To whose commendations, let me glew this piece more, that it is the most excellent place for dispatching of old suites in the world, for a number of riding suites (that had lyen long in lauander) were worne out there, only with seruing amongst the hot shots, that marcht there vp and downe: let Westminster therefore, Temple-bar, and Fleetestreete, drinke off this draught of Rosa solis, to fetch life into them againe, after their so often swounding, that those few Iurors that went thither (if any did goe thither) haue tane an oath neuer to sit at Winchester-Ordinary againe, if they can choose, but rather to breake their fasts in the old Abbey behinde Westminster, with Pudding-Pyes, and Furmenty.
Deliuer Copies of these Newes (good Nobody) to none of thy acquaintance (as thou tenderst me) and thou shalt commaund any seruice at my hands: for I haue an intent to hire three or foure Ballad-makers, who I know will be glad for sixe pence and a dinner, to turne all this limping Prose into more perfectly-halting Verse, that it shall doe any true-borne Citizens heart good, to heare such doings sung to some filthie tune, and so farewell. Turne ouer a new leafe, and try if I handle the Plague in his right kind.
Deuoted to none but thy selfe, Some-body.
NEWES FROM GRAUES-ENDE.
TO Sicknes, and to Queazie Tymes,
We drinke a health in wholesome Rymes,
Phisicke we inuoke thy aide,
Thou (that borne in heauen) art made
A lackey to the meanest creature,
Mother of health; thou nurse of nature,
Equall friend to rich and poore,
At whose hands, Kings can get no more,
Than emptie Beggers; O thou wise
In nothing but in Misteries!
Thou that ha’st of earth the rule,
Where (like an Academe, or Schoole)
Thou readst deep Lectures to thy sonnes,
(Mens Demi-gods) Phisitions;
Who thereby learne the abstruse powers
Of Hearbs, of Roots, of Plants, of Flowers,
And suck from poysonous stinking weede
Preseruatiues, mans life to feede.
Thou nearest to a God, (for none
Can worke it, but a God alone,)
O graue Enchauntresse, deigne to breath
Thy Spells into vs, and bequeath
Thy sacred fires, that they may shine
In quick and vertuall medicine,
Arme vs to conuince this Foe,
This King of dead men, conquering so;
This hungry Plague, Cater to death,
Who eates vp all, yet famisheth:
Teach vs how we may repaire
These Ruines of the rotten Aire,
Or, if the Aires pollution can
So mortall strike through beast and man,
Or, if in blood corrupt, Death lye,
Or if one dead, cause others die,
How ere, thy soueraigne cures disperse,
And with that glory crowne our verse:
That we may yet saue many a soule
(Perchance now merry at his Bowle)
That ere our Tragick Song be don,
Must drinke this thick Contagion:
But (ô griefe) why do we atcite
The charmes of Phisick? whose numbd sprite
Now quakes, and nothing dare, or can,
Checkt by a more dread Magitian?
Sick is Phisicks selfe to see
Her Aphorismes prou’de a mockery:
For whilst shee’s turning o’re her bookes,
And on her drugs and simples lookes,
Shee’s run through owne armed heart,
(Th’infection flying aboue Art:)
Come therefore thou the best of Nine,
(Because the Saddest) euery line
That drops from Sorrowes pen is due
Only to thee, to Thee we sue:
Thou Tragick Maid, whose Fury’s spent
In dismall, and most black Ontent.
In Vprores, and in Fall of Kings,
Thou of Empires change that sings,
Of Dearths, of Warres, of Plagues, and laughes
At Funeralls, and Epitaphes:
Carowse thou to our thirstie soule
A full draught from the Thespian bowle,
That we may powre it out agen,
And drinke, in nombers Iuice to men,
Striking such horrors through their eares
Their haire may vpright stand with feares,
Till rich Heires meeting our strong verse
May not shrinck back, before it pierce
Their marble eye-balls, and there shead
One drop (at least) for him thats dead:
To worke which wonder, we will write
With Penns puld from that bird of night
(The shriking Owle) our Inck weele mix
With teares of widowes, (black as Stix)
The paper where our lynes shall meete,
Shall be a folded winding sheete,
And that the Scene may shew more full,
The Standish is a dead mans scull.
Inspire vs therefore how to tell
The Horror of a Plague, the Hell.
THE CAUSE OF THE PLAGUE.
NOR drops this venome, from that faire
And christall bosome of the Aire,
Whose ceaseles motion clarifies
All vaporous stench, that vpward flies
And with her vniuersall wings,
Thick poisonous fumes abroad she flings,
Till (like to Thunder) rudely tost,
Their malice is (by spreading) lost.
