The Second Week, Second Day, Part I: The Arke

THE ARGUMENT.

Noah prepares the Ark: and thither brings
(With him) a Seed-payr of all liuing things:
His exercise, a ship-board: Atheist Cham
His holy Fathers humble Zeal doth blame;
And diversly impugns Gods Prouidence:
Noah refells his Faith-less arguments:
The Flood surceast: Th' Ark-landed: Blood forbid:
The Rain-bowe bent; what it pre-figured:
Wine drowneth Wit: Cham scoffs the Nakednes
Of's sleeping Sire: the Map of Drunkennes.

IF Now no more my sacred rimes distill
With Art-less ease from my discustom'd quill:
If now the Laurell, that but lately shaded
My beating temples, be dis-leav'd and vaded:
And if now, banisht from the learned Fount,
And cast down head-long from the lofty Mount
Where sweet Vrania sitteth to indite,
Mine humbled Muse flag in a lowely flight;
Blame these sad Times ingratefull cruelty,
My houshold cares, my healths infirmity,
My drooping sorrows for (late) grieuous losses,
My busie suits, and other bitter crosses.

Lo, there the clogs that weigh down heavily
My best endevours, whilom soaring high:
My harvest's hail: the pricking thorns and weeds
That in my soule choak those diviner seeds.
O gracious God! remove my great incumbers,
Kindle again my faiths neer-dying imbers:
Asswage thine anger (for thine own Sons merit)
And from me (Lord) take not thy holy Spirit:
Comb, gild, and polish, more then ever yet,
This latter issue of my labouring wit:
And let not me be like the winde, that proudly
Begins at first to roar and murmur loudly
Against the next hils, over-turns the Woods,
With furious tempest tumbles-vp the floods,
And (fiercely-fell) with stormy puffs constrains
The sparkling flints to roule about the Plains;
But flying, faints; and every league it goes
One nimble feather of his wing doth lose:
But rather like a River poorly-breeding
In barren Rocks, thence drop by drop proceeding:
Which, toward the Sea, the more he flies his source,
With growing streams strengthens his gliding course,
Rowles, roars, and foams, raging with rest-less motion,
And proudly scorns the greatnes of the Ocean.

THE DOOMS of Adam lackt not long effect.
For, th' angry Heav'ns (that can, without respect
Of persons, plague the stubborn Reprobate)
In Waters buried th' Vniuersall-state:
And never more the nimble painted Legions
With hardy wings had cleft the ayrie Regions:
We all had perisht, and the Earth in vain
Had brought such store of fruits, and grass, and grain,
If Lamechs Son (by new-found Art directed)
That huge vast vessell had not first erected,
Which (sacred refuge) kept the parent-payrs
Of all things moving in the Earth and Ayrs.

Now, while the Worlds-re-colonizing Boat
Doth on the waters over Mountains float,
Noe passeth not with tales, and idle play,
The tedious length of dayes and nights away:
But, as the Sommers sweet distilling drops,
Vpon the medowes thirsty yawning chops,
Re-greens the Greens, and doth the flowrs re-flowr,
All scorcht and burnt with Auster's parching powr:
So the care-charming hony that distills
From his wise lips, his house with comfort fils,
Flatters despair, dries tears, calms inward smarts,
And re-aduanceth sorrow-daunted harts,

Cheer ye, my children: God doth now retire
These murdering Seas, which the revenging ire
Of his strict Iustice holy indignation
Hath brought vpon this wicked generation;
Arming a season, to destroy mankinde,
The angry Heav'ns, the water, and the winde:
As, soon again his gracious Mercy will
Clear cloudy Heav'ns, calm windes, and waters still.

His wrath and mercy follow turn by turn;
That (like the Lightning) doth not lightly burn
Long in a place: and this from age to age
Hides with her wings the faithfull heritage.
Our gracious God makes scant-weight of displeasure,
And spreads his mercy without weight or measure:
Somtimes he strikes vs (to especiall ends)
Vpon our selues, our Children, or our friends,
In soule or body, goods, or else good names,
But soon he casts his rods in burning flames:
Not with the fist, but finger he doth beat vs;
Nor doth hethrill so oft as he doth threat-vs:
And (prudent Steward) giues his faithfull Bees
Wine of his wrath, to rebell Drones the Lees.
And thus the deeds of Heav'ns Iust-gentle King,
The Second Worlds good Patriarch did sing.

