Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UPON A HERMAPHRODITE, by THOMAS RANDOLPH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UPON A HERMAPHRODITE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sir, or madam, choose you whether
Last Line: Coining thee both philip and mary.
Subject(s): Hermaphrodites


SIR, or madam, choose you whether:
Nature twists you both together,
And makes thy soul to each confess,
Both petticoat and breeches dress.
Thus we chastise the god of wine
With water that is feminine.
Till the cooler nymph abate
His wrath, and so concorporate.
Adam, till his rib was lost,
Had the sexes thus engross'd,
When Providence our sire did cleave,
And out of Adam carved Eve.
Then did man 'bout wedlock treat
To make his body up complete.
Thus matrimony speaks but thee
In a grave solemnity;
For man and wife make but one right
Canonical hermaphrodite.
Ravel thy body, and I find
In every limb a double kind.
Who would not think that head a pair,
That breeds such factions in the hair?
One half's so churlish in the touch,
That, rather than endure so much,
I would my tender limbs apparel
With Regulus his nailed barrel.
And the other half so small,
And so amorous withal,
That Cupid thinks each hair to grow
A string for his invisible bow.
When I look babies in thine eyes,
Here Venus, there Adonis lies.
And though thy beauty be high noon,
Thy orbs contain both sun and moon.
How many melting kisses skip
Betwixt thy male and female lip,
Betwixt thy upper brush of hair,
And thy nether beard's despair?
When thou speak'st (I would not wrong
Thy sweetness with a double tongue).
But, in every simple sound
A perfect dialogue is found.
Thy breasts distinguish one another;
This the sister, that the brother.
When thou join'st hands, my ears struck fancies
The nuptial sound, I, John, take Frances.
Feel but the difference, soft and rough:
This is a gauntlet, that a muff.
Had sly Ulysses at the sack
Of Troy brought thee his peddler's-pack,
And weapon too, to know Achilles
From King Nicomedes' Phillis,
His plot had fail'd; this hand would feel
The needle, that the warlike steel.
When music doth thy pace advance,
Thy right leg takes thy left to dance.
Nor is't a galliard danc'd by one,
But a mix'd dance, although alone.
Thus every heteroclite part
Changes its gender, but the heart.
And those which modesty can mean
(And dare not speak) are epicene.
That gamester needs must overcome,
That can play both Tib and Tom.
Thus did Nature's mintage vary,
Coining thee both Philip and Mary.





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