Yet must we graunt that from the veines
Of Rottennes and Filth, that reignes,
O’re heapes of bodies, slaine in warre,
From Carrion (that indangers farre)
From standing Pooles, or from the wombes
Of Vaults, of Muckhills, Graues, & Tombes,
From Boggs; from ranck and dampish Fenns,
From Moorish breaths, and nasty Denns,
The Sun drawes vp contagious Fumes,
Which falling downe burst into Rhewmes,
And thousand malladies beside,
By which our blood growes putrified.
Or, being by windes not swept from thence,
They houer there in cloudes condense,
Which suckt in by our spirits, there flies
Swift poyson through our Arteries,
And (not resisted) strait it choakes
The heart, with those pestiferous smoakes.
Thus Phisicke and Philosophy
Do preach, and (with this) Salues apply:
Which search, and vse with speede: but now
This monster breeds not thus: For how
(If this be prou’de) can any doubt
But that the Ayre does (round about)
In flakes of poyson drop on all,
The Sore being spread so generall?
Nor dare we so conclude: for then
Fruites, Fishes, Fowle, nor Beasts, nor Men
Should scape vnteinted, Grazing flocks
Would feede vpon their graues: the Oxe
Drop at the plough: the trauelling Horse
Would for a Rider beare a Coarse:
Th’ambitious Larke, (the Bird of state)
Whose wings do sweep heauens pearled gate,
As she descended (Then) would bring,
Pestilent Newes vnder each wing:
Then Riurs would drink poyson’d aire:
Trees shed their green and curled haire:
Fish swim to shore full of disease,
(For Pestilence would Fin the seas:)
And we should thinke their scaly barkes,
Hauing small speckles, had the markes.
No soule could moue: but sure there lyes
Some vengeance more then in the skies:
Nor (as a Taper, at whose beames
Ten thousands lights fetch golden streames,
And yet it selfe is burnt to death,)
Can we belieue
that one mans breath
Infected, and being blowne from him,
His poyson should to others swim:
For then who breath’d vpon the first?
Where did th’imbulked venome burst?
Or how scapte those that did diuide
The selfe-same bits with those that dide?
Drunke of the selfe-same cups, and laie
In Vlcerous beds, as close as they?
Or, those, who euery houre, (like Crowes)
Prey on dead carkasies: their nose
Still smelling to a graue: their feete
Still wrapt within a dead mans sheete!
Yet (the sad execution don)
Careles among their Canns they run,
And there (in scorne of Death or Fate)
Of the deceast they widely prate,
Yet snore vntoucht, and next day rise
To act in more new Tragedies:
Or (like so many bullets flying)
A thousand here and there being dying,
Death’s Text-bill clapt on euery dore,
Crosses on sides, behinde, before,
Yet the (i’th midst) stands fast: from whence
Comes this? youle say from Prouidence.
Tis so, and that’s the common Spell,
That leades our Ignorance, (blinde as hell)
And serues but as excuse, to keepe
The soule from search of things more deepe;
No, no, this black and burning starre
(Whose sulphurd drops, do scald so farre,)
Does neither houer o’re our heads,
Nor lyes it in our bloods, nor beds:
Nor is it stitcht to our attires,
Nor like wilde balls of running fires
Or thunderbolts, which where they light
Do either bruise, or kill out-right;
Yet by the violence of that Bound
Leape off, and giues a second wound:
But this fierce dragon (huge and fowle)
Sucks virid poyson from our soule,
Which being spit forth again, there raigns
Showers of Blisters, and of Blaines,
For euery man within him feedes
A worme which this contagion breedes;
Our heauenly parts are plaguy sick,
And there such leaprous spotts do stick,
That God in anger fills his hand
With Vengeance, throwing it on the land;
Sure tis some Capitall offence,
Some high, high Treason doth incense
Th’Eternall King, that thus we are
Arraign’d at Death most dreadfull barre;
Th’Inditement writ on Englands brest,
When other Countries (better blest)
Feele not the Iudges heauy doome
Whose breath (like Lightning doth consume
And (with a whip of Planets) scourges
The Veines of mortalls, In whom Surges
Of sinfull blood, Billowes of Lust
Stir vp the powres to acts vniust.
Whether they be Princes Errors,
Or faults of Peeres, pull downe these Terrors,
Or (because we may not erre,)
Lets sift it in particuler,
The Courtiers pride, lust, and excesse,
The Church mans painted holinesse;
The Lawyers grinding of the poore,
The Souldiers staruing at the doore,
Ragd, leane, and pale through want of blood,
Sold cheape by him for Countries good.
The Schollers enuy; Farmers curse,
When heau’ns rich Threasurer doth disburse
In bounteous heapes (to thankles men)
His vniuersall Blessings: then
This deluing Moale, for madness eates
Euen his owne lungs, and strange oathes sweates,
Because he cannot sell for pence,
Deare yeares, in spite of Prouidence.
