The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

by Thomas Nashe

  Nature in England is but Plain Dame, but in Spain and Italy, because they have more use of her than we, she is dubbed a Lady

  It is not for nothing that other countries, whom we upbraid with drunkenness, call us bursten-bellied gluttons; for we make our greedy paunches powdering-tubs240 of beef, and eat more meat at one meal than the Spaniard or Italian in a month. Good thrifty men, they draw out a dinner with sallets,241 like a Swart-rutter’s242 suit, and make Madonna Nature their best caterer. We must have our tables furnished like poulters’ stalls, or as though we were to victual Noah’s ark again wherein there was all sorts of living creatures that ever were, or else the good-wife will not open her mouth to bid one welcome. A stranger that should come to one of our magnificoes’ houses, when dinner were set on the board, and he not yet set, would think the goodman of the house were a haberdasher of wildfowl, or a merchant venturer of dainty meat, that sells commodity of good cheer by the great,243 and hath factors in Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Barbary, to provide him of strange birds, China mustard, and odd patterns to make custards by.244

  Lord, what a coil245 we have, with this course and that course, removing this dish higher, setting another lower, and taking away the third. A general might in less space remove his camp, than they stand disposing of their gluttony. And whereto tends all this gourmandise, but to give sleep gross humours to feed on, to corrupt the brain, and make it unapt and unwieldy for anything?

  The Roman censors, if they lighted upon a fat corpulent man, they straight away took away his horse, and constrained him to go afoot; positively concluding his carcase was so puffed up with gluttony or idleness. If we had such horse-takers amongst us, and that surfeit-swollen churls, who now ride on their foot-cloths, might be constrained to carry their flesh-budgets from place to place on foot, the price of velvet and cloth would fall with their bellies, and the gentle craft246 (alias, the red herring’s kinsmen) get more and drink less. Plenus venter nil agit libenter, et plures gula occidit quam gladius.247 It is as desperate a piece of service to sleep upon a full stomach as it is to serve in face of the bullet; a man is but his breath, and that may as well be stopped by putting too much in his mouth at once, as running on the mouth of the cannon. That is verified of us, which Horace writes of an outrageous eater in his time, Quicquid quæsierat ventri donabat avaro; ‘whatsoever he could rap or rend, he confiscated to his covetous gut.’ Nay, we are such flesh-eating Saracans248 that chaste fish may not content us, but we delight in the murder of innocent mutton, in the unpluming of pullery,249 and quartering of calves and oxen. It is horrible and detestable; no godly fishmonger that can digest it.

  A Rare Witty Jest of Doctor Watson

  Report, which our moderners clep250 floundering Fame, puts me in memory of a notable jest I heard long ago of Doctor Watson,251 very conducible to the reproof of these fleshly-minded Belials.* He being at supper on a fasting or fish night at least, with a great number of his friends and acquaintance, there chanced to be in the company an outlandish252 doctor, who, when all other fell to such victuals (agreeing to the time) as were before them, he over-slipped them, and there being one joint of flesh on the table for such as had weak stomachs, fell freshly to it. After that hunger, half conquered, had restored him to the use of his speech, for his excuse he said to his friend that brought him thither, ‘Profecto, Domine, ego sum malissimus piscator,’253 meaning by piscator, a fishman (which is a liberty, as also malissimus, that outlandish men in their familiar talk do challenge, at least above us). ‘At tu es bonissimus carnifex,’254 quoth Doctor Watson, retorting very merrily his own licentious figures upon him. So of us may it be said, we are malissimi piscatores, but bonissimi carnifices. I would English the jest for the edification of the temporality,255 but that it is not so good in English as in Latin; and though it were as good, it would not convert clubs and clouted shoon from the flesh pots of Egypt to the provant of the Low Countries; for they had rather (with the servingman) put up a supplication to the Parliament House that they might have a yard of pudding for a penny, than desire (with the baker) there might be three ounces of bread sold for a halfpenny.

