An Answer to a Love-Elegy in Latin

What Latin Sir? why there is no man

That e’re thought you an English-Roman.

Your Father Horse could teach you none,

Nor was it e’re your Mother tongue,

Your Education too assures

Me, that your Poem is not yours:

Besides, I thought you did detest

The Language of the Latin Beast,

But now your Impudence I see

Did hereby shew its Modesty;

Each syllable would blush you thought,

If it had bin plain English taught,

And that your foul debauched stuff

Might do its Errand fast enough,

Forsooth your Wisedom thought it meet

That Words might run to give ’em feet,

Pardon me, Sir, I’m none of those

That love Love-verse, give me your Prose,

I wish each Verse to make delay,

Had turn’d lame Seazon by the way,

I read a Hell in every line

Of your Polluted Fescennine;

Your Verses stunk; to keep ’em sweet

You should have put Socks on their Feet.

And that the Answer which I shall

Now write, may be Methodicall,

I’le briefly make (’tis not amiss)

An Anacephalœosis.

And first I look’d for Nestor; when

Mere Cupid trickl’d from your Pen,

Who was your Father, you make proof

By your Colt’s tooth, though not your hoof,

She that was great with you, you hold

Did not lye in, but was with fole’d.

I wonder one so old, so grave

Should yet such Youth, such Lightnesse have;

Of the Five Members you alone

Shall be esteem’d the Privy One,

Who (like the Gnosticks) preach your Text,

Increase and Multiply, and next

Convincing Doctrines you deduce,

Put out the Lights, and make Use.

You say I am a Maid exceeding

Apt to be taught by you good breeding.

But where there’s breeding, it is said

There’s none, unlesse a broken Maid

Turn Papist, (Stallion) they’le dispence

With Whoredom, by an Indulgence,

Turn Fryer, that thou mayst be free

At once with a whole Nunnery,

There ’twill be vertue to ride on

The Purple Whore of Babylon

Thou mayst as soon turn Turk, as King,

And that, O that’s the tempting thing

That thou mayst glut thy Appetite

With a Seraglio of Delight.

I am no Proserpine, that thus

I should desire an Incubus:

But you must vote (if Me you’le win)

No Fornication to be Sin,

You say the House takes it not well

The King ’gainst Rebells should Rebell;

And that’s the reason why you stand

To be Dictator of the Land,

Which mov’d me to a mighty toyle

Of getting Vardygrease and Oyle.

’Cause such Itch-Med’cine is a thing

That’s fittest to anoint you King.

You say youl’d undertake and do

Wonders, would I undergo you,

For my sake you would Cobler play,

Your Trade should be to underlay,

For Me you’d your chiefest blood,

Pray spend it on the Sisterhood,

You wish to dye in those great Fights

Of Venus, where each Wound delights,

And should I once to Heaven take wing,

Youl’d follow me, though in a string;

Thank you (good Sir) it is our Will

You your last Promise doe fulfill;

There’s nothing spoke that pleaseth us

Like your (In funes Cedulus)

Next come those idle Twittle-twats,

Which calls me many God-knows-whats,

As hallowed, beautifull, and faire,

Supple and kind, and Debonaire.

You talk of Women that did wooe,

When I am mad I’le do so too;

Then that my Father may not spye

The coupling of you and I,

He shall be guiltlessly detected,

As a true Subject ill-affected,

And so the Protestant shall lye

In Gaol for fear of Popery.

(From hence it is that every Town,

Almost is now a Prison grown,

Where Loyalty lies fetter’d, then

You do commit more sins than men.)

But those your words I have thought best,

Should punisht be by being prest;

And that this Body Politick

May then be well, which now lyes sick,

May the Greek II, that fatal Tree,

This Spring bear all such fruit as thee.