Adde vnto these, the City sin
(Brought by seuen deadly monsters in)
Which doth all bowndes, and blushing scorne,
Because tis in the Freedome borne,
What Traines of Vice, (which euen Hell hates)
But haue bold passage through her gates?
Pride in Diet, Pride in Cloathing,
Pride in Building, pure in nothing,
And that she may not want disease
She sailes for it beyond the Seas,
With Antwerp will she drinke vp Rhene:
With Paris act the bloodiest Scene:
Or in pyed fashions passe her folly,
Mocking at heauen yet looke most holy:
Of Vsury shee’ll rob the Iewes,
Of Luxury, Venetian Stewes,
With Spaniards, shee’s an Indianist,
With barbarous Turks a Sodomist.
So low her Antique walls do stand,
These sinnes leape o’re euen with one hand:
And Hee, that all in modest black,
Whose Eye-ball strings shall sooner crack,
Then seeme to note a tempting face,
Measuring streets with a Doue-like pace,
Vnder that oyly vizard weares,
The poore mans sweat, and Orphans teares:
Now whether these particular Fates,
Or generall Moles (disfiguring States)
Whether one sin alone, or whether
This Maine Battalion ioynd together,
Do dare these plagues; we cannot tell,
But downe they beate all humane Spell:
Or, it may be, Iehouah lookes
But now vpon those Audit-Bookes
Of 45. yeares husht account,
For houres mispent, (whose summes surmount
The price of ransomd Kings) and there
Finding our grieuous debts, doth cleere
And crosse them vnder his owne hand,
Being paid with Liues, through all the land.
For since his Maiden. Seruant’s gone,
And his new Vizeroy fills the Throne,
Heauen meanes to giue him (as his bride)
A Nation new, and purified.
Take breath a while our panting Muse,
And to the world tell gladder newes,
Than these of Burialls, striue a while,
To make thy sullen nombers smile:
Forget the names of Graues, and Ghosts,
The sound of bells: the vnknowne coasts
Of Deaths vast Kingdome: and saile o’re
With fresher winde to happier Shore.
For now the maiden Ile hath got,
A Roiall Husband, (heauenly Lott)
Faire Scotland does faire England wed,
And giues her for her maiden-head,
A crowne of gold, wrought in a Ring,
With which Shee’s maried to a King:
Thou Beldame (whisperer of false Rumors)
Fame; cast aside those Antique humors,
Lift vp thy golden Tromp, and sound
Euen from Tweedes vtmost christ all bownd,
And from the bankes of Siluer Thames
To the greene Ocean, that King Iames
Had made an Iland, (that did stand
Halfe sinking) now the firmest land:
Carry thou this to Neptunes eare,
That his shrill Tritons it may beare,
So farre, vntill the Danish sound
With repercussiue voice rebound,
That Eccho’s (doubling more and more)
May reach the parched Indian shore,
For tis heau’ns care so great a wonder,
Should fly vpon the wings of Thunder.
THE HORROR OF THE PLAGUE.
O Thou my Countrie, here mine eyes
Are almost sunck in waues, that rise
From the rough winde of Sighs, to see
A spring that lately courted thee
In pompous brauery, All thy Bowers
Gilt by the Sunne, perfumde with flowers,
Now like a loathsome Leaperlying,
Her arbors withring, greene Trees dying,
Her Reuells, and May-meriments,
Turned all to Tragick dreeryments:
And thou (the mother of my breath)
Whose soft brest thousandes nourisheth,
Alrar of Ioue, thou throne of Kings:
Thou Fownt, where milke and hony springs,
Europs Iewell; Englands Iem:
Sister to great Ierusalem:
Neptunes minion, (bout whose wast
The Thames is like a girdle cast,)
Thou that (but health canst nothing want,
Empresse of Cities, Troynouant.
When I thy lofty Towers behold,
(Whose Pinnacles were tipt with gold
Both when the Sun did set and rise
So louely wert thou in his eies)
Now like old Monuments forsaken,
Or (like tall Pynes) by winter thaken;
Or, seeing thee gorgeous as a bride
Euen in the heigth of all thy pride
Disrobd’e, disgracte; And when all Nations
Made loue to thee in amorous passions,
Now scornd of all the world alone,
None seeke thee, nor must thou seeke none,
But like a prisoner must be kept
In thine owne walles, till thou hast wept
Thine eyes out, to behold thy sweete
Dead children heapt about thy feete:
O Derrest! say how can we chuse
But haue a sad and drooping Muse,
When Coarses do so choake thy way
That now thou lookst like Golgatha;
But thus, The altring of a State
Alteis our Bodies, and our Fate,
For Princes death’s do euen bespeake
Millions of liues; when Kingdomes breake,
People dissolue, and (as with Thunder)
Cities proud glories rent asunder.
Witnes thy walls, whose stony armes
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 204