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(From Epithalmia, or Nuptial Poems, 1612)
EPIGRAM 1 ’TIS said, in marriage above all the rest | |
| The children of a king find comforts least, | |
| Because without respect of love or hate | |
| They must, and oft be, ruled by the State; | |
| But if contented love, religion’s care, | 5 |
| Equality in state, and years declare | |
| A happy match, as I suppose no less, | |
| Then rare and great’s Eliza’s happiness. | |
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EPIGRAM 2 God was the first that marriage did ordain, | |
| By making one, two; and two, one again. | 10 |
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EPIGRAM 3 Soldier, of thee I ask, for thou canst best, | |
| Having known sorrow, judge of joy and rest; | |
| What greater bliss than after all thy harms | |
| To have a wife that’s fair and lawful thine, | |
| And lying prison’d ’twixt her ivory arms, | 15 |
| There tell what thou hast ’scaped by powers divine? | |
| How many round thee thou hast murdered seen, | |
| How oft thy soul hath been near-hand expiring, | |
| How many times thy flesh hath wounded been: | |
| Whilst she thy fortune and thy worth admiring, | 20 |
| With joy of health and pity of thy pain, | |
| Doth weep and kiss, and kiss and weep again. | |
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EPIGRAM 4 Fair Helen having stain’d her husband’s bed, | |
| And mortal hatred ’twixt two kingdoms bred, | |
| Had still remaining in her so much good | 25 |
| That heroes for her lost their dearest blood: | |
| Then if with all that ill such worth many last, | |
| Oh, what is she worth that’s as fair—and chaste! | |
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EPIGRAM 5 Old Orpheus knew a good wife’s worth so well | |
| That when his died he followed her to hell, | 30 |
| And for her loss at the Elysian grove | |
| He did not only ghosts to pity move, | |
| But the sad poet breathed his sighs so deep, | |
| ’Tis said, the devils could not choose but weep. | |
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EPIGRAM 6 Long did I wonder, and I wonder much, | 35 |
| Rome’s Church should from her clergy take that due: | |
| Thought I, why should she that contentment grutch? | |
| What, doth she all with continence endue? | |
| No; but why then are they debarr’d that state? | |
| Is she become a foe unto her own? | 40 |
| Doth she the members of her body hate, | |
| Or is it for some other cause unshown? | |
| Oh yes, they find a woman’s lips so dainty, | |
| They tie themselves from one ’cause they’ll have twenty. | |
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EPIGRAM 7 Women, as some men say, unconstant be; | 45 |
| ’Tis like enough, and so no doubt are men: | |
| Nay, if their scapes we could so plainly see, | |
| I fear that scarce there will be one for ten. | |
| Men have but their own lusts that tempt to ill: | |
| Women had lusts and men’s allurements too: | 50 |
| Alas, if their strengths cannot curb their will, | |
| What should poor women, that are weaker, do? | |
| O, they had meed be chaste and look about them, | |
| That strive ’gainst lust within and knives without them. | |
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