 Satire one of John Dunn's satire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Thomas Copeland. John Dunn's satire. Satire one. Away thou fondly, motley humorist, leave me! And in this standing wooden chest consorted with these few books, let me lie in prison. And here be coffin when I die. Here are God's conduits, grave divines, and here nature's secretary, the philosopher and jolly statesman, which teach how to tie the sinews of a city's mystic body. You're gathering chroniclers, and by them stand giddy, fantastic poets of each land. Shall I leave all this constant company and follow a headlong, wild, uncertain thee? First swear by thy best love in earnest, if thou which loves all canst love any best. Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street, though some more spruce companion that is neat. Not though a captain do come in thy way, bright, parcel guilt with forty dead men's pay. Not though a brisk, perfumed, pert courteur, Dane with a nod thy courtesy to answer, nor come a velvet justice with a long great trade of blue coats, twelve or fourteen strong, with a brin or fawn on him, Or prepare a speech to court his beauty as sun and air. For better or worse, take me, or leave me. To take and leave me as adultery. O monstrous, superstitious puritan of refined manners, yet ceremonial man, that when thou meetst one, with inquiring eyes to search, and like a needy broker, prize the silk and gold he wears, and to that rate, so high or low, just raise thy formal hat, that wilt consort none until thou have known what lands he hath in hope for his own, as though all thy companions should make thee jointures and marry thy dear company. For I should stow, that dost not only approve, but in rank itchy lust desire, and love the nakedness and bairness to enjoy, of thy plump, muddy whore, or prostitute boy, hate virtue, though she be naked and bare. At birth and death our bodies naked are, and till our souls be unapparelate of bodies, they from bliss are banished. Man's first blessed state was naked. When by sin he lost that, yet he was clothed, but in beasts' skin, and in this coarse attire which I now wear, with God and with amuses I confer. But since thou like a contrite penitent, charitably warned of thy sins, dost repent these vanities and giddinesses, though I shut my chamber door and come, let's go. But sooner may a cheap whore, who hath been worn by as many several men in sin as her black feathers or musk-color hoes, name her child's right true father, most all those, sooner may one guess, who shall bear away the infanta of London, heir to an India, and sooner may a gulling weather-spy, by drawing forth heaven's scheme, tell certainly what fashion hats or ruffles or suits next year our subtle-witted antique youths will wear. Then thou, when thou departs from me, canst show, whither, why, when, or with whom thou wouldst go. But how shall I be pardoned by a fence, that thus have sinned against my conscience? Now we are in the street. He, first of all, improvidently proud creeps to the wall, and so imprisoned and hemmed in by me, sells for a little state his liberty. Yet, though he cannot skip forth now to greet every fine silken-painted fool who meet, he then to him with amorous smiles all yours, and greens smacked shrubs, and such an itch endures as apprentices or schoolboys, which do know of some gay sport abroad, yet dare not go. And his fiddlers stop lowest at highest sound, so to the most brave stoop he nice the ground. But to a brave man he doth move no more than the wise politic horse who would hear to fore, or thou, O elephant, or ape will do, when any names the king of Spain to you. Now leaps he upright, jogs me in prize, do you see yonder well-favored youth? Which, oh, does he that dances so divinely. Oh, said I, stand still, must you dance here for company? He drooped. We went, till one which did excell Indians in drinking his tobacco wealth met us. They talked. I whispered, let's go. Maybe you smellin' not. Truly I do. He hears not me, but on the other side a many-colored peacock having spied leaves him and me. I, for my lost sheep, stay. He follows, overtakes, goes on the way, saying, him whom I last left, all repute for his device, enhancing a suit, to judge of lace, pink, pains, print, cut, and plight, of all the court to have the best conceit. Our dull comedians want him. Let him go. But, oh, God, strengthen thee, why stoopst thou so? Why, he hath traveled long? No, but to me which understand none he doth seem to be perfect French and Italian. I replied, so is the pox. He answered not, but spied more men of fort, of parts, and qualities. At last, his love he in a window spies, and like a light dew exhaled, he flings from me violently ravished to his lechery. Many were there, he could command no more. He quarreled, fought, bled, and turned out a door, directly came to me hanging the head, and constantly, a while, must keep his bed. End of Satire One, Recording by Thomas Copeland Satire Two, by John Dunne This LibriVox recording is in public domain, Recording by Thomas Copeland Satire Two Sir, though I thank God for it, I do hate perfectly all this town, yet there is one state in all ill things so excellently best, that hate toward them reads pity towards the rest. Though poetry indeed be such a sin as I think that brings dearths and spaniards in, though like the pestilence and old fashioned love riddling they had catch men, and doth remove never till it be starved out, yet their state is poor, bizarre, like papists, not worth hate. One, like a wretch, which at bar judged as dead, yet prompts him which stands next and cannot read and saves his life, gives idiot actors means starving himself to live by his labored seams, as in some organ, puppets dance above and bellows pant below, which then be moved. One would move love by rhythms, but witchcraft's charms bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms. Rams and slings now are silly battery, pistolots are the best artillery, and they who write to the Lord's rewards to get, are they not like singers adores for meat, and they who write, because all write, have still that excuse for writing, and for writing ill, but he is worse to, beggarly, doth chore others with fruits, and in his ravenous maw, rankly digested, doth those things outspew as his own things, and they are as old as true, for if one eat my meat, though it be known the meat was mine, the excrement is his own. But these do me no harm, nor they which use to outdo dildos and outuse your Jews, to outdrink the sea, to out swear the lettony, who with sins all kinds as familiar be as confuses, and for whose sinful sakes schoolmen new tenements in hell must make, who strange sins canonists could hardly tell in which commandments large receipt they dwell. But these punish themselves, the insolence of Koskos only breeds my just offence, whom time, which rots all and makes botches, parks, and plotting on must make a calf and ox, hath made a lawyer, which was, alas, a late, but a scarce poet. Jolier of this state than our new benefice ministers, he throws like nets or landwigs, wheresoever he goes, his title of barrister on every wench, and woos in language of the please, and bench. Emotion, lady, speak Koskos, I have been in love ever since trichesimal of the