  The Moderation of Friar Alphonso, King Philip’s Confessor

  Alphonsus, King Philip’s confessor, that came over with him to England, was such a moderate man in his diet, that he would feed but once a day, and at that time he would feed so slenderly and sparingly, as scarce served to keep life and soul together. One night, importunately invited to a solemn banquet, for fashion sake he sat down among the rest, but by no entreaty could be drawn to eat anything. At length, fruit being set on the board, he reached an apple out of the dish and put it in his pocket, which one marking, that sat right over against him, asked him, ‘Domine, cur es solicitus in crastinum? – Sir, why are you careful for the morrow?’ Whereto he answered most soberly, ‘Immo hoc facio, mi amice, ut ne sim solicitus in crastinum. No, I do it, my friend, that I may not be careful for the morrow.’ As though his appetite were a whole day contented with so little as an apple, and that it were enough to pay the morrow’s tribute to nature.

  The Strange Alteration of the County Molines, the Prince of Parma’s Companion

  Rare, and worthy to be registered to all posterities, is the County Moline’s256 (sometime the Prince of Parma’s companion) altered course of life,, who, being a man that lived in as great pomp and delicacy as was possible for a man to do, and one that wanted nothing but a kingdom that his heart could desire, upon a day entering into a deep melancholy by himself, he fell into a discursive consideration what this world was, how vain and transitory the pleasures thereof, and how many times he had offended God by surfeiting, gluttony, drunkenness, pride, whoredom, and such like, and how hard it was for him, that lived in that prosperity that he did, not to be entangled with those pleasures. Whereupon he presently resolved, twixt God and his own conscience, to forsake it and all his allurements, and betake him to the severest form of life used in their state. And with that called his soldiers and acquaintance together, and, making known his intent unto them, he distributed his living and possessions, which were infinite, amongst the poorest of them; and having not left himself the worth of one farthing under heaven, betook him to the most beggarly new erected257 Order of the Friar Capuchines. Their institution is, that they shall possess nothing whatsoever of their own more than the clothes on their backs, continually to go barefoot, wear hair shirts, and lie upon the hard boards, winter and summer time. They must have no meat, nor ask any but what is given them voluntarily, nor must they lay up any from meal to meal, but give it to the poor, or else it is a great penalty. In this severe humility lives this devout County, and hath done this twelvemonth, submitting himself to all the base drudgery of the house, as fetching water, making clean the rest of their chambers, insomuch as he is the junior of the order. Oh, what a notable rebuke were his honourable lowliness to succeeding pride, if this prostrate spirit of his were not the servant of superstition, or he mispent not his good works on a wrong faith.

  Let but our English belly-gods punish their pursy258 bodies with this strict penance, and profess Capuchinism but one month, and I’ll be their pledge they shall not grow so like dry-fats as they do. Oh, it will make them jolly longwinded, to trot up and down the dorter259 stairs, and the water-tankard will keep under the insurrection of their shoulders, the hair shirt will chase whoredom out of their bones, and the hard lodging on the boards take their flesh down a button-hole lower.

  But if they might be induced to distribute all their goods amongst the poor, it were to be hoped Saint Peter would let them dwell in the suburbs of heaven, whereas otherwise they must keep aloof at Pancredge,260 and not come near the liberties by five leagues and above. It is your doing, Diotrephes261 Devil, that these stall-fed cormorants to damnation must bung up all the wealth of the land in their snap-hance262 bags, and poor scholars and soldiers wander in back lanes and the out-shifts of the city, with never a rag to their backs. But our trust is, that by some intemperance or other, you will turn up thei
r heels one of these years together, and provide them of such unthrifts to their heirs, as shall spend in one week amongst good fellows what they got by extortion and oppression from gentlemen all their life-time.