But, brutish Cham, that in his brest accurst,
The secret roots of sinfull Atheisme nurst;
Wishing already to dis-throne th' Eternall,
And self-vsurp the Maiesty supernall:
And to himself, by name of Iupiter,
On Afrik sands a sumptuous Temple rear:
With bended brows, with stout and stern aspect,
In scornfull tearms his Father thus be-checkt.

Oh! how it grieves me, that these servil terrors
(The scourge of Cowards, and base vulgars errors)
Haue ta'n such deep root in your feeble brest!
Why, Father, alwayes selfly thus deprest,
Will you thus alwaies make yourself a drudge,
Fearing the fury of a fained Iudge?
And will you alwaies forge your self a Censor
That weighs your words, and doth your silence censure?
A sly Controuler, that doth count your hairs,
That in his hand your hearts keys ever bears,
Records your sighes, and all your thoughts descries,
And all your sins present and past espies?
A barbarous Butcher that with bloudy knife
Threats night and day your grieuous-guilty life?

O! see you not, the superstitious heat
Of this blinde zeal, doth in your minde beget
A thousand errors? light credulity
Doth drive you still to each extreamity,
Faining a God (with thousand storms opprest)
Fainter then Women, fiercer then a Beast.

Who (tender-hearted) weeps at others weeping,
Wails others woes, and at the onely peeping
Of others bloud, in suddain swoun deceases,
In manly breast a womans heart possesses:
And who (remorse-less) lets at any season,
The stormy tyde of ragetransport his reason,
And thunders threats of horror and mishap,
Hides a Bears heart vnder a humane shape.
Yet, of your God, you one-while thus pretend;
He melts in tears, if that your fingers end
But akea-while: anon, he frets, he frowns,
He burns, he brains, he kils, he dams, he drowns.

The wildest Boar doth but one Wood destroy;
A cruell Tyrant but one Landannoy:
And yet this Gods outrageous tyranny
Spoyls all the World, his onely Empery.

O goodly Iustice! One or two of vs
Have sinn'd perhaps, and mov'd his anger thus;
All bear the pain, yea even the innocent
Poor Birds and Beasts incurr the punishment.

No, Father, no: ('t is folly to infer it)
God is no varying, light, inconstant spirit,
Full of revenge, and wrath, and moody hate,
Nor savage-fell, nor suddain passionate,
Nor such as will for som small fault vndoo
This goodly World, and his owne nature too.

All wandring clouds, all humid exhalations,
All Seas (which Heav'n through many generations
Hath hoorded-vp) with selfs-weight enter-crusht,
Now all at once vpon the earth have rusht:
And th' endless, thin ayr (which by secret quils
Had lost it self within the windes-but hils
Dark hollow Caves, and in that gloomy hold
To ycy crystall turned by the cold)
Now swiftly surging towards Heav'n again,
Hath not alone drown'd all the lowly Plain,
But in fewe dayes with raging Flouds o're-flowen
The top-less Cedars of mount Libanon.

Then, with iust grief the godly Father gall'd,
A deep, sad, sigh from his harts centre hal'd,
And thus repli'd: O false, rebellious Cham!
Mine ages sorrow, and my houses shame,
Through self-conceipt contemning th' holy-Ghost,
Thy sense is baend, thine vnderstanding lost:
And O I fear (Lord falsifie my fear)
The heavy hand of the high Thunderer
Shall light on thee; and thou I doubt shaltbe
His Furies obiect, and shalt testifie
By thine infamous lifes accursed state,
What now thy shame-less lips sophisticate.