queen, continual claims I have made, injunctions got to stay my rival's suit, that he should not proceed, spare me. In Hilary term I went, you said if I returned next size in lent, I should be in remitter of your brace. In Dinterim my letters should take place of affidavits. Words, words which would tear the tender labyrinth of a soft mate's ear, more than ten sclobonians scolding, more than when winds in our ruined abbeys roar, when sick with poetry and possessed with muse thou was, and mad, I hoped. But men which choose law practice from your gain, bold soul, repute worse than embroiled strumpets prostitute. Now like an owl-like watchman he must walk, his hand still to bill. Now he must talk idly like prisoners, which whole months will swear that only surety ship hath brought them there, and to every suitor lie in everything, like a king's favorite, like a king, like a wedge in a block ring to the bar, bearing like asses, and more shameless far than carted whores lie to the grave judge, for bastardly abounds not in king's titles, nor simony and sodomy in churchmen's lives, as these things do in him. By these he thrives. Shortly as the sea he will compass all our land, from scots to white, from mount to dovestrand, and spying airs, melting with luxury, Satan will not joy their sins as he, for as a thrifty wench creeps, kitchen stuff, and barreling the droppings and the snuff of wasting candles, which in thirty year, relief like kept for chance, buys wedding gear, piecemeal he gets lands, and spends as much time ringing each acre as men pulling prime. In parchment's, then, larges his fields, he draws assurances, big as glossed civil laws, so huge that men, in our time's forwardness, our fathers of the church, for writing less, these he writes not, nor for these written pays, therefore spares no length, as in those first days when Luther was professed he did desire short pattern masters, saying as a friar each day his beads, but having left those laws adds to Christ's prayer the power and glory clause. But when he sells or changes land, he impairs his writings, and, unwatched, leaves out, say, say. As slimy as any commenter goes by hard words or sense, or in divinity as controversers, in vouched text, leave out shrewd words which might against them clear the doubt. Where are those spread woods which clothe heretofore those bought lands? Not built, nor burnt within door. Where's the old landlord's troops and arms? In great halls, confusion past, and fulsome backaddles equally I hate. Means, bless. In rich men's homes, I bid kill some beasts, but no hecatones, none star, none surf it so. But, oh, we allow good work says good, but out of fashion now, like old rich wardrobes. But my words, none draws within the vast reach of huge statute laws. End of Satire 2, recording by Thomas Copeland. Satire 3 by John Dunn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Thomas Copeland. Satire 3, kind pity chokes my spleen, brave scorn forbids those tears to issue which swell my eyelids. I must not laugh no weep sins and be wise. Can railing them cure these worn maladies? Is not our mistress fair religion, as worthy of all our soul's devotion as virtue was to the first blinded age? Are not heavens joys as valiant to assuage lusts as earth's honor was to them? Alas, as we do them in means shall they surpass us in the end, and shall thy father's spirit meet blind philosophies in heaven, whose merit of strict life may be imputed faith, and here thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near to follow, damned? O, if thou daresst fear this, this fear great courage and high valor is, daresst thou aid mutinous dutch, and daresst thou lay thee in ships, wooden sepulchres, a prey to leader's rage, to storms, to shop, to dearth? Daresst thou dive seas and dungeons of the earth? Hast thou courageous fire to thaw the ice of frozen north discoveries, and thrice colder than salamanders, like divine children in Loven, fires of spain, and the line, whose country's limbex to our bodies be, canst thou forgain bear? And must every he which cries not goddess to thy mistress draw, or eat thy poisonous words? Courage of straw, O desperate coward, wilt thou seem bold, and to thy foes and his who made thee to stand sentinel in his world's garrison thus yield? And for forbidden wars leave the pointed field? Know thy foes, the foul devil whom thou strivest to please, for hate, not love would allow thee fame his whole realm to be quit, and as the world's all parts wither away and pass, so the world's self, thy other loved foe, is in her decrepit wane, and thou, loving this, dost love a withered and worn strumpet. Last flesh itself's death, and joys which flesh can taste, thou lovest, and thy fair goodly soul, which doth give this flesh power to taste joy, that is loathe. Seek true religion. Oh, where? Myrius, thinking her unhoused here and fled from us, seeks her at Rome, there because he doth know that she was there a thousand years ago. He loves a rag so as we here obey the statecloth with a princeate yesterday. Cramps, to such brave loves, will not be enthralled, but loves her only who at Geneva is called religion, plain, simple, sullen, young, contemptuous, yet unhansome. As among lecherous humours, there is one that judges no wenches wholesome, but coarse country judges. Greus stays still at home here, and because some preachers, vile, ambitious bauds, and laws still new, like fashions, bid him think that she which dwells with us is only perfect. He embraces her, whom his godfathers will tender to him, being tender, as wards still take such wives as their guardians offer, or pay, values. Hairless fridges doth abhor all, because all cannot be good, as one knowing some women a whores, dares marry none. Grocus loves all as one, and thinks that so as women do in diverse countries go in diverse habits, yet are still one kind. So doth so is religion, and this blind distance too much light breeds. But unmoved thou of force must one, and force but one, allow. And the right? Ask thy father which is she, let him ask his. Though truth and false would be near twins, yet truth a little elder is. Be busy to seek her. Believe me this, he's not of none nor worse that seeks the best. To adore or scorn an image or protest may all be bad. Doubt wisely, in strange way, to stand inquiring right is not to stray, to sleep or run wrong is. On a huge hill, draget and steep truth stands, and he that will reach her about must and about must go, and what the hill's suddenness resists wins so. Yet strive so that before age deaths twilight thy soul rests, for none can work in that night. To will implies delay, therefore now do. Hard deeds the body's pains, hard knowledge to the mind's endeavors reach, and mysteries are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes. Keep the truth which thou hast found. Men do not stand in so ill case here that God hath with his hand signed king's blank charters to kill whom they hate, nor are they vicar's, but hang men to fate. Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied to man's laws, by which she shall not be tried at the last day. O will it then booty to say, a Philip or a Gregory, a Harry or a Martin, taught thee this? Is not this excuse from your contraries equally strong? Cannot both sides say so, that thou mayst rightly obey power for bounds now. Those pass, for nature and name is changed, to be then humble to her is idolatry, as streams are power is. Those blessed flowers that dwell at the rough streams calm head thrive and dwell, but having left their roots, and themselves given to the streams tyrannous rage, the lass are driven through mills and rocks and woods, and at last, almost consumed and going, in the sea are lost. So perish souls which more choose men's unjust power from God claimed, than God himself to trust. Well, I may now receive and die. My sin indeed is great, but I have been in a purgatory such as feared hell is a recreation to and scarce map of this. My mind, neither with pride's itch, nor yet hath been poisoned with love to see or to be seen, I had no suit there, no new suit to show, yet went to court. But as glaze, which to go to a mass ingest, catch, was feigned to disperse the hundred marks, which is the statute's curse, before escaped, so it pleased my destiny, guilty of my sin of going, to think me as prone to all ill and of good as forgetful, as proud, as lustful, and as much in debt, as vain, as witless, and as false as they which dwell at court, for once going that way. Therefore I suffered this. Towards me did run a thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun-air bread, or all which into Noah's Ark came, a thing which would have posed Adam to name, stranger than seven antiquary studies, than Africa's monsters, Yanna's rarities, stranger than strangers, one who for a dain in the dain's massacre had sure been slain, if he had lived then, and without help dies when next the apprentices against strangers rise, one whom the watch at noon let scarce go by, one to whom examining justice sure would cry, Sir, by your priesthood tell me what you are. His clothes were strange, though coarse, and black, though bare, sleeveless as jerkin was, and it had been velvet, but was now, so much ground was seen, become tough taffety, and our children shall see it plain rash of wire, thin not at all. This thing hath traveled, and, Seth speaks all tongues, and openly knoweth what to all states belongs. Made of accents and best phrase of all these, he speaks no language. If strange meets displease, art can deceive or hunger force my taste, but pedants motley tongue, soldiers bombass, mount a banks drug tongue, nor the terms of law are strong enough preparatives to draw me to bear this. Yet I must be content with his tongue, in his tongue called compliment, in which he can win widows and pay scores, make men speak treason, cousin subtlest whores, out flatter favorites, or out lie either jovious or serious or both together. He names me, and comes to me, I whisper God, how have I sinned that thy wrath's furious rod, this fellow, chooses me? He said, Sir, I love your judgment. Whom do you prefer for the best linguist? And I sillily said that I thought Palapine's dictionary? Nay, but of men most sweet, sir. Visa, then. Some mother Jesuits, and two reverent men of our two academies, I name. There he stopped me, and said, Nay, your apostles were pretty good linguists, and so panerge was, yet a poor gentleman, all these may pass by treble. Then, as if he could have sold his tongue, he praised it, and such wonders told that I was vain to say, if you'd lived, sir, time enough to have been interpreter to Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower it stood. Yet, if of court life you knew the good, you would leave loneliness. I said, not alone my loneliness is, but Spartans fashion to teach by painting drunkards, but not last now. Aratine's pictures have made few chaste. No more can Prince's courts, though there are few better pictures of vice, teach me virtue. He liked to a high-stretch lute string squeaked. Oh, sir, it is sweet to talk of kings. At Westminster, said I, the man that keeps the abbey tombs, and for his price doth with whoever comes of all our harries and our edwards talk, from king to king, and all their kin can walk. Your ears shall hear not but kings, your eyes meet kings only. The way to it is King Street. He smacked and cried, he's base, mechanic, course. So are all your Englishmen and their discourse. Are not your Frenchmen neat, mine? As you see, I have but one Frenchman. Look, he follows me. Sir, it is they are neatly clothed. I of this mind am. Your only wearing is your grogrum. Not so, sir, I have more. Under this pitch he would not fly. I chapped him. But as itched, scratched into smart, and as blunt iron ground into an edge hurts worse, so I, fool, found crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness, he to another king his style of the dress, and asks, What news? I tell him of new plays. He takes my hand, and as a still, which stays, assembly, twix each drop, he niggardly, as loaths when rich me, so tells many a lie. More than ten hollandsheds, or halls, or stoes, of trivial household trash, he knows. He knows when the queen frowned or smiled, and he knows what a subtle statesman may gather of that. He knows who loves, whom, and who, by poison, haste to an office's reversion. He knows who had sold his land, and now doth beg a license old iron boots, shoes, and eggshells to transport. Shortly boys shall not play at span counter or blowpoint, that they beg told to some courtier. And wiser than all us, he knows what lady is not painted. Thus he, with home-meats, tries me. I belch, spew, spit, lookale, and sickly like a patient, yet he thrusts all and more. And as if he'd undertook to say, Balaguel, do this without bulk, speaks of all states and deeds that have been since the Spaniards came to the loss of Amiens. Like a big wife excited loathed meat ready to travel, so I sigh and sweat to hear this macaroon talk. In vain, for yet, either my humor or his own to fit, he, like a privileged spy, whom nothing can discredit, libles now against each great man. He names a price for every office paid. He says our wars thrive ill because delayed, that offices are entailed, and that there are perpetuities of them lasting as far as the last day. And that great officers do with the pirate's share and Don Kirkers, who wastes in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes, who loves horse, who boys, and who goes. I, more amazed than Cersei's prisoners when they felt themselves turned beasts, felt myself then becoming traitor. And before I saw one of our giant statutes open his jaw to suck me in, for hearing him, I found that as burnt venom letchers 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 forefather's sin to the last barley. Therefore, to my power, toughly and stubbornly, I bear this cross, but Thou'r of mercy now was come. He tries to bring me to pay a fine to escape his torturing, and says, Sir, can you spare me, I said willingly. Nay, and Sir, can you spare me a crown? Thankfully I gave it, as ransom. But as fiddlers, still though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will thrust one more jig 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. Scantist thanks were ended when I, which did see all the court filled with more strange things than he, ran from them with such or more haste than one who fears more actions doth make from prison. At home, in wholesome solitariness, my precious soul began the wretchedness of