Great wits and valours, like great states,
Do sometimes sink with their own weights:[1]270
Th' extremes of glory and of shame,
Like east and west, become the same.[2]
No Indian Prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
But if a beating seems so brave,275
What glories must a whipping have?
Such great achievements cannot fail
To cast salt on a woman's tail:[3]
For if I thought your nat'ral talent
Of passive courage were so gallant,280
As you strain hard to have it thought,
I could grow amorous, and dote.
When Hudibras this language heard,
He prick'd up's ears, and strok'd his beard;
Thought he, this is the lucky hour,285
Wines work when vines are in the flower:[4]
This crisis then I'll set my rest on,[5]
And put her boldly to the question.
Madam, What you would seem to doubt
Shall be to all the world made out,290
How I've been drubb'd, and with what spirit
And magnanimity I bear it;
And if you doubt it to be true,
I'll stake myself down against you:
And if I fail in love or troth,295
Be you the winner, and take both.
- ↑ Thus Horace (Ep. xvi.) said that Rome was falling through the excess of its power.
- ↑ That is, glory and shame, which though opposite as east and west, sometimes become the same; exemplifying the proverb: "Extremes meet."
- ↑ Alluding to the common saying:—You will catch the bird if you throw salt on his tail.
- ↑ A proverbial expression for the fairest and best opportunity of doing anything. It was the common belief of brewers, distillers of gin, and vinegar-makers, that their liquors fermented best when the plants used in them were in flower. (See Sir Kenelm Digby's "Discourse concerning the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy," p. 79.) Hudibras compares himself to the vine in flower, for he thinks he has set the widow fermenting.
- ↑ Crisis is used here in the classical sense of "judgment" or "decision of a question."