I (God be prays'd) knowe that the perfect CIRCLE
Whose Center's every-where, of all his circle
Exceeds the circuit; I conceiue aright
Th' Al-mighty-most to be most infinit:
That th' onely ESSENCE feels not in his minde
The furious tempests of fell passions winde:
That mooveless, all he moves: that with one thought
He can build Heav'n; and builded, bring to nought:
That his high Throne 's inclos'd in glorious Fier
Past our approach: that our faint soule doth tier,
Our spirit growes spright-less, when it seeks by sense
To sound his infinit Omni-potence.
I surely knowe, the Cherubins do hover
With flaming wings his starry face to cover.
Nonesees the Great, th' Almighty, Holy-ONE,
But passing by and by the back alone.
To vs, his Essence is in-explicable,
Wondrous his wayes, his name vn-vtterable;
So that concerning his high Maiesty
Our feeble tongues speak but improperly.
For, if we call him strong, the prayse is small:
If blessed spirit, so are his Angels all:
If Great of greats, he's voide of quantity:
If good, fayr, holy, he wants quality;
Sith in his Essence fully excellent,
All is pure substance, free from accident.
Therefore our voice, too-faint in such a subiect
T' ensue our soule, and our weak soule her obiect,
Doth alwayes stammer; so that ever when
'T would make Gods nameredoubted among men;
(In humane phraze) it calls him pittifull,
Repentant, iealous, fierce, and anger-full.

Yet is not God by this repentance, thus,
Of ignorance and error taxt, likevs:
His iealous hatred doth not make him curious,
His pitty wretched; nor his anger furious.
Th' immortall Spirit is ever calmly-cleer:
And all the best that feeble man doth heer,
With vehemence of som hot passion driv'n;
That, withripeiudgement doth the King of Heav'n.

Shall a Physician comfortably-bold.
Fear-less, and tear-less, constantly behold
His sickly friend vext with exceeding pain,
And feel his pulse, and give him health again?
And shall not th' euer-self-resembling God
Look down from Heav'n vpon a wretched clod,
Without he weep, and melt for grief and anguish;
Nor cure his creature, but himself must languish?

And shall a Iudge, self-angerless, prefer
To shamefull death the strange adulterer;
As onely looking fixly all the time
Not on the sinner, but the sinfull crime?
And shall not then th' Eternall Iusticer
Condemn the Atheist and the Murderer,
Without selfs-fury? O! shall Iustice then
Be blam'd in God, and magnifi'd in men?
Or shall his sacred Will, and soverain Might
Be chayn'd so fast to mans frail appetite,
That filthy sin he cannot freely hate,
But wrathfull Rage him selfly-cruciate?

Gods sacred vengeance, serues not for defence
Of his own Essence from our violence
(For in the Heav'ns, above all reach of ours,
He dwels immur'd in diamantine Towers):
But, to direct our lives and laws maintain,
Guard Innocence, and Iniury restrain.

Th' Almighty past not mean, when he subuerted
Neer all the World from holy paths departed.
For, Adams Trunk (of both our Worlds the Tree)
In two fair Branches forking fruitfully,
Of Cain and Seth; the first brought forth a sute
Of bitter, wilde, and most detested fruit:
Th' other, first rich in goodnes, afterward
With those base Scyons being graft, was marr'd:
And so produced execrable clusters
Worthy so wicked and incestuous lusters:
And then (alas!) what was ther to be found
Pure, iust, or good, in all this Earthly Round?

Cain's Line possest sinne, as an heritage;
Seth's, as a dowry got by mariage:
So that, (alas!) among all humane-kinde
Those mongrell kisses marr'd the purest minde.
And we (even we, that have escaped here
This cruell wrack) within our conscience bear
A thousand Records of a thousand things
Convincing vs before the King of kings;
Whereof not one (for all our self-affection)
We can defend with any iust obiection.

God playd no Tyrant, choaking with the floods
The earthly Bands and all the ayrie broods:
For, sith they liv'd but for mans seruice sole,
Man, raz'd for sin out of the Liuing Roule,
Those wondrous tools, and organs excellent,
Their Work-man reft, remain'd impertinent.
Man's only head of all that draweth breath.
Who lacks a member; yet persevereth
To liue (we see): but, members cut away
From their own head, do by and by decay.