suitors at court to mourn. And a trance, like his who dreamt he saw hell, did advance itself on me. Such men as he saw there, I saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear becomes the guilty, not the accuser. Then shall I, an unslave of high-born or raised men, fear frowns. And my mistress, truth, betray thee to the huffing, braggart, puffed nobility? No, no. Thou, which since yesterday has been almost about the whole world, hast thou seen, O son, 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 presence, for just such gay-painted things, which no sap nor taste have in them ours are, and natural some of the stocks are, their fruits bastard all. It is ten o'clock and past, all whom the muse, balloon, 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 are, God pardoned. As fresh and sweet their appals be, as be the fields they sowed to buy them. For a king those hos are, pride the flatterers, and bring them next week to the theatre to sell. Once, reach all states. Me seems they do as well at stage as court. All are players, who ere looks for themselves dare not go, or cheapside balks shall find their wardrobes inventory. Now the ladies come, as pirates which do know that there came weak ships fraught with crutch-channel, the men board them, and praise as they think well their beauties. They, the men's wits, both are bought. Why good wits nare where scarlet gowns I thought this calls. These men, men's wits for speeches buy, and women buy all wits which scarlets die. He called her beauty, limedwigs, her hair net. She fears her drugs ill-laid, her hair loose-set. Would not Heraclitus laugh to see McCryne from hat to shoe himself at door refine, as if the presents were a moscow, and lift his skirts and hoes, and call his clothes to shrift, making them confess not only mortal great stains and holes in them, but venial feathers and dust, wherewith they formicate. And then, by Durer's rules survey the state of each limb, and with strings the odds try of his neck to his leg, and waist to thumb. 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, and whispered by Jesus so often that a first proven would have ravished him away for saying of our Lady Salter. But it is fit that they each other plague, they merit it. But here comes Glorious, that will plague them both, who, in the other extreme, only doth call of rough carelessness, would fascia, whose cloak his spurs tear, whom he spits on he cares not. His ill words do no harm to him. He rusheth in as if arm, arm, he meant to cry. And though his face be as ill as theirs which in old hangings quit priced, still he strives to look worse. He keeps all in awe, jests like a licensed fool, commands like law. Tired, now I leave this place, and but pleased so as men which from jails to execution go, go through the great chamber. Why is it hung with the seven deadly sins? Being among those asca parts, men big enough to throw chairing cross for a bar, men that do know no token of worth but queen's man, and fine living, barrels of beef, flagons of wine, I shulk like a spied 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 scarce brook, it enough shall be to wash the stains away. Although I yet, with Maccabees' modesty, the known merit of my work lesson, yet some wise man shall, I hope, esteem my rips, canonical. End of Satire 4. Recording by Thomas Poplund. Satire 5 by John Dunn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Thomas Poplund. Satire 5. Thou shalt not laugh in this leafmuse, nor they whom any pity warms. He which delay rules to make quarters, he being understood may make good quarters, but who quarters 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 and 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 prove the world a man in which officers of the devouring stock and suitors the excromance which they void. All men are dust, how much worse are suitors who to mend lust or make praise. Oh, worse than dust or worms meat, for they do eat you now whose selves worms shall eat. They are the mills which grind you, yet you are the wind which drives them, and a wasteful war is fought against you, and you fight it. They adulterate law, and you prepare their way like wittles, issue your own ruin is. Greatest and fairest empress, know you this? Alas, no more than tens calm head doth know whose means her arms drown, or whose corn or flow. You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I, by having lived to serve and most richly for service paid, authorized, now begin to know and weed out this enormous sin. Oh, age of rusty iron, some better wit, call it some worse name, if I'll equal it. The iron age that was when justice was sold, now injustice is so dearer far. Allow all demands, fees, and duties, game-sters, and on the money which you sweat and swear for, is gone into other hands. So, controversial lands, escape like Angelica the Strivers' hands. If law be in the judge's heart, and he have no heart to resist letter or fee, where wilt thou appeal? Power of the courts below flow from the first main head. And these can throw thee, if they sub thee in, to misery, to fetters, altars. But if the injuries steal thee to dare complain, Alas, thou ghost against the stream when upwards, when thou art most heavy and most faint. And in these labours, they against whom thou shouldst complain, will in the way become great seas, or which, when thou shall be forced to make gold and bridges, thou shalt say that all thy gold was drowned in them before. All things follow the like, only who have may have more. Judges are gods. He who made and said them so meant not that men should be forced to them to go by means of angels. When supplications we send to God, to dominations, powers, cherubins, and all heaven's courts, if we should pay fees as here, daily bread would be scarce to kings. So, tears. Would it not anchor a stoic, a coward, yea, a martyr, to see a person come in and call all his clothes copes, books, primers, and all his plate chalices, and mistake them away, and ask a fee for coming? Oh, near may fair laws, white reverend name, be strumpeted to warrant thefts. She is established and recorded to destiny on earth, and she speaks fates words, and but tells us who must be rich, who pool, who in chairs, who in jails. She is all fair, but yet hath foul long nails, with which she scratcheth suitors In bodies of men, so in law, nails are the extremities, so officers stretch to more than law can do, as our nails reach what no else part comes to. Why bearest thou to your officer? Fool, hath he got those goods, for which erst men bear to thee? Fool, twice, thrice, thou hast bought wrong, and now hungrily begs to write, but that dole comes not till these die. Thou hast much, and laws o'er him enthume him try, thou wouldst for more, and for all hast paper enough to clothe all the great character's pepper. Sell that, and by that, thou much more sharp knees than Hammond, when he sold his antiquities. O wretch, that thy fortune should moralize Esoph's fables and make tales prophecies. Thou the swimming dog, whom shadows cousin it, and dives near drowning, for what's vanished it? End of Satire 5, Recording by Thomas Copeland. Upon Mr. Thomas Coyote's crudities. Part 7 of John Dunn's satires. This LibriVarx recording is in the public domain, Recording