath lavish'd his late halfpenny. Shame that the Muses should be bought and
For every peasant's brass, on each scaffold.
JOHN MARSTON (1575-1634)
FROM THE SCOURGE OF VILLAINY
In Lectores prorsus indignos
Fie, Satire, fie! shall each mechanic slave, Each dunghill peasant, free perusal have Of thy well-labour'd lines? - each satin suit, Each quaint fashion-monger, whose sole repute Rests in his trim gay clothes, lie slavering, Tainting thy lines with his lewd censuring? Shall each odd puisne of the lawyer's inn, Each barmy-froth, that last day did begin To read his little, or his ne'er a whit, Or shall some greater ancient, of less wit That never turn'd but brown tobacco leaves, Whose senses some damn'd occupant bereaves, Lie gnawing on thy vacant time's expense, Tearing thy rhymes, quite altering the sense? Or shall perfum'd Castilio censure thee, Shall he o'erview thy sharp-fang'd poesy Who ne'er read further than his mistress lips, Ne'er practised ought but some spruce cap'ring skips,
Ne'er in his life did other language use,
And blast, with stinking breath, my budding muse?
Fie! wilt thou make thy wit a courtezan For every broken handcraft's artisan? Shall brainless cittern-heads, each jobbernoul, Pocket the very genius of thy soul?
Ay, Phylo, ay, I'll keep an open hall, A common and a sumptuous festival. Welcome all eyes, all ears, all tongues to me! Gnaw peasants on my scraps of poesy! Castilios, Cyprians, court-boys, Spanish blocks, Ribanded ears, Granado netherstocks, Fiddlers, scriveners, pedlars, tinkering knaves, Base blue-coats, tapsters, broad-cloth-minded slaves-
Welcome, i' faith; but may you ne'er depart Till I have made your gallèd hides to smart. Your galled hides? avaunt, base muddy scum, Think you a satire's dreadful sounding drum Will brace itself, and deign to terrify Such abject peasants' basest roguery? No, no, pass on, ye vain fantastic troop Of puffy youths; know I do scorn to stoop
To rip your lives. Then hence, lewd nags, away, Go read each post, view what is play'd to-day, Then to Priapus' gardens. You, Castilio, I pray thee let my lines in freedom go;
Let me alone, the madams call for thee, Longing to laugh at thy wit's poverty. Sirra livery cloak, you lazy slipper-slave, Thou fawning drudge, what, wouldst thou satires have? 50
Base mind, away, thy master calls, be gone. Sweet Gnato, let my poesy alone;
Go buy some ballad of the Fairy King, And of the beggar wench some roguy thing, Which thou mayst chant unto the chamber- maid
To some vile tune, when that thy master's laid. But will you needs stay? am I forced to bear The blasting breath of each lewd censurer? Must naught but clothes, and images of men, But spriteless trunks, be judges of thy pen? Nay then, come all! I prostitute my muse, For all the swarms of idiots to abuse. Read all, view all; even with my full consent, So you will know that which I never meant; So you will ne'er conceive, and yet dispraise That which you ne'er conceived, and laughter raise,
Where I but strive in honest seriousness To scourge some soul-polluting beastliness. So you will rail, and find huge errors lurk In every corner of my cynic work. Proface! read on, for your extrem'st dislikes Will add a pinion to my praise's flights. O how I bristle up my plumes of pride, O how I think my satire's dignifi'd, When I once hear some quaint Castilio, Some supple-mouth'd slave, some lewd Tubrio, Some spruce pedant, or some span-new-come fry
Of inns-o'court, striving to vilify
My dark reproofs! Then do but rail at me, No greater honour craves my poesy.
GEORGE SANDYS (1578-1644)
A PARAPHRASE UPON THE PSALMS OF DAVID
In my prosperity I said,
My feet shall ever fix'd abide;
I, by Thy favour fortifi'd,
Am like a steadfast mountain made.
But when Thou hid'st Thy cheerful face, How infinite my troubles grew; My cries then with my grief renew, Which thus implor'd Thy saving grace. 8
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