Nor was God cruell, when he drown'd the Earth
For, sit hence man had from his very birth
Rebeld against him, was't not equity,
That for his fault, his house should vtterly
Be rent and raz'd? that salt should there besow'n,
That in the ruins (for instruction)
We for a time might read and vnderstand
The righteous vengeance of Heav'ns wrathfull hand,
That wrought this Deluge: and no hoorded waves
Of ayry clouds, or vnder-earthly caves?

If all blew Curtins mixt of ayr and water,
Round-over-spreading this wide All-Theater,
To som one Climate all at once should fly,
One Country they might drown vndoubtedly:
But our great Galley hauing gone so far,
So many months, in sight of either Star,
From Pole to Pole through sundry Climats whorld,
Showes that this Flood hath drowned all the world.

Now non-plust, if to re-inforce thy Camp,
Thou fly for succour to thine Ayery Damp:
Showe, in the concave of what Mountains steep
We may imagine Dens sufficient deep
For so much ayr as gushing out in fountains,
Should hide the proud tops of the highest Mountains;
Sith a whole tun of ayr scarce yeelds (in tryall)
Water ynough to fill one little Viall.
And what should then betide those empty spaces?
What should succeed in the forsaken places
Of th' air's thin parts (in swift springs shrinking thence)
Sith there's no voyd in th' All-circumference?

Whence (wilt thou say) then coms this raging flood,
That over-flowes the windy Ryphean Wood,
Mount Libanus, and enviously aspires
To quench the light of the celestiall fires?

Whence (shall I say) then, whence-from coms it (Cham)
That Wolves, and Panthers waxing meek and tame,
Leaving the horror of their shady home,
Adiourn'd by Heav'n, did in my presence com,
Who holding subiect vnder my command
So many creatures humbled at my hand,
And now restor'd to th' honour and estate,
Whence Adam fell through sin and Satans hate?
Whence doth it com, or by what reason is't,
That vn-mann'd Haggards to mine empty fist
Com without call? Whence coms it, that so little
Fresh water, fodder, meal, and other victuall,
Should serue so long so many a greedy-gut
As in the dark holds of this Ark is shut?
That heer the Partridge doth not dread the Hauk?
Nor fearfull Hare the spotted Tiger baulk?
That all these storms our Vessell haue not broak?
That all this while we doe not ioyntly choak
With noysom breath, and excrementall stink
Of such a common and continuall sink?
And that ourselues, 'mid all these deaths, are sav'd
From these All-Seas, where all the rest are Grav'd?

In all the compass of our floating Inns,
Are not so many planks, and boords, and pins,
As wonders strange, and miracles that ground
Mans wrangling Reason, and his wits confound:
And God, no less his mighty powr displayd
When he restor'd, then when the World he made.
O sacred Patron! pacifie thine ire,
Bring home our Hulk: these angry floods retire;
A-liue and dead, let vs perceiue and proove
Thy wrath on others, on our selues thy love.

Thus Noah sweetens his Captivity,
Beguiles the time, and charms his misery,
Hoping in God alone: who, in the Mountains
Now slopping close the veins of all the Fountains,
Shutting Heav'ns sluees, causing th' ayr (controul'd)
Close-vp his channels, and his Seas with-hould,
Cals forth the windes. O Heav'ns fresh fans (quoth he)
Earths sweeping Brooms, O Forrests enmity,
O you my Heralds and my Harbengers
My nimble Postes and speedy Messengers,
Mine arms, my sinews, and mine Eagles swift
That through the ayr my rowling Chariot lift;
When from my mouth, in my iust-kindled ire
Fly Sulphry fumes, and hot consuming fire,
When with my Lightning Scepters dreadfull wonder
I muster horror, darknes, clouds, and thunder:
Wake, rise, and run, and drink these waters dry,
That hills and dales haue hidden from the sky.

Th' Aeolian Crowd obays his mighty call,
The surly surges of the waters fall,
The Sea retreateth: and the sacred Keel
Lands on a Hill, at whose proud feet doo kneel
A thousand Hills, his lofty horn adoring
That cleaues the clouds, the starry welkin goaring.