by Thomas Copeland. Upon Mr. Thomas Coyote's crudities. O, to what height will love of greatness drive thy leavened spirit, sesquice bird at you? Venice vast lake thou hadst seen, and would seek then some vaster thing, and founds a courtesy. That inland sea, having discovered well, a cellar gulf where one might sail to hell from Heidelberg thou longst to see, and thou this book greater than all produces now. Infinite work, which doth so far extend that none can study it to any end. It is no one thing. It is not fruit, nor root, nor poorly limited with head or foot. If man be therefore man, because he can reason and laugh, thy book doth half make man. One half being made, thy modesty was such that thou another half wouldst never touch. When wilt thou be at full great lunatic, not till thou exceed the world? Hence thou be like a prosperous nose-borne wen, which sometimes grows to be far greater than the mother knows. Go then, and as to thee when thou didst go mustered in towns and gessner authored show, mount now to Gallo-Belgicus, appear as deep a statesman as a gazetteer. Homely and familiarly when thou comes back, talk of will conqueror and press to jack. Go, bashful man, lest hear thou blush to look upon the progress of thy glorious book, to which both indies sacrifices send, the west send gold, which thou didst freely spend meaning to seat no more upon the press. The east sends hither her deliciousness, and thy leaves must embrace what comes from thence, the myrrh, the pepper, and the frankincense. This magnifies thy leaves, but if they stoop do neighbor-wares when merchants to unhoop valuminous barrels. If thy leaves do then convey these wares in parcels unto men, if for vast tons of currants, of figs, of medicinal and aromatic twigs, thy leaves a better method to provide, divide to pounds, and ounces of divide. If they stoop lower yet and vent our wares home manufacturers to thick popular fares, if omnipregnant there upon warm stalls they hatch all wares for which the buyer calls, then thus thy leaves we justly may commend, that they all kind of matter comprehend. Thus thou, by means which the ancients never took, a pendent makes'd, and universal book. The bravest hero is, for public good scattered in diverse lands their limbs of blood. Worst malefactors, to whom men are prized, do public good, cut in anatomies. So will thy book, in pieces, for a lord which casts at port excuse, and all the board provide whole books, each leaf enough will be for friends to pass time and keep company. Can all carouse up thee? No, thou must fit measures, and fill up for the half-point wit. Some shall wrap pills and save a friend's life so, some shall stop muskets and so kill a foe. Thou shalt not ease the critics of next age so much, at once their hunger to assuage, nor shall wit pirates hope to find thee lie all in one bottom, in one library. Some leaves may paste strings there in other books, and so one may, which on another looks, pill for a lasso, wit from you, but hardly much. Note, I mean, from one page which shall paste strings in a book, return to text. And yet I think this true, as Sybil's was, your book is mystical, for every piece is as much worth as all. Therefore mine impotency I confess, the healths which my brain bears must be far less. Thy giant wit o'erth rose me, I am gone, and rather than read all, I would read none. End of Upon Mr. Thomas Corriott's Prudities Recording by Thomas Copeland Metempsychosis Part 7 of John Dunn's Satires This LibriVox recording is in public domain. Recording by Thomas Copeland INFINITATI SAKRUM 16A BUSTI 16001 Metempsychosis Poema Satirakha Epistle Others had the porches and entries of their buildings set their arms. I, my picture, if any colors can deliver a mind so plain and flat and through light as mine. Naturally, at a new author I doubt and stick, and do not say quickly could, I censure much and tax. And this liberty costs me more than others by how much my own things are worse than others. Yet I would not be so rebellious against myself as not to do it since I love it, nor so unjust to others to do it, sin Italiani. As long as I give them as good hold upon me, they must pardon me my biteings. I forbid no reprehender but him that, like the Trent Council, forbids not books but authors, damning whatever such a name hath or shall write. None writes so ill that he gives not something exemplary to follow or fly. Now, when I begin this book, I have no purpose to come into any man's debt, how my stock will hold out I know not, perchance, waste, perchance, increase in use. If I do borrow anything of antiquity besides that I make account that I pay it to austerity, with as much and as good, you shall still find me to acknowledge it, and to thank not him only that hath digged out treasure for me, but that hath lighteth me a candle to the place, all which I will bid you remember, for I will have no such readers as I can teach, is that the Pythagorean doctrine doth not only carry one soul from man to man, nor man to beast, but indifferently to planets also, and therefore you must not grudge to find the same soul in an emperor, in a post horse, and in a musher. Since no unreadiness in the soul but in disposition in the organs works this, and therefore, though this soul could not move when it was a melon, yet it may remember and now tell me at what lascivious banquet it was served, and though it could not speak when it was a spider, yet it can remember and now tell me who used it for poison to attain dignity. However, the bodies have dulled her other faculties or memory hath ever been her own, which makes me so seriously deliver you by her relation, all her passages from her first making, when she was that apple which Eve ate, to this time, when she is he whose light you shall find in the end of this book, the progress of the soul. I sing the progress of a deathless soul, whom fate, which God made but doth not control, placed in most shapes, all times before the law yoked us and when and since in this I sing, and the great world to his aged evening. From infant mourn through manly noon I draw, what the gold Calde or silver Persian saw, Greek, Brass or Roman iron, is in this one, a work tout where Seth's pillars brick and stone, and holy writ accepted, made to you to none. Thee, I of heaven, this great soul envies not, by thy male force is all we have begot. In the first east Thou now begins to shine, Sucks early balm, and island spices there, and will turn on in thy loose-brained career, At tegus, po, sane, tems, and deno, dine, and see at night thy western land of mine. Yet hast thou not more nations seen than she, that before thee one day began to be, And thy frail light, being quench, shall long, long outlive thee. Nor holy Janus, in whose sovereign boat the church, and all the monarchies did flow, that swimming college and free hospital of all mankind, that cage and vibory of fowls and beasts in whose womb destiny us and our latest nephews did install, and from thence for all derived to fill this all, didst thou, in that great stewardship embark so diverse shapes into that floating park, as had been moved and informed by this heavenly spark, great destiny, the commissary of God, that hast marked outer place and period for everything, who, where we offspring took our ways and