Classic Poem

Come, gallants, come, by both our falles take heede;
With our fonde faults you most infected are:
You worke more wrong in slaunder then in deede,
And yet in deede your flatterie worketh scare.
Learne, learne by us, too lavish speach to spare;
Large offers though faire ladies ofte intice,
Thinke there be dames that wil not vaile to vice.

First mende your owne, ere others faults you blame;
See that your life before you teach you trie;
Plucke out the beame that blindes your fighte with shame,
So may you finde a moate in others eye:
What yet you note reprove not openly.
Observe this course, heare, see, and say the best,
For lavish words procureth much unrest.

Had we but wayde that halfe experience shewes,
We might have liv'd in honour, as of yore,
The want we waile, and warne you by our woes,
The least of which your hearts would much abhorre;
For what may be, then this a mischiefe more?
Once lustie lords, now prisd at lowest rate,
And free men borne, to live in banisht state.

What noble mynde, whose hands could weapons use,
Would brooke his handes should eyther reele or spinne?
To feede on crustes what foole would not refuse,
Whose coursest fare a messe of meate hath bin?
In this distresse perforce we lived in,
Too hard a plague, say you, for fault so small:
We thinke not so that have indurd the thrall.

For who at full may value honest fame?
Whose wound so deepe as his that slaunders carvd?
Our slaundrous thoughts suspected every dame,
Our slaundrous toungs sayd all from vertue swarv'd;
For which exile we worthily desarv'd.
She usde us well (whose praise we sought to spoyle)
In huswives trades for meate to make us moyle.

Our lande we lost, by lawe and wager both,
He wonne it well that ventured for the same,
But worse then these (the which to shewe I loth)
Our follies leave a memorie of shame,
Unto us both a corsive to our name.
Well, what is paste too late we call againe,
Sufficeth nowe we warne with proofe of paine.

And knowe ye first, what raisd this slaundrous thought:
Forsooth our lives in loytring daliance spent,
We other doomde by faults that they had wrought,
And joynd with this their spoyles by fonde consent,
Which yealded bound vnto our loving bent,
Did make us thinke, at every wanton whoope
To lures of love a ladie faire would stoope.

What yet we thought our toungs did sore recoyle.
In slaundring them our lives for to accuse,
For who so vaunts of any loving spoyle,
Confesseth howe him selfe he doth abuse,
The greatest vice that worthy mynds may use.
Deservsng wel, their worth who should not praise;
Deserving ill, much lesse a thousand wayes,

Oh stay we here! what meaneth our advise,
When we, God wot, so much of counsell neede?
And how againe shall we unhappie rise?
Alberto speake, what way shall we proceede?
And art thou mute? Udislaoes hart doth bleede,
Oh (men forlorne) how wretched is our state,
Whome heaven and earth oppresse with heapes of hate!

Who will esteeme our manhoode and our might,
By ladies force to carde, to spinne, and reele?
Where so we live all women will us spight,
And cause they have with such disdaine to deale,
Yet plagues ynow we else in penance feele.
O slaunder! thou on us these [ills] haste brought,
Foule fall the cause thou harboredst in our thought!

Had wretched we for treason banisht bin,
Some would have ru'de our miserie and mone,
But slaundrous speach is such a hatefull sinne,
As slaunders falls lamented are of none:
In bookes of shame their faults are rolld alone,
Their names are scornd, their presence ten times more;
All filthy vice that all men thus abhore.

This resteth, then, for us unhappie men,
To leade our lives in houltes and uncouth woods,
A hollowe cave, to make our homely den,
To foyle hunger with apples, hawes, and buds;
For nobles borne, God wot, but forrie foodes.
There we, poore we, must rue our harmes alone,
Or monsters make companions in our mone.

O friendly death! our worldly farewell give,
From hated fleshe our loathed life divorce.
Spare them, good death, the which in pleasure live,
And use at once on us thy matchlesse force;
To thee alone our woes sues for remorce,
When all is done our helpe remaines in thee:
Then strike with speede our sorrowes for to free.