Then hope-cheer'd Noah, first of all (for scout)
Sends forth the Crowe, who flutters neer-about;
And finding yet no landing place at all,
Returns a-boord to his great Admirall.

Som few dayes after from the window flyes
The harm-less Doue for new discoveries:
But seeing yet no shoar, she (almost tyr'd)
A-boord the Carrack back again retyr'd.

But yer the Sun had seav'n Heav'n-Circuits rode,
To view the World a-fresh she flyes abroad;
And brings a-boord (at evening) in her bill
And Oliue branch with water pearled still.

O happy presage! O deer pledge of loue!
O wel-com newes! behold, the peacefull Doue
Brings in her beak the Peace-branch, boading weal
And truce with God; who by this sacred seal
Kindely confirms his holy Couenant,
That first, in fight the Tiger rage shall want,
Lions be cowards, Hares couragious,
Yer he be false in word or deed to vs.
O sacred Oliue! firstling of the fruits,
Health-boading branch, be it thy tender roots
Haue lived still, while this strange Deluge lasted,
I doe reioyce it hath not all things wasted:
Or be it, since the Ebb, thou newly spring,
Prays'd be the bounty of th' immortall King
That quickens thus these dead, the World induing
With beauty fresh so suddainly renuing.

Thus Noah spake: And though the World gan lift
Most of his Iles above the waters drift,
Though waxen old in his long weary night,
He see a friendly Sun to brandish bright:
Though choak't with ill ayr in his stinking staul,
Hee'l not a-shoar till God be pleas'd with-all;
And till (devout) from Heav'n he vnderstand
Som Oracle to licence him to land.

But, warn'd by Heav'n, he commeth from his Cave,
(Or rather from a foul infectious grave)
With Sem, Cham, Iapheth, and their twice-two Brides,
And thousand pairs of living things besides,
Vnclean and clean: for, th' holy Patriark
Had of all kinds inclosed in the Ark.

But, heer I hear th' vngodly (that for fear
Late whispered softly in each others ear,
With silent murmurs muttering secretly)
Now trumpet thus their filthy blasphemy;

Who will beleeve (but shallow-brained Sheep)
That such a ship scarce thirty Cubits deep,
Thrice fifty long, and but once fifty large,
So many months could bear so great a charge?
Sith the proud Horse, the rough-skinn'd Elephant,
The lusty Bull, the Camell water-want,
And the Rhmocerot, would, with their fodder,
Fill-vp a Hulk fa•r deeper, longer, broader?

O profane mockers! if I but exclude
Out of this Vessell a vast multitude
Of since-born mongrels, that deriue their birth
From monstrous medly of Venerian mirth;
Fantastik Mules, and spotted Leopards,
Of incest-heat ingendred afterwards:
So many sorts of Dogs, of Cocks, and Doves,
Since, dayly sprung from strange and mingled loues,
Wherein from time to time in various sort,
Dedalian Nature seems her to disport:
If playner, yet I proue you space by space,
And foot by foot, that all this ample place,
By subtill iudgement made and Symmetrie,
Mi•ht lodge so many creatures handsomly,
Sith euery brace was Geometricall:
Nought resteth (Momes) for your reply at all;
If, who dispute with God, may be content
To take, for currant, Reasons argument.

But heer t' admire th' Al-mighties powrfull hand
I rather loue, and silence to command
To mans discourse: what he hath said, is don:
For, euermore his word and deed are one.

By his sole arm, the Gallions Masters saw
Themselues safe rescu'd from Deaths yawning iaw;
And offer-vpto him, in zealous wise,
The Peace full sent of sweet burnt-sacrifice;
And send with-all above the starry Pole
These winged sighes from a religious soule.

World-shaking Father, Windes-King, calming-Seas,
With milde aspect behold vs: Lord appease
Thine Angers tempest, and to safety bring
The planks escap't from this sad Perishing.
And bound for ever in their ancient Caues
These stormy Seas deep World-deuouring waues.

