The Pastime of Pleasure: An Allegorical PoemHawes, Stephen
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The Pastime of Pleasure: An Allegorical Poem
Hawes, Stephen
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
And gramer is the fyrst foundement
Of every science to have construccyon:
Who knewe gramer wythout impediment
Shoulde perfytely have intelleccion
Of a lytterall cense and moralyzacion.
To construe every thynge ententifly,
The worde is gramer wel and ordinatly.
By worde the world was made orygynally,
The hye Kynge sayde, it was made incontinent;
He dyd commaunde, al was made shortly.
To the world the worde is sentencious judgemente.
I marked well dame Gramers sentement,
And of her than I dyd take my lycence,
Goynge to Logyke wyth all my dylygence.
CAP. VI.
HOW HE WAS RECEYVED OF LOGYCKE.
So up I went unto a chambre bryghte,
Where was wonte to be a ryght fayre lady,
Before whome than, it was my hole delyght,
I kneeled adowne ful well and mekely,
Besechynge her to enstructe me shortely
In her noble science, which is expedient
For man to knowe in many an argument.
You shall, quod she, my scyence wel lerne,
In tyme and space, to your gret utilite;
So that in lokynge you shal than decerne
A frende from fo, and good from iniquyte:
Ryght from wronge ye shall know in certainte.
My scyence is all the yll to eschewe,
And for to knowe the false from the trewe.
Who wyll take payne to folowe the trace,
In this wrecched world, of trouth and ryghtwysenes,
In heven above he shal have dwellynge place.
And who that walketh the waye of derkenes,
Spendyng his tyme in worldly wretchednes,
Amyddes the erth, in hel most horrible,
He shall have payne nothyng extinguyssible.
So by logyke is good perceyveraunce
To devyde the good and the evyll asondre:
It is alwaye at mannes pleasaunce
To take the good and caste the evyll under.
If God made hell, it is thereof no wonder,
For to punyshe man that hadde intelligence,
To knowe goode from yll by trewe experience.
Logyke alwaye doth make probacion,
Provyng the pro well from the contrary,
In sondry wyse by argumentacion,
Grounded on reason well and wonderly.
Who understod all Logyke truely,
Nothynge by reason myght be in pledynge,
But he the trouth should have in knowlegyng.
Her wyse doctryne I marked in memory,
And toke my leve of her hye person,
Because that I myght no lenger tary.
The yere was spent, and so ferre than gon,
And of my lady yet syght had I none,
Whych was abydyng in the toure of Musyke:
Wherfore anone I went to Rethoryke.
CAP. VII.
HOW HE WAS RECEYVED OF RETHORYKE, AND WHAT RETHORYKE IS.
Than above Logyke up we went a stayre,
Into a chambre gayly glorified,
Strowed wyth floures of all goodly ayre;
Where sate a lady gretly magnified,
And her true vesture clerely purified,
And over her head, that was bryght and shene,
She had a garlande of the laurell grene.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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