end, seized at one instant, Thou not of all causes, thou whose changeless brow ne'er smiles nor frowns, O vouch thou safe to look and show my story in thy eternal book, that if my prayer be fit, I may understand so much myself as to know with what hand, how scant or liberal this my life's race is spanned. To my six lusters almost now outworn, except thy book owe me so many more, except my legend be free from the lets of steep ambition, sleepy poverty, spirit quenching sickness, dull captivity, distracting business, and from beauty's nets, and all that calls from this and to other's quips, O let me not launch out, but let me save the expense of brain and spirit, that my grave his right and view a whole unwaisted man may have. But if my days belong and good enough, in vain this sea shall enlarge or engulf itself, for I will through the wave and foam, and shall in sad lone ways a lively sprite make my dark heavy poem light and blight. For though through many straits and lands I roam, I launch a paradise, and I sail towards home. The course I there began shall here be stayed, sails hoisted there, stroke here, and anchors laid in Thames, which were Tidress and Euphrates Wade. For the great soul which here amongst us now doth dwell, and moves that hand and tongue and brow, which as the moon the sea moves us, to hear whose story with long patience you will long. For it is the crown and last strain of my soul, this soul to whom Luther and Bahamut were prisons of flesh, this soul which oft did tear and mend the racks of the empire late Rome, and lived whenever a great change did come, had first, in paradise, a low but fatal room. Yet no low room, nor than the greatest less, if, as devout and sharp men fitly guessed, that cross our joy and grief, where nails did tie that all which always was all everywhere, which could not sin, and yet all sins did bear, which could not die, yet could not choose but die, stood in the self-same room in Calvary, where first grew the forbidden learned tree. For on that tree hung insecurity, this soul made by the maker's will from pulling free. Prince of the orchard, fair as dawning morn, fenced with the law and ripe as soon as born that apple drew, which this soul did enli. Till the then climbing serpent, that now creeps for that offence for which all mankind weeps, took it, and to her whom the first man did why, whom and her race only forbiddings drive, he gave it. She, her husband, both did he. So perished the eaters and the meat, and we, what treason taints the blood, thence die and sweat. Man all at once was there by woman's slain, and one by one we are here slain or again by them. The mother poisoned the well-head, the daughters here corrupt us, refuel us. No smallness escapes, no greatness breaks their necks. She thrust us out, and by them we are led astray from turning to whence we are fled. Were prisoners judges, to it seem rigorous she sinned, we bear, part of our pain is thus to love them whose fault to this painful love yoked us. So fast in us did this corruption grow that now we dare ask why we should be so. Would God, disputes the curious rebel, make a law and would not have it kept? Or can his creatures will cross his? Of every man, for one will God and be just vengeance take, who sinned, who is not forbidden to the snake, nor her, who was not then made, nor is it that Adam cropped, or knew the apple. Yet the worm, and she, and he, and we, endure for it. But snatch me, heavenless spirit, from this vain reckoning there vanities, less is there gain than hazard still to meditate on ill, though with good mind. There reasons like those toys of glassy bubbles which the games and boys stretch to so nice of thinness through a quill that they themselves break, do themselves spill, arguing is heretics game, and exercise as wrestlers perfects them, not liberties of speech, but silence, hands, not tongues, and heresies. Just in that instant when the serpents gripe broke this like veins and tender conduit pipe through which this soul from the tree's root did draw life and growth to this apple, fled away this loose soul old one and another day. As lightning, which one scarce dares say he saw, did so soon gone, and better proof the law of sense than faith required, swiftly she flew to a dark and foggy plot. Her face through there, through the earth's pores, and in a plant housed her anew. The plant thus abled to itself did force a place where no place was. By nature's course as air from water water fleets away from thicker bodies, by this root-thrown soul his spongy confines gave him place to grow, just as in our streets when the people stay to see the prince and have so filled the way that weasels scarce could pass, when she comes near they throng and cleave up and a passage clear as if for that time their round bodies flattened were. His right arm he thrust out towards the east, westward his left, thence did themselves digest into ten lesser strings these fingers were, and as a slumber of stretching on his bed this way he this and that way scattered his other leg, which feet with toes of bare, grew on his middle parts the first day hair to show that in love's business he should still a dealer be and be used well or ill. His apple's kindle, his leaves, force of conception kill. A mouth but dumb he hath, blind eyes, deaf ears, and to his shoulders dangle subtle hairs. A young colossus there he stands upright, and as that ground by him were conquered a leafy garland wears he on his head, enchaste with little fruits, so bred and bright that for them you would call your love's lips white. So of a lone unhaunted place possessed did this soul's second in, built by the guest, this living buried man this white man drink rest. No lustful woman came this plant to grieve, but was because there was none yet but he, and she with other purpose killed it quite. Her sin had now brought in infirmities, and so her cradle child the moist red eyes had never shut, nor slept since it saw light. Poppy she knew, she knew the mandrakes might, and tore up both, and so cooled her child's blood. Unvirtuous weeds might long unvexted stood, but he's short-lived, that with his death can do most good. To an unfettered soul's quick nimble haste are falling stars and heart's thoughts but slow haste. Thinner than bird air flies this soul, and she whom four new coming and four parting sons had found and left the mandrakes' tenet, runs thoughtless of change when her firm destiny confined and enjailed her, that seems so free, into a small blue shell, the which a poor warm bird o'er spread, and sat still evermore, till her enclosed child kicked and picked itself a door. Out crept a sparrow, this soul's moving in, on whose raw arms stiff feathers now begin as children's teeth through gums to break with pain. His flesh is jelly yet, and his bones threads, all a new downy mantle overspreads, a mouth the oaks, which would as much contain as his late house, and the first hour speaks plain, and chirps aloud for meat. Meat fit for men, his father steals for him, and so feeds then one that within a month will beat him from his hand. In this world's youth, wise nature did make haste, things ripened sooner and did longer last. Already this hot cock in bush and tree, in field and tent or flutters his next hand, he asks her not who