Age hath his infant youth, old trees their sprigs,
O’erspreading branches their inferior twigs.
Old beldam hath a daughter or a son,
True born or illegitimate, all’s one.
Issue she hath. The father? ask you me?
The house wide open stands; her lodging’s free.
Admit myself for recreation
Sometimes did enter her possession,
It argues not that I have been the man
That first kept revels in that mansion.
No, no, the haggling common place is old;
The tenement hath oft been bought and sold.
’Tis rotten now (‘earth to earth, dust to dust’).
Sodom’s on fire, and consume it must,
And wanting second reparations
Pluto hath seized the poor reversions.
But that hereafter worlds may truly know
What hemlocks and what rue there erst did grow,
As it is Satan’s usual policy,
He left an issue of like quality,
The still memorial, if I aim aright,
Is a pale chequered black hermaphrodite.
Sometimes he jets it like a gentleman,
Otherwhiles much like a wanton courtesan.
But truth to tell a man or woman whether,
I cannot say, she’s excellent in either.
But if report may certify a truth,
She’s neither of either, but a cheating youth.
Yet Troynovant, that all-admired town,
Where thousands still do travel up and down,
Of beauty’s counterfeits affords not one
So like a lovely smiling paragon
As is Pyander in a nymph’s attire,
Whose rolling eye sets gazers’ hearts on fire,
Whose cherry lip, black brow and smiles procure
Lust-burning buzzards to the tempting lure.
What, shall I cloak sin with a coward fear,
And suffer not Pyander’s sin appear?
I will, I will. — Your reason? — Why, I’ll tell,
Because time was I loved Pyander well.
True love indeed will hate love’s black defame;
So loathes my soul to seek Pyander’s shame.
O but I feel the worm of conscience sting,
And summons me upon my soul to bring
Sinful Pyander into open view,
There to receive the shame that will ensue.
O this sad passion of my heavy soul
Torments my heart and senses do control.
Shame thou, Pyander, for I can but shame;
The means of my amiss by thy means came.
And shall I then procure eternal blame
By secret cloaking of Pyander’s shame,
And he not blush?
By heaven I will not! I’ll not burn in hell
For false Pyander, though I loved him well.
No, no, the world shall know thy villainy,
Lest they be cheated with like roguery.
Walking the city as my wonted use,
There was I subject to this foul abuse;
Troubled with many thoughts pacing along,
It was my chance to shoulder in a throng,
Thrust to the channel I was, but crowding her,
I spied Pyander in a nymph’s attire.
No nymph more fair than did Pyander seem,
Had not Pyander then Pyander been.
No lady with a fairer face more graced,
But that Pyander’s self himself defaced.
Never was boy so pleasing to the heart
As was Pyander for a woman’s part.
Never did woman foster such another,
As was Pyander, but Pyander’s mother.
Fool that I was in my affection,
More happy I had it been a vision.
So far entangled was my soul by love
That force perforce I must Pyander prove,
The issue of which proof did testify
Ingling Pyander’s damned villainy.
I loved indeed and to my mickle cost;