Increase (quoth God) and quickly multiply,
And fill the World with fruitfull Progeny:
Resume your Scepter, and with new beheasts
Bridle again the late revolted Beasts,
Re-exercise your wonted rule again,
It is your office over them to raign:
Deer Children, vse them all: take, kill, and eat:
But yet abstain and doe not take for meat
Their ruddy soule: and leaue (O sacred seed!)
To rav'ning Fowls, of strangled flesh to feed.

I, I am holy: be you holy then.
I deeply hate all cruell bloody men:
Therefore defile not in your brothers blood
Your guilty hands; refrain from cruell mood;
Fly homicide: doe not in any case,
In man, mine Image brutishly deface:
The cruell man a cruell death shall taste;
And blood with blood be venged first or last;
For evermore vpon the murderers head
My roaring storms of fury shall be shed.

From hence-forth, fear no second Flood that shall.
Cover the whole face of this earthly Ball:
I assure ye no; no, no, I swear to you
(And who hath ever found mine Oath vntrue?)
Again, I swear by my thrice-sacred Name:
And to confirm it, in the Clouds I frame
This coloured Bowe. When then som tempest black
Shall threat again the fearfull World to wrack,
When water-loaden Heav'ns your Hils shal touch,
When th' ayr with Midnight shall your Noon be-pitch,
Your cheerfull looks vp to this Rain-bowe cast.
For, though the same on moystful Clouds be plaç't,
Though hemm'd with showrs, and though it seem to sup
(To drown the World) all th' Oceans waters vp,
Yet shall it (when you seem in danger sink)
Make you, of me; me of my promise, think.

Noah looks-vp, and in the Ayr he views
A semi-Circle of a hundred hews:
Which, bright ascending toward th' aethereall thrones,
Hath a lyne drawn between two Orizons
For iust Diameter: an even-bent bowe
Contriv'd of three; whereof the one doth showe
To be all painted of a golden hew,
The second green, the third an orient blew;
Yet so, that in this pure blew-golden-green
Still (Opal-like) som changeable is seen.
A Bowe bright-shining in th' Arch-Archers hand,
Whose subtill string seems levell with the Land,
Half-parting Heav'n; and over vs it bends,
Within two Seas wetting his horned ends;
A temporall beauty of the lampfull skies,
Where powrfull Nature showes her freshest dies.

And if you onely blew and red perceiue;
The same as signes of Sea, and Fire conceiue;
Of both the flowing and the flaming Doom,
The Iudgement past, and Iudgement yet to come.

Then, having call'd on God, our second Father
Suffers not sloth his arms together gather,
But fals to work, and wisely now renew'th
The Trade he learn'd to practice in his youth.
For, the proud issue of that Tyrant rude
That first his hand in brothers bloud imbrewd,
As scorning Ploughs, and hating harm-less tillage,
And (wantons) prising less the homely village,
With fields and Woods, then th' idle Citties-shades;
Imbraced Laws, Scepters, and Arts, and Trades.
But Seths Sons, knowing Nature soberly
Content with little, fell to Husbandry,
There to reducing with industrious care,
The Flocks and Droues cover'd with wooll and hair;
As prayse-full gain, and profit void of strife,
Art nurse of Arts, and very life of life.

So, the bright honour of the Heav'nly Tapers
Had scarcely boxed ali th' Earths dropsie vapours,
When hee that sav'd the store-seed-World from wrack,
Began to delve his fruitfull Mothers back,
And there soon-after planteth heedfully
The brittle branches of the Nectar-tree.

For, 'mong the pebbles of a pretty hill
To the warm Suns ey lying open still,
He sets in furrows or in shallow trenches
The crooked Vines choice scyons, shoots, and branches:
In March he delves them, re-re-delves, and dresses,
Cuts, props, and proins; and God his work so blesses,
That in the third September for his meed
The plentious Vintage doth his hopes exceed.