did so taste, nor when, nor if his sister or his niece should be, nor does she peal for his inconstancy if in her sight he change, nor doth refuse the next that calls. Both liberty do use, where stories of both kinds, both kinds may freely choose. Men, till they took laws which made freedom less, their daughters and their sisters did ingress. Till now unlawful, therefore ill, it was not. So jolly that it can move, this soul is, the body so free of his kindnesses, that self-preserving it hath now forgot, and slacketh so the soul's and body's not, which temperance straightens. Freely on his she-friends he blood and spirit hith and marrow spends, ill steward of himself himself in three years ends. Else might he long have lived, man did not know of gummy blood, which doth in holly grow, how to make bird-line, nor how to deceive with feigned calls, hid nets, or in wrapping snare the free inhabitants of the pliant air, man to beget, and woman to conceive, asked not of roots, nor of cocks, sparrows, lee. Yet chooseth he, though none of these he fears, pleasantly three, then straightened, twenty years to live, and to increase his race, himself acquiesce. This coal with overblowing quenched and dead, the soul from her two active organs fled to a broth. Her female fishes sandy row, with the male's jelly newly leavened was, for they had intertouched as they did pass, and one of those small bodies fitted so, this soul informed, and abled it to row itself with finny oars, which he did fit. Her scales seemed yet a parchment, and as yet perchance a fish, but by no name you would call it, when, goodly like a ship in her full trim, a swan, so white that you may under him compare all whiteness but himself to none, glided along, and as he glided, watched, and with his arch of neck this poor fish catched. It moved with state, as if to look upon low things it scorned, and yet, before that one could think he sought it, he had swallowed clear this, and much such, and unblamed devoured there all, but who too swift, too great, or well-armed were. Now swam a prison in a prison good, and now this soul in double walls was shut. Till melted with the swan's digestive fire, she left her house the fish, and papered forth. Fate, not affording bodies of more worth for hers yet, bids her again retire to another fish, to any new desire made a new prey. For he that can do non-resistance make no complaint, sure is gone. Weakness invites, but silence feasts oppression. Pace with her native stream this fishneth keep, and journeys with her towards the glassy deep, but oft retarded, once with a hidden net, though with great windows, for when need first taught these tricks to catch food, then they were not wrought as now with curious greediness to let none escape, but few and fit for use to get. As in this trap a ravenous pike was tain, who though himself distressed, would feign her slain the stretch, so hardly our ill-habits left again. Here by her smallness, she too death saw past, once innocent escaped, and left the oppressor fast. The net through swan she keeps the liquid path, and whether she leap up sometimes to breath, and suck in air, or find it underneath, or working parts like mills or limbexath, to make the water thin and air-like, faith here's not, but safe the place she's come unto, where fresh with salt waves meet, and what to do she knows not, but between both makes a board or two. So far from hiding her guest's water is, that she shows them in bigger quantities than they are. Thus doubtful of her way, for game and not her hunger, a sea-pie, spied through this trait respectable from high the silly fish, where disputing lay, and tend her doubts and her bears her away, exalted she is, but to the exalters good, as are by great ones, men which lowly stood. It's raised to be the razor's instrument, and food. Is any kind subject to rape, like fish? Ill and demand they neither do no wish. Fishers they kill not, nor with noise awake. They do not hunt, nor strive to make a prey of beasts, nor their young sons to bear away. Fowls they pursue not, nor to undertake to spoil the nest's industrious birds to make. Yet them all these unkind kinds feed upon, to kill them is in occupation, and laws make fasts, and lents for their destruction. A sudden stiff land wind in that self-hour to seeward force this bird that did devour the fish. He cares not, for with ease he flies, fat gluttony's best orator. At last so long he hath flown, and hath flown so fast, that many leagues at sea, now tired he lies. And with his prey, that till then languished, dives. The souls no longer foes, two ways did earth. The fish, I follow, and keep no calendar of the other. He lives yet in some great officer. Into an embryon fish our soul is thrown, and in due time thrown out again, and grown to such vastness as if unmanical from Greece Maria were, and that by some earthquake unrooted, loose Maria swam, or seas from Africa's body had severed and torn the hopeful promontory's head, this fish would seem these. And when all hopes fail, a great ship overset, or without fail hulling, might, when this was a well, be like this whale. And every stroke his brazen fins do take, more circles in the broken sea they make than cannons' voices, when the air they tear. His ribs are pillars, and his high arched roof of bark, that blunts best steel, is thunder-proof. Swim in him swallowed dolphins without fear, and feel no sighs, as if his vast womb were some inland sea, and ever, as he went, he spouted rivers up, as if he meant to join our seas with seas above the fervent. He hands not fish, but as an officer stays in his court, at his own net, and there all suitors of all sorts themselves enthrall. So on his back lies this whale wantoning, and in his gulf-like throat sucks everything that passeth near. Fish chase a fish, and all, flyer and follower, in this whirlpool fall. Though might not states of more equality consist. And is it of necessity that thousand gilpless smalls, to make one great, must die? Now drinks he up seas, and he eats up flocks, he jostles islands, and he shakes firm rocks. Now in a roomful house this soul doth float, and like a prince she sends her faculties to all her limbs, distant as provinces. The sun hath twenty times both crab and goat parched, since first launched forth this living boat. It is greatest now, and to destruction nearest. There is no pause at perfection, greatness a period hath, but hath no station. Two little fishes whom he never harmed, nor fed on their kind. Two not throughly armed with hope that they could kill him, nor could do good to themselves by his death. They did not eat his flesh, nor suck those oils which theds out street. Conspired against him, and it might undo the plot or all that the plotters would do, but that they fishes were, and could not speak. How shall a tyrant wife strong projects break, if wretches can on them the common anger wreak? The flail-finned thresher, and steel-beaked swordfish, only attempt to do what all do wish. The thresher backs him, and to beat begins. The sluggered whale yields to oppression, and hide himself from shame and danger, down begins to sink. The swordfish upward spins, and gores him with his beak. His staff like fins, so well the one, his sword, the other plies, that now a scoff and prey this