Classic Poem

SAT. 3.

Fuimus Trois.

VEL

Vix ea nostra.

VVhat boots it Pontice , tho thou could'st discourse
Of a long golden line of Ancestors?
Or shew their painted faces gaylie drest,
From euer since before the last conquest;
Or tedious Bead-roles of descended blood,
From Father Iaphet since Deucalions flood,
Or call some old Church-windowes to record
The age of thy fayre Armes,
Or find some figures halfe obliterate
In rain-beat Marble neare to the Church-gate,
Vpon a Crosse-leg'd Toombe: what boots it thee
To shew the rusted Buckle that did tie
The Garter of thy greatest Grand-sires knee?
What to reserue their reliques many yeares,
Their siluer-spurs, or spils of broken speares;
Or cyte olde Oclands verse, how they did weild
The wars in Turwin , or in Turney field?
And if thou canst in picking strawes engage,
In one halfe day thy fathers heritage,
Or hide what euer treasures he the got,
In some deepe Cock-pit; or in desperate Lot
Vpon a sixe-square peece of Iuorie,
Throw both thy selfe, and thy posteritie?
Or if (O shame!) in hired Harlots bed
Thy wealthie heyre-dome thou haue buried:
Then Pontice little boots thee to discourse
Of a long golden line of Ancestors.
Ventrous Fortunio his farme hath sold,
And gads to Guiane land to fish for gold,
Meeting perhaps, if Orenoque denye,
Some stragling pinnace of Polonian Rie.
Then comes home floting with a silken sayle,
That Seuerne shaketh with his Canon-peale;
Wiser Raymundus in his closet pent,
Laughs at such danger and aduenturement;
When halfe his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And now his second hopefull glasse is broke.
But yet if haply his third fornace hold,
Deuoteth all his pots and pans to gold;
So spend thou Pontice , if thou canst not spare,
Like some stout sea-man or Philosopher ;
And were thy fathers gentle? that's their praise,
No thanke to thee by whom their name decays;
By vertue got they it, and valourous deed,
Do thou so Pontice , and be honoured:
But else looke how their vertue was their owne,
Not capable of propagation,
Right so their titles beene, nor can be thine,
Whose ill deserts might blanke their golden line.
Tell me, thou gentle Troian ; dost thou prise
Thy brute beasts worth by their dams qualities?
Say'st thou this Colt shall prooue a swift-pac'd steed
Onely because a Iennet did him breed?
Or say'st thou this same Horsse shall win the prize,
Because his dame was swiftest Trunchefice ,
Or Runceuall his Syre; himselfe a Gallaway ?
Whiles like a tireling Iade he lags half-way;
Or whiles thou seest some of thy Stallion-race ,
Their eyes boar'd out, masking the Millers-maze,
Like to a Scythian slaue sworne to the payle;
Or dragging froathy barrels at his tayle?
Albee wise Nature in her prouidence,
Wont in the want of reason and of sence,
Traduce the natiue vertue with the kind,
Making all brute and sencelesse things inclin'd,
Vnto their cause, or place where they were sowne;
That one is like to all, and all like one.
Was neuer Foxe, but wylie cubs begets,
The Beare his feirce-nesse to his brood besets;
Nor fearefull Hare fals out of Lyons seed,
Nor Eagle wont the tender Doue to breed;
Creet euer wont the Cypresse sad to beare,
Acheron banks the palish Popelare;
The Palme doth rifely rise in Iury field,
And Alpheus waters nought but Oliues wild.
Asopus breeds big Bul-rushes alone,
Meander heath; Peaches by Nilus growne;
An English Wolfe, and Irish Toad to see,
Were as a chast-man nurs'd in Italy .
And now when Nature giues another guide,
To humane kind that in his bosome bides:
Aboue instinct, his reason and discourse,
His beeing better, is his life the worse?
Ah me! how seldome see we sonnes succeed
Their Fathers praise in prowesse and great deed?
Yet certes if the Syre be ill inclin'd,
His faults befal his sonnes by course of kind.
Scaurus was couetous; his sonne not so,
But not his pared nayle will hee forgoe:
Florian the syre did women loue alife,
And so his sonne doth too, all, but his wife:
Brag of thy Fathers faults, they are thine owne;
Brag of his lands, if those be not forgone:
Brag of thine owne good deeds, for they are thine,
More than his life, or lands, or golden line.