VIRGIDEMIARVM

The three last Bookes.

Of byting Satyres.

Corrected and amended with fome
Additions. by I. H.

Imprinted at London for Robert

Dexter, at the figne of the Brafen

Serpent in Paules Church yard.

1599.

THE AUTHORS

CHARGE TO HIS SATYRES.

YE luck-lesse rymes, whom not vnkindly spight
Begot long since of Trueth and holy Rage,
Lye heere, in wombe of Silence and still Night,
Vntill the broyles of next vnquiet age:

That which is others graue, shal be your wombe, 5
And that which beares you, your eternall toombe.

Cease ere ye gin, and ere ye liue be dead,
And dye and liue ere euer ye be borne,
And be not bore, ere ye be buried,
Then after liue, sith you haue dy'd beforne;
When I am dead and rotten in the dust,
Then gin to liue, and leaue when others lust.

For when I die, shall enuie die with mee,

And lye deepe smothered with my marble stone,
Which while I liue cannot be done to dye,
Nor, if your life gin ere my life be done,

Will hardly yeeld t'await my mourning hearse,
dead corps change my liuing verse.

But for

my

10

15

What shall the ashes of my

senselesse vrne,

20

Neede to regard the rauing world aboue,
Sith afterwards I neuer can returne

To feele the force of hatred or of loue?

Oh, if my soule could see their post-hume spight, Should it not ioy and triumph in the sight!

What euer eye shalt finde this hatefull scrole
After the date of my deare Exequies,
Ah pitty thou my playning Orphanes dole,
That faine would see the sunne before it dies.
It dy'de before, now let it liue againe,
Then let it die, and bide some famous bane.
Satis est potuisse videri.

25

30

VIRGIDEMIARVM.

LIB. IV.

SAT. I.

CHE BAIAR VUOL, BAI.

WHO dares vpbraid these open rimes of mine
With blindfold Aquines, or darke Venusine?
Or rough-hew'ne Teretismes, writ in th' antique vain,
Like an old Satyre, and new Flaccian?

Which who reads thrise, and rubs his rugged brow, 5
And deepe intendeth euery doubtfull row,

Scoring the margent with his blazing stars,
And hundreth crooked interlinears,

(Like to a merchants debt-role new defac't,

When some crack'd Manour crost his book at last,) 10
Should all in rage the curse-beat page out-riue,
And in ech dust-heape bury mee aliue,
Stamping like Bucephall, whose slackned raines
And bloody fet-lockes fry with seuen mens braines;
More cruell than the crauon Satyres ghost,
That bound dead bones vnto a burning post;

D

15