Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN LESBIAM ET HISTROINEM, by THOMAS RANDOLPH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN LESBIAM ET HISTROINEM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I wonder what should madam lesbia mean
Last Line: He at one game keeps her, she him at all.


I WONDER what should Madam Lesbia mean
To keep young Histrio, and for what scene
So bravely she maintains him, that what sense
He please to bless, 'tis done at her expense!
The playboy spends secure; he shall have more,
As if both Indies did supply his store.
As if he did in bright Pactolus swim,
Or Tagus' yellow waves did water him,
And yet has no revenues to defray
These charges, but the madam; she must pay
His prodigal disbursements. Madams are
To such as he more than a treble share.
She pays (which is more than she needs to do)
For her own coming in, and for his too.
This is reward due to the sacred sin;
No charge too much done to the beardless chin,
Although she stint her poor old knight Sir John
To live upon his exhibition,
His hundred marks per annum, when her joy,
Her sanguine darling, her spruce, active boy,
May scatter angels, rub out silks, and shine
In cloths of gold; cry loud, The world is mine:
Keep his race-nags, and in Hyde Park be seen
Brisk as the best (as if the stage had been
Grown the Court's rival); can to Brackley go,
To Lincoln race, and to Newmarket too;
At each of these his hundred pounds has vied
On Peggabrigs or Shotten-herrings' side,
And loses without swearing. Let them curse
That neither have a Fortunatus' purse,
Nor such a madam. If this world do hold
(As very likely 'twill), madams grown old
Will be the best monopolies; Histrio may
At maw or gleek, or at primero play,
Still madam goes to stake; Histrio knows
Her worth, and therefore dices too; and goes
As deep a caster as the only son
Of a dead alderman, come to twenty-one
A whole week since. You'd know the reason why
Lesbia does this? -- guess you as well as I.
Than this I can no better reason tell,
'Tis' cause he plays the woman's part so well.
I see old madams are not only toil:
No tilth so fruitful as a barren soil.
Ah, poor day-labourers! how I pity you
That swink and sweat to live with much ado
When, had you wit to understand the right,
'Twere better wages to have work'd by night.
Yet some that, resting here, do only think
That youth with age is an unequal link,
Conclude that Histrio's task as hard must be
As was Maxaentius' bloody cruelty.
Who made the living to embrace the dead,
And so expire. But I am rather led
His bargain of the two the best to call:
He at one game keeps her, she him at all.





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