  The Complaint of Drunkenness

  From gluttony in meats, let me descend to superfluity in drink: a sin that, ever since we have mixed ourselves with the Low Countries, is counted honourable, but, before we knew their lingering wars, was held in the highest degree of hatred that might be. Then, if we had seen a man go wallowing in the streets, or lain sleeping under the board, we would have spit at him as a toad, and called him foul drunken swine, and warned all our friends out of his company. Now, he is nobody that cannot drink super nagulum,* carouse the hunter’s hoop,263 quaff upsey freze cross,264 with healths, gloves, mumps, frolics,265 and a thousand such domineering inventions. He is reputed a peasant and a boor that will not take his liquor profoundly. And you shall hear a cavalier of the first feather, a princox266 that was but a page the other day in the Court, and now is all-to-be-frenchified in his soldier’s suit, stand upon terms267 with ‘God’s wounds, you dishonour me, sir, you do me the disgrace if you do not pledge me as much as I drunk to you;’ and, in the midst of his cups, stand vaunting his manhood, beginning every sentence with, ‘When I first bore arms’, when he never bare anything but his lord’s rapier after him in his life. If he have been over and visited a town of garrison, as a traveller or passenger, he hath as great experience as the greatest commander and chief leader in England. A mighty deformer of men’s manners and features is this unnecessary vice of all other. Let him be indued with never so many virtues, and have as much goodly proportion and favour as nature can bestow upon a man, yet if he be thirsty after his own destruction, and hath no joy nor comfort but when he is drowning his soul in a gallon pot, that one beastly imperfection will utterly obscure all that is commendable in him, and all his good qualities sink like lead down to the bottom of his carousing cups, where they will lie like lees and dregs, dead and unregarded of any man.

  Clim of the Clough,268 thou that usest to drink nothing but scalding lead and sulphur in hell, thou art not so greedy of thy night gear. Oh, but thou hast a foul swallow if it come once to carousing of human blood; but that’s but seldom, once in seven year, when there’s a great execution, otherwise thou art tied at rack and manger, and drinkest nothing but the aqua vitæ of vengeance all thy life-time. The proverb gives it forth thou art a knave, and therefore I have more hope thou art some manner of good fellow.269 Let me entreat thee, since thou hast other iniquities enough to circumvent us withal, to wipe this sin out of the catalogue of thy subtleties; help to blast the vines, that they may bear no more grapes, and sour the wines in the cellars of merchants’ store-houses, that our countrymen may not piss out all their wit and thrift against the walls.

  King Edgar’s Ordinance Against Drinking

  King Edgar, because his subjects should not offend in swilling and bibbing, as they did, caused certain iron cups to be chained to every fountain and well’s side, and at every vintner’s door, with iron pins in them, to stint every man how much he should drink; and he that went beyond one of those pins forfeited a penny for every draught. And, if stories were well searched, I believe hoops in quart pots were invented to that end, that every man should take his hoop, and no more.

  The Wonderful Abstinence of the Marquis of Pisana, Yet Living

  I have heard it justified for a truth by great personages, that the old Marquis of Pisana,270 who yet lives, drinks not once in seven year; and I have read of one Andron of Argos, that was so seldom thirsty, that he travelled over the hot, burning sands of Lybia, and never drank. Then why should our cold clime bring forth such fiery throats? Are we more thirsty than Spain and Italy, where the sun’s force is doubled? The Germans and Low Dutch, methinks, should be continually kept moist with the foggy air and stinking mists that arise out of their fenny soil; but as their country is over-flown with water, so are their heads always overflown with wine, and in their bellies they have standing quagmires and bogs of English beer.

  The Private Laws Amongst Drunkards

  One of their breed it was that writ the book De Arte Bibendi,271 a worshipful treatise fit for none but Silenus and his ass272 to set forth. Besides that volume, we have general rules and injunctions, as good as printed precepts, or statutes set down by Act of Parliament, that go from drunkard to drunkard; as still to keep your first man, not to leave any flocks in the bottom of the cup, to knock the glass on your thumb when you have done, to have some shoeing horn to pull on your wine, as a rasher off the coals or a red herring, to stir it about with a candle’s end to make it taste better, and not to hold your peace while the pot is stirring.

  The Eight Kinds of Drunkenness

  Nor have we one or two kinds of drunkards only, but eight kinds. The first is ape drunk, and he leaps, and sings, and holloes, and danceth for the heavens. The second is lion drunk, and he flings the pots about the house, calls his hostess whore, breaks the glass windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him. The third is swine drunk, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more clothes. The fourth is sheep drunk, wise in his own conceit when he cannot bring forth a right word. The fifth is maudlin drunk when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his ale, and kiss you, saying, ‘By God, captain, I love thee; go thy ways, thou dost not think so often of me as I do of thee; I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee so well as I do.’ And then he puts his finger in his eye and cries. The sixth is martin273 drunk, when a man is drunk and drinks himself sober ere he stir. The seventh is goat drunk, when, in his drunkenness, he hath no mind but on lechery. The eighth is fox drunk, when he is crafty drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, that will never bargain but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen practised in one company at one sitting, when I have been permitted to remain sober amongst them, only to note their several humours. He that plies any one of them hard, it will make him to write admirable verses, and to have a deep casting274 head, though he were never so very a dunce before.

