| |
| THOU shalt not laugh in this leaf, Muse, nor they | |
| Whom any pity warms. He which did lay | |
| Rules to make courtiers—he being understood | |
| May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good?— | |
| Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme | 5 |
| 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? 1 If all things be in all | |
| —As I think, since all which were, are, and shall | 10 |
| Be, be made of the same elements, | |
| Each thing each thing implies 2 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 | 15 |
| That which drowns them run; these self reasons do | |
| Prove the world a man, in which officers | |
| Are the devouring stomach, and suitors | |
| Th’ excrements which they void. All men are dust; | |
| How much worse are suitors, who to men’s lust | 20 |
| Are made preys? O, 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 | 25 |
| Adulterate law, and you prepare the way; | |
| Like wittols, th’ issue your own ruin is. | |
| Greatest and fairest empress, know you this? | |
| Alas, no more than Thames’ calm head doth know | |
| Whose meads her arms drown, or whose corn o’erflow. | 30 |
| You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I, | |
| By having leave to serve, am most richly | |
| For service paid, authorized now begin | |
| To know and weed out this enormous sin. | |
| O age of rusty iron!—some better wit | 35 |
| Call it some worse name, if aught equal it— | |
| Th’ iron age that was, when justice was sold—now | |
| Injustice is sold dearer—did allow | |
| All claimed fees and duties. Gamesters, anon, 3 | |
| The money which you sweat and swear for is gone | 40 |
| Into other hands. So controverted lands | |
| ’Scape, like Angelica, the striver’s 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 | 45 |
| Flows from the first main head, and these can throw | |
| Thee, if they suck thee in, to misery, | |
| To fetters, halters. But if the injury | |
| Steel thee to dare complain; alas, thou goest | |
| Against the stream, upwards, when thou art most | 50 |
| Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they, | |
| ’Gainst whom thou shouldst complain, will in thy way 4 | |
| Become great seas, o’er which, when thou shalt be | |
| Forced to make golden bridges, thou shalt see | |
| That all thy gold was drown’d in them before. | 55 |
| All things follow their like; only who have, may have more. | |
| Judges are gods; he who made and said them so, 5 | |
| Meant not men should be forced to them to go, | |
| By means of angels. When supplications | |
| We send to God; to Dominations, | 60 |
| Powers, Cherubins, and all heaven’s courts, 6 if we | |
| Should pay fees as here, daily bread would be | |
| Scarce to kings; so ’tis. Would it not anger | |
| A Stoic, a coward, yea a martyr, | |
| To see a pursuivant come in, and call | 65 |
| All his clothes copes, books primers, and all | |
| His plate chalices, and mis-take them away, | |
| And lack 7 a fee for coming? Oh! ne’er may | |
| Fair Law’s white reverend name be strumpeted, | |
| To warrant thefts; she is established | 70 |
| Recorder to Destiny on earth, and she | |
| Speaks Fate’s words, and but tells us who must be | |
| Rich, who poor; who in chairs, who in gaols. | |
| She is all fair, but yet hath foul long nails, | |
| With which she scratcheth suitors; in bodies | 75 |
| Of men, so in law, nails are extremities. | |
| So officers stretch to more than law can do, | |
| As our nails reach what no else part comes to. | |
| Why barest thou to yon officer? Fool! hath he | |
| Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee? | 80 |
| Fool! twice, thrice thou hast bought wrong, and now hungrily | |
| Beg’st right, but that dole comes not till these die. | |
| Thou hadst much, and laws Urim and Thummim try | |
| Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper | |
| Enough to clothe all the great Carrick’s pepper. | 85 |
| Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese | |
| Then Hammon 8 if he sold his antiquities. | |
| O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize | |
| Esop’s fables, and make tales prophecies. | |
| Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cozened, 9 | 90 |
| And divest, near drowning, for what vanished. 10 | |
