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Elegia IV. Quod amet mulieres, cujuscunque formæ sint. - Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe, vol. 3 (Poems) [1598]

Edition used:

The Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed. A.H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Christopher Marlowe, 3 vols.

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Elegia IV.
Quod amet mulieres, cujuscunque formæ sint.

  • I mean not to defend the scapes1 of any,
  • Or justify my vices being many;
  • For I confess, if that might merit favour,
  • Here I display my lewd and loose behaviour.
  • I loathe, yet after that I loathe I run:
  • Oh, how the burthen irks, that we should2 shun.
  • I cannot rule myself but where Love please;
  • Am1 driven like a ship upon rough seas.
  • No one face likes me best, all faces move,
  • A hundred reasons make me ever love.

    10

  • If any eye me with a modest look,
  • I burn,2 and by that blushful glance am took;
  • And she that's coy I like, for being no clown,
  • Methinks she would be nimble when she's down.
  • Though her sour looks a Sabine's brow resemble,
  • I think she'll do, but deeply can dissemble.
  • If she be learned, then for her skill I crave her;
  • If not, because she's simple I would have her.
  • Before Callimachus one prefers me far;
  • Seeing she likes my books, why should we jar?

    20

  • Another rails at me, and that I write,
  • Yet would I lie with her, if that I might:
  • Trips she, it likes me well; plods she, what than?3
  • She would be nimbler lying with a man.
  • And when one sweetly sings, then straight I long,
  • To quaver on her lips even in her song;
  • Or if one touch the lute with art and cunning,
  • Who would not love those hands4 for their swift running?
  • And her I like that with a majesty,
  • Folds up her arms, and makes low courtesy.

    30

  • To1 leave myself, that am in love with all,
  • Some one of these might make the chastest fall.
  • If she be tall, she's like an Amazon,
  • And therefore fills the bed she lies upon:
  • If short, she lies the rounder: to speak2 troth,
  • Both short and long please me, for I love both,
  • I3 think what one undecked would be, being drest;
  • Is she attired? then show her graces best.
  • A white wench thralls me, so doth golden yellow:
  • And nut-brown girls in doing have no fellow.

    40

  • If her white neck be shadowed with black hair,
  • Why, so was Leda's, yet was Leda fair.
  • Amber-tress'd4 is she? then on the morn think I:
  • My love alludes to every history:
  • A young wench pleaseth, and an old is good,
  • This for her looks, that for her womanhood:
  • Nay what is she, that any Roman loves,
  • But my ambitious ranging mind approves?

[1]“Mendosos … mores.”

[2]“Heu quam, quae studeas ponere, ferre grave est.”

[1]So eds. B, C.—Isham copy and ed. A “And.”

[1]This is Dyce's certain correction for the old eds. “blush.” (The originals has “uror.”)

[3]Then.

[4]Ed. A “those nimble hands.”

[1]“Ut taceam de me, qui causa tangor ab omni, dIllic Hippolytum pone, Priapus erit.”

[2]So Isham copy and ed. A.—Eds. B, C “say.”

[3]This and the next three lines are omitted in Isham copy and ed. A.

[4]So eds. B, C.— Isham copy and ed. A “yellow trest.”