List, ye profane fair painted images,
Predestinated by the destinies
At your first being to fall eternally
Into Cimmerian black obscurity.
Ill-favoured idols, pride’s anatomy,
Foul-coloured puppets, balls of infamy,
Whom zealous souls do racket to and fro,
Sometimes aloft ye fly, otherwhiles below,
Bandied into the air’s loose continent,
Where hard upbearing winds hold parliament.
For such is the force of down-declining sin,
Where our short-feathered peacocks wallow in,
That when sweet motions urge them to aspire
They are so bathed o’er by sweet desire
In the odiferous fountain of sweet pleasure,
Wherein delight hath all embalmed her treasure
I mean where sin, the mistress of disgrace,
Hath residence and her abiding place.
And sin, though it be foul, yet fair in this,
In being painted with a show of bliss.
For what more happy creature to the eye
Than is Superbia in her bravery?
Yet who more foul disrobed of attire? —
Pearled with the botch as children burnt with fire,
That for their outward cloak upon the skin,
Worser enormities abound within.
Look they to that; truth tells them their amiss,
And in this glass, all-telling truth it is.
When welcome spring had clad the hills in green
And pretty whistling birds were heard and seen,
Superbia abroad ‘gan take her walk
With other peacocks for to find her talk.
Kyron, that in a bush lay closely couched,
Heard all their chat, and how it was avouched.
‘Sister,’ says one, and softly packed away,
‘In what fair company did you dine to day?’ —
“Mongst gallant dames’ — and then she wipes her lips,
Placing both hands upon her whalebone hips,
Puffed up with a round circling farthingale;
That done, she ‘gins go forward with her tale:
‘Sitting at table carved of walnut tree,
All covered with damasked napery,
Garnished with salts of pure beaten gold,
Whose silver-plated edge of rarest mould
Moved admiration in my searching eye
To see the goldsmith’s rich artificy;
The butler’s placing of his manchets white,
The plated cupboard, for our more delight,
Whose golden beauty glancing from on high
Illuminated other chambers nigh;
The slowly pacing of the servingmen
Which were appointed to attend us then,
Holding in either hand a silver dish
Of costly cates of far-fetched dainty fish,
Until they do approach the table nigh,
Where the appointed carver carefully
Dischargeth them of their full-freighted hands,
Which instantly upon the table stands.
The music sweet, which all that while did sound,
Ravish the hearers, and their sense confound.
This done, the master of that sumptuous feast
In order ‘gins to place his welcome guest.
Beauty first seated in a throne of state,
Unmatchable, disdaining other mate,
Shone like the sun, whereon mine eyes still gazed,
Feeding on her perfections that amazed.
But O her silver-framed coronet
With low down-dangling spangles all beset,
Her sumptuous periwig, her curious curls,
Her high-prized necklace of entrailed pearls,
Her precious jewels wondrous to behold,
Her basest gem framed of the purest gold!
O I could kill my self for very spite,
That my dim stars give not so clear a light.
Heart-burning ire new kindled bids despair,
Since beauty lives in her, and I want fair.
O had I died in youth, or not been born,
Rather than live in hate, and die forlorn.
And die I will—’ Therewith she drew a knife
To kill herself, but Kyron saved her life.
See here, proud puppets, high-aspiring evils,
Scarce any good, most of you worse than devils,
Excellent in ill, ill in advising well,
Well in that’s worst, worse than the worst in hell.
Hell is stark blind; so blind most women be,
Blind, and yet not blind when they should not see.
Fine Madam Tiptoes in her velvet gown,
That quotes her paces in characters down,
Valuing each step that she had made that day,
Worth twenty shillings in her best array.
And why, forsooth, some little dirty spot
Hath fell upon her gown or petticoat.
Perhaps that nothing much, or something little,
Nothing in many’s view, in hers a mickle,
Doth thereon surfeit, and some day or two
She’s passing sick, and knows not what to do.
The poor handmaid, seeing her mistress wed
To frantic sickness, wishes she were dead,
Or that her devilish tyrannizing fits
May mend, and she enjoy her former wits.
For whilst that Health thus counterfeits Not-well,
Poor Here-at-Hand lives in the depth of hell.
‘Where is this baggage? where’s this girl? what hoi’
Quoth she, ‘was ever woman troubled so?
What, hussy Nan!’ And then she ‘gins to brawl.
Then in comes Nan, ‘Sooth mistress did you call?’ —
‘Out on thee, quean! now by the living God’ —
And then she strikes, and on the wench lays load.
Poor silly maid, with finger in the eye,
Sighing and sobbing takes all patiently.
Nimble Affection, stung to the very heart
To see her fellow mate sustain such smart,
Flies to the Burse gate for a match or two,
And salves th’amiss, there is no more to do.
Quickfooted kindness, quick as itself thought,
With that well-pleasing news but lately bought
By love’s assiduate care and industry,
Into the chamber runs immediately,
Where she unloads the freight of sweet content.
The haggler pleased doth rise incontinent.
Then thought of sickness is not thought upon;
Care hath no being in her mansion.
But former peacock pride, grand insolence,
Even in the highest thought hath residence.
But it on tiptoe stands: Well, what of that?
It is more prompt to fall and ruinate.
And fall it will when death’s shrill clamorous bell
Shall summon you unto the depth of hell.
Repent, proud princocks. Cease for to aspire,
Or die to live with pride in burning fire.