The Argument
Here I intend mysteriously to singWith a pen pluck’d from Fame’s own wing,Of Gargantua that learn’d breech-wiping king.
Decade the First.
I
Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blazeBenumbs me! I must sound the praiseOf him hath turn’d this crabbed work in such heroic phrase.
II
What wit would not court martyrdom to holdUpon his head a laurel of gold,Where for each rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told:
III
And such a one is this, art’s masterpiece,A thing ne’er equall’d by old Greece:A thing ne’er match’d as yet, a real Golden Fleece.
IV
Vice is a soldier fights against mankind;Which you may look but never find:For ’tis an envious thing, with cunning interlined.
V
And thus he rails at drinking all before ’em,And for lewd women does be-whore ’em,And brings their painted faces and black patches to th’ quorum.
VI
To drink he was a furious enemyContented with a six-penny—(with diamond hatband, silver spurs, six horses.) pie—
VII
And for tobacco’s pate-rotunding smoke,Much had he said, and much more spoke,But ’twas not then found out, so the design was broke.
VIII
Muse! Fancy! Faith! come now arise aloud,Assembled in a blue-vein’d cloud,And this tall infant in angelic arms now shroud.
IX
To praise it further I would now beginWere ‘t now a thoroughfare and inn,It harbours vice, though ‘t be to catch it in a gin.