Can I not have a Mistresse of my owne,
But that as soone as ever it is knowne
That she is mine, both he, and he, and he
Will court my Cynthia, and my Rivals be:
The cause of this is easily understood,
It is because (my Cynthia) thou art good,
And they desire, cause thou art good, and woman,
To make thee better, by making thee common.
Well, I do thanke them: but since thou canst be
No subject fit for this their charity,
As being too narrow and too small a bit
To feed so many mouths, know I will fit
Their palates with a mistresse, which I'le get,
The like whereof was never seene as yet:
For I for their sakes will a mistresse choose,
As never had a mayden-head to loose,
Or if she had, it was so timely gone,
She never could remember she had one.
She by antiquity, and her vile face
Of all whores els and bawds shall have the place;
One whose all parts, her nose, eyes, foot, and hand,
Shall so farre out of all proportion stand,
As it by Symmetry shall not be guest,
By any one, the feature of the rest.
She shall have such a face, I do intend,
As painting, nor yet carving, shall not mend:
A Bare anotomiz'd unburied coarse
Shall not more ghastly looke, nor yet stinke worse:
For at the generall resurrection
She shall lay claime to hell as to her owne
Inheritance and fee, for it is meant,
She comes not there by purchase, but descent:
One whose sins were they to be reckoned
By number of the haires upon her head,
There were but two to answer for at most,
One being the sinne against the holy Ghost.
And if a Physiognomer should eie,
And judge by rules of Metaposcopie,
Of vices and conditions of her minde,
He, as a face hid with the small pox should finde
As there one ulcer, so, but one vice there,
Spreading the whole, and that is every where:
Yet shall she have so many vices sow'd
In every limme, as paines shall be bestow'd
By Scholers and Logitians, to invent
A larger, and a wider predicament,
To comprehend her Cardinall vices all,
Which under no one Notion can fall.
Her shape shall be like th' earth, so round and rude,
As the beginning of her longitude
To finde, and to set downe, men shall be faine
T'importune the Popes judgement once againe:
Her cheekes and buttocks shall so neere agree
In shape and semblance, they shall seeme to bee
Twins by their likenesse, nor shall it be eath
To know, which is which by their fulsome breath:
When Palmisters, or Gypsies shall but looke
Upon her palme, they'le thinke they have mistooke,
And say they see some Cripples wither'd hand,
Or Mummy, stolne from Egypts partched sand,
And lastly, when she dyes, If some device
Make her not durt, her dust being turn'd to lice,
Shall make graves louzy, and dead bodies, which
Lie neere her, to be troubled with the Itch,
Which shall exceed the Lice in Egypt bred,
Which onely plagu'd the living, these the dead.
She shall be rottener than last Autumnes peares,
And more contagious than two plaguy yeares.
The Colledge of Physitians shall not
'Gainst her infection make an Antidote.
This Mistresse will I have, rather than one
Whom I may not enjoy my selfe alone:
And such a one I'le hate as faithfully,
As (dearest Cynthia) I have loved thee.