Complete Poems (1600) - Page 16

The Cacozelia of Fernel, and of those who disguise the sacred books.

Nothing in all the world, Brassacus, seems to me to be more averse to the harlot’s sphere and aura than a matron. The more she paints herself, the paler she grows; and the more she fills herself, the more empty she becomes. I laugh if a physician, having spoken of filthy dregs, proceeds to puff himself up: and he has scarcely extracted from the tenth rank of words a single word that might suit the matter. Meanwhile, I wait sweating, wondering what will belch forth from his ample bubble. Thus I thirst, and nevertheless that rotten speech, swollen in the midst of dropsical waters, thirsts on, sounding like the empty drums of a wind-filled parent. Yet this is something: to insert curls and curling irons into a rustic art, bracelets, drops, earrings, and armlets—I shall not be so inept as to spurn these, if he has animated Arabian fruits with Latin dew: either the Arabian ones, or those which have brought forth a crown for the Greeks. But let him not wretchedly torment my hovering spirit. Hey, you—feed me, do not kill me. Delay will kill. Take it: I will follow you. Behold, lead me captive by the ears wherever you wish. But if someone advises that he should grant me the rights of a modest spirit, teaching me to endure, just as I would wish my own crimes to be endured: I shall accept and I shall suffer, provided he does not prepare to extort praises from me in exchange for his indulgence. I shall forgive him, but I shall refuse to praise him. And I shall bid him applaud himself, and, with me and the people silent, to have rented a theater for himself within his own wall: a thing which neither posterity nor these our ages shall round off. So much the less, see, and the more—and most unwillingly—shall I read those things which have confounded the profane jests of Nymphs and Proteus into sacred songs, and such nefarious monsters of that kind. Nor shall I sing again those decrees which, taken from the holy mouth of the Solymean King, he has wrapped in unsweet Muses.