who, to maintaine a paltry warren of vnprofitable
Conies, disimparkes the stately swift-footed wild
Deere: But let thine receiue his full growth, that
thou maiest safely and wisely brag 'tis thine owne
_Bush-Naturall_.
And with all consider that, as those trees of
cobweblawne (wouen by Spinners the fresh May-mornings)
doe dresse the curled heads of the mountaines,
and adorne the swelling bosomes of the
valleyes: Or, as those snowy fleeces, which the naked
bryer steales from the innocent nibbling sheep, to
make himselfe a warm winter liuery, are to either of
them both an excellent ornament: So make thou
account, that to haue fethers sticking heere and there
on thy head, will embellish, and set thy crowne out
rarely. None dare vpbraid thee, that like a begger
thou hast lyen on straw, or like a trauelling Pedler
vpon musty flockes: for those feathers will rise vp as
witnesses to choake him that sayes so, and to proue
that thy bed was of the softest downe.
When / your noblest Gallants consecrate their houres
to their Mistresses and to Reuelling, they weare
fethers then chiefly in their hattes, being one of the
fairest ensignes of their brauery: But thou, a Reueller
and a Mistris-seruer all the yeare, by wearing fethers
in thy haire, whose length before the rigorous edge of
any puritanicall paire of scizzers should shorten the
breadth of a finger, let the three huswifely spinsters
of Destiny rather curtall the thread of thy life. O no,
long hair is the onely nette that women spread
abroad to entrappe men in; and why should not men
be as far aboue women in that commodity, as they
go beyond men in others? The merry _Greekes_ were
called [Greek: Karêchomoôntes] long-haired: loose not thou
(being an honest _Troian_) that honour, sithence it will
more fairely become thee. Grasse is the haire of the
earth, which, so long as it is suffred to grow, it
becomes the wearer, and carries a most pleasing
colour, but when the Sunne-burnt clowne makes his
mowes at it, and (like a Barber) shaues it off to the
stumps, then it withers and is good for nothing but
to be trust vp and thrown amongst Jades. How
vgly is a bald pate? it lookes like a face wanting a
nose; or, like ground eaten bare with the arrowes of
Archers, whereas a head al hid in haire giues euen
to a most wicked face a sweet proportion, and lookes
like a meddow newly marryed to the _Spring_: which
beauty in men the Turkes enuying, they no sooner
lay hold on a Christian, but the first marke they set
vpon him, to make him know hees a slaue, is to shaue
off all his haire close to the scull. A _Mahumetan_
cruelty therefore is it, to stuffe breeches and tennis-balles
with that, which, when tis once lost, all the
hare-hunters in the world may sweat their hearts out,
and yet hardly catch it againe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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