Then Noah, willing to beguile the rage
Of bitter griefs that vext his feeble age,
To see with mud so many Roofs o're-growen,
And him left almost in the World alone,
One-day a little from his strictness shrunk,
And making merry, drinking, over-drunk:
And, silly, thinking in that hony-gall
To drown his woes, he drowns his wits and all.

His head growes giddy, and his foot indents,
A mighty fume his troubled brain torments,
His idle prattle from the purpose quite,
Is abrupt, stuttering, all confus'd, and light:
His wine-stuft stomack wrung with winde he feels:
His trembling Tent all topsi-turuie wheels:
At last, not able on his legs to stand,
More like a foul Swine then a sober man,
Opprest with sleep, he wallows on the ground,
His shame-lesse snorting trunk, so deeply drownd
In self oblivion, that he did not hide
Those parts that Caesar covered when he died.

Ev'n as the Ravens with windy wings o're-fly
The weeping Woods of Happy Araby,
Despise sweet Gardens and delicious Bowrs
Perfuming Heav'n with odoriferous flowrs,
And greedy light vpon the loath som quarters
Of som late Lopez, o• such Romish Martyrs:
Or as a young, vnskilfull, Painter raw,
Doth carelesly the fairest features draw
In any face, and yet too neerely marks
Th' vn pleasing blemish of deformed marks,
As lips too-great, or hollowness of eys,
Or sinking nose, or such indecencies:
Euen so th' vngodly Sonns of Leasings Father
With black Obliuions sponge ingrately smother
Fair Vertues draughts, and cast despightfully
On the least sinns the venom of the ey,
Fru•p others faults, and trumpet in all ages
The lightest trips of greatest Personages:
Like scoffing C•am that impudently viewd
His Fathers shame, and most profanely-lewd,
With scornefull laughter (grace-les) thus began
To infamize the poor old drunken man.

Com (brethren) com, com quickly and beholde
This pure controuler that so oft contrould
Vs without cause: see how his bed he soyls:
See, how the wine (his master) now recoyls
By's mouth, and eys, and nose: and brutely lo
To all that com his naked shame doth showe.

Ah shame-less beast (both brethren him reproov'd,
Both chiding thus, both with iust anger moov'd)
Vnnaturall villain, monster pestilent,
Vnworthy to behold the firmament.
Where (absent we) thou ought'st haue hid before
With thine owne Cloak, but with thy silence more,
Thy Fathers shame, whom age. strong wine, and grief,
Haue made to fall, but once in all his life;
Thou barkest first, and sporting at the matter
Proclaim'st his fault on infamies Theater.
And saying this, turning their sight a-side)
Their hoarie Fathers nakedness they hide.

When wine had wrought, this good old-man awook,
Agniz'd his crime, ashamed, wonder-strook
At strength of wine, and toucht with true repentance,
With Prophet-mouth ganthus his Sons fore-sentence:

Curst be thou Cham, and curst be (for thy scorn)
Thy darling Canaan: let the pearly Morn,
The radiant Noon, and rheumy Euening see
Thy neck still yoaked with Captiuitie.
God be with Sem: and let his gracious speed
Spread-wide my Iapheths fruitfull-swarming seed.

Error, no error, but a wilfull badnes:
O foul defect! O short, O dangerous madnes!
That in thy rage, doost harm-less Clytus smother,
By his deer friend; Pentheus by his Mother.
Phrenzy, that makes the vaunter insolent;
The talkfull, blab; cruell, the violent:
The fornicator, wax adulterous;
Th' adulterer, becom incestuous:
With thy plagues leauen swelling all our crimes;
Blinde, shameless, sense-less, quenching oftentimes
The soule within itself: and oft defames
The holiest men with execrable blames.
And as the Must, beginning to re-boyl,
Makes his new vessels wooden bands re-coyl,
Lifts-vp his lees, and spews with fuming vent
From his Tubs ground his scummy excrement:
So ruin'st thou thine hoast, and foolishly
From his harts bottom driv'st all secrecy.
But, hadst thou neuer don (O filthy poyson!)
More mischief heer, but thus bereft of reason
This Vertues Module (rather Vertues best)
We ought thee more then Death it self detest.