tyrant dies. And his own dole feeds with himself all companies. Who will revenge his death? Or who will call those to account that thought and wrought his fault? The heirs of slain kings, we see, are often so transported with the joy of what they get, that they revenge and obsequies forget, nor will against such men the people go, because he is now dead, whom they should show love in that act. Some kings, by vice, being grown so needy of subjects' love, that of their own they think they lose if love be to the dead prince's show. This soul, now free from prison and passion, hath yet a little indignation that so small hammers should so soon down beat so great a castle. And having for her house got the straight cloister of a wretched mouse, as basest men that have not what to eat, nor enjoy art, do far more hate the great than they who good reposed estates possess. This soul late taught that great things might by less be slain to gallant mischief doth herself address. Nature's great masterpiece and elephant, the only harmless great thing. The giant of beasts, who thought no more had gone to make one wise, but to be just and thankful, loath to offend, yet nature hath given him no need to bend. Himself a props on himself relies, and foe to none suspects no enemies, still sleeping stood, vexed not his fantasy black dreams, like an unbent bow carelessly his sinewy proboscis did remiss rely. In which, as in a gallery this mouse walked, surveyed the rooms of this vast house, and to the brain the soul's bed chamber went, and gnawed the life cords there, like a whole town clean undermined the slain beast tumbled down. With him the murderer dies, whom envy sent to kill not scape, for only he that meant to die did ever kill a man of better room, and thus he made his foe his prey and toon, who cares not to turn back, may any wither come. Next housed this soul a wolves yet unborn well, till the best midwife nature gave it help to issue. It could kill as soon as go, able as white and mild as his sheep were, who in that trade of church and kingdoms, there was the first time, was still infested so with this wolf, that it bred his loss and woe, and yet his bid, essential, attends the flocks so near, so well warns and defends, that the wolf, hopeless else, took corrupt her intents. He took a course which since successfully great men have often taken, to aspire the councils, or to break the plots of foes, to ables tent he stealeth in the dark, on whose skirts the bitch slept. There she could bark, attached her with straight gripes, yet he called those embracements of love. To love's work he goes, where deeds move more than words, nor doth she show nor make resist, nor needs he straighten so his prey, for where she loose she would not bark nor go. He hath engaged her, his she holy bides, who not her own, none other secrets hives. If to the flock he come, a dable there, she feigns hoarse barkings, but she biteeth not. Her faith is quite, but not her love, for God. At last a trap, of which some everywhere Abel had placed, ends all his loss and fear by the wolf's death, and now just time it was that a quick soul should give life to that mass of blood enables bitch, and thither this did pass. Some have their wives, their sisters, some begot, but in the lives of emperors you shall not read of a lust the which may equal this. This wolf begot himself, and finished what he began live when he was dead. Son to himself, and father to, he is a riddling lust, for which schoolmen would miss a proper name. The welp of both these lay in Abel's tent, and with soft moor by his sister, being young, it used to sport and play. He soon for her to harsh and cherlish glue, and Abel, the damn dead, would use this new for the field. Being of two kinds thus made, he as his damn from sheep grow wolves away, and as his sire he made them his own prey. Five years he lived and cousin with his trade, then hopeless that his faults were hid, betrayed himself by flight, and by all followed from dogs a wolf, from wolves a dog he fled, and like a spy to both sides false he perished it. It quickened next a toyful ape, and so games him it was that it might freely go from tent to tent, and with the children play. His organs now so like theirs he defined that why he cannot laugh and speak his mind, he wonders. Much with all, most he thus stay with Adam's fifth daughter, Syphathessiae. Death gaze on her and, where she passeth, pass, gathers her fruits and tumbles on the grass, and wisest of that kind the first true lover was. He was the first that more desired to have one than another, first that air did crave love by mute signs, and had no power to speak, first that could make love faces, or could do the vultures somersaults, or used to woo with pointing gables, his own bones to break to make his mistress marry, or to wreak her anger on himself. Sins against kind they easily do that can let feed their mind with outward beauty, beauty they in boys and beasts do find. By this misled, two low things men approved, and two high. Beasts and angels have been loved. This ape, though else through vain, in this was wise. He reached at things too high, but open way there was, and he knew not she would say nay. His toys prevail not, likelier means he tries. He gazeeth on her face with tear-shot eyes, and uplifts subtly with his russet paw her kidskin apron without fear or awe of nature. Nature hath no jail, though she hath law. First she was silly, and knew not what he meant. That virtue, by his touches, chafed and spent, succeeds in itchy warmth that melts her quite. She knew not first, now cares not what she doth, and willing half and more, more than half loath, she neither pulls nor pushes, but outright now cries and now repents. When Tethlamite her brother entered, and a great stone through after the ape, who thus prevented, flew. This house thus battered down, the soul possessed anew. And whether by this change she lose or win, she comes out next, where the ape would have gone in. Adam and Eve had mingled bloods, and now, like gimmicks equal fires, her temperate womb had stewed and formed it, and part had become a spongy liver that did richly allow like a free conduit on a high hill's brow, life-keeping moisture unto every part. Part hardened itself to a thicker heart, whose busy furnaces life spirits to impart. Another part became the well of sense, the tender well-armed feeling brain, from whence those sinuous strings which do our body's tie are reveled out, and fast there by one end did this soul limbs, these limbs a soul attend. And now they joined, keeping some quality of every past shape, she knew treachery, rapid, deceit, and lust, and ill-sin-ow to be a woman. Themek, she is now, sister and wife to Cain, Cain that first did plow. Who ere thou beast that reads this sullen writ, which just so much courts thee as thou rest it? Let me arrest thy thoughts, wonder with me, why plowing, building, ruling, and the rest, for most of those arts quints our lives are blessed, by cursed Cain's race invented be, and blessed Seth vexed us with astronomy. There's nothing simply good nor ill alone of every quality, comparison, the only measure is, and judge, opinion. The end of the progress of the soul. The end of metham psychosis. End of John Dunn Satires. Recording by Thomas Copeland.