  The Discommodities of Drunkenness

  Gentlemen, all you that will not have your brains twice sodden, your flesh rotten with the dropsy, that love not to go in greasy doublets, stockings out at the heels, and wear alehouse daggers at your backs: forswear this slavering bravery, that will make you have stinking breaths, and your bodies smell like brewers’ aprons; rather keep a snuff275 in the bottom of the glass to light you to bed withal, than leave never an eye in your head to lead you over the threshold. It will bring you in your old age to be companions with none but porters and car-men, to talk out of a cage,276 railing as drunken men are wont, a hundred boys wondering about them; and to die suddenly, as Fol Long the fencer did, drinking aqua vitæ. From which (as all the rest) good Lord deliver Pierce Penniless.

  The Complaint of Sloth

  The nurse of this enormity (as of all evils) is Idleness, or Sloth, which, having no painful providence to set himself a-work, runs headlong, with the reins in his own hand, into all lasdviousness and sensuality that may be. Men, when they are idle, and know not what to do, saith one, ‘Let us go to the Stilliard277 and drink Rhenish wine.’ ‘Nay, if a man knew where a good whorehouse were,’ said another, ‘it were somewhat like.’ ‘Nay,’ saith the third, ‘let us go to a dicing-house or a bowling-alley, and there we shall have some sport for our money.’ To one of these three (‘at hand’, quoth pick-purse) your evil angelship, master many-headed beast, conducts them. Ubi quid agitur,278 betwixt you and their souls be it, for I am no drawer, box-keeper, or pander, to be privy to their sports.

  If I were to paint Sloth (as I am not seen in the sweetening279 by Saint John the Evangelist I swear I would draw it like a stationer that I know, with his thumb under his girdle, who, if a man come to his stall and ask him for a book, never stirs his head or looks upon him, but stands stone still and speaks not a word; only with his little finger poin
ts backwards to his boy, who must be his interpreter, and so all the day, gaping like a dumb image, he sits without motion, except at such times as he goes to dinner or supper; for then he is as quick as other three, eating six times every day.* If I would range abroad, and look in at sluggards’ keyholes, I should find a number lying abed to save charges of ordinaries, and in winter, when they want firing, losing half a week’s commons together, to keep them warm in the linen. And hold you content, this summer an under-meal280 of an afternoon long doth not amiss to exercise the eyes withal. Fat men and farmers’ sons, that sweat much with eating hard cheese and drinking old wine, must have some more ease than young boys that take their pleasure all day running up and down.

  Which is Better of the Idle Glutton, or Vagrant Unthrift

  Setting jesting aside, I hold it a great, disputable question, which is a more evil man, of him that is an idle glutton at home, or a reckless unthrift abroad? The glutton at home doth nothing but engender diseases, pamper his flesh unto lust, and is good for none but his own gut. The unthrift abroad exerciseth his body at dancing school, fence school, tennis, and all such recreations; the vintners, the victuallers, the dicing-houses, and who not, get by him. Suppose he lose a little now and then at play, it teacheth him wit: and how should a man know to eschew vices, if his own experience did not acquaint him with their inconveniences? Omne ignotum pro magnifico est:281 that villainy we have made no assays in, we admire. Besides my vagrant reveller haunts plays and sharpens his wits with frequenting the company of poets; he emboldens his blushing face by courting fair women on the sudden, and looks into all estates by conversing with them in public places. Now tell me whether of these two, the heavy-headed, gluttonous house-dove, or this lively, wanton, young gallant, is like to prove the wiser man, and better member in the commonwealth? If my youth might not be thought partial, the fine qualified gentleman, although unstaid, should carry it clean away from the lazy clownish drone.