This wariness count not for cowardice;
He is not truly valiant that's not wise.✔
It's no less glory to defend a town
Than by assault to gain one not our own.
And if Marcellus bold be called Rome's sword,
Wise Fabius is her buckler, all accord.
And if thy haste my slowness should not temper,
'T were but a mad, irregular distemper.
Enough of that by our sisters heretofore.
I'll come to that which wounds me somewhat more.
Of learning, policy, thou wouldst bereave me,
But not thine ignorance shall thus deceive me.
What greater clerk or politician lives
Than he whose brain a touch my humor gives?
What is too hot my coldness doth abate,
What's diffluent I do consolidate.
If I be partial judged, or thought to err,
The melancholy snake shall it aver,
Whose cold dry head more subtility doth yield
Than all the huge beasts of the fertile field.
Again, thou dost confine me to the spleen,
As of that only part I were the queen.
Let me as well make thy precincts the gall,
So prison thee within that bladder small.
Reduce the man to his principles, then see
If I have not more part than all you three.
What is within, without, of theirs or thine,
Yet time and age shall soon declare it mine.
When death doth seize the man, your stock is lost;
When you poor bankrupts prove, then have I most.
You'll say, here none shall e'er disturb my right;
You, high born, from that lump then take your flight.
Then who's man's friend, when life and all forsakes?
His mother, mine, him to her womb retakes:
Thus he is ours; his portion is the grave.
But while he lives, I'll show what part I have.
And first, the firm dry bones I justly claim,
The strong foundation of the stately frame.
Likewise the useful spleen, though not the best,
Yet is a bowel called well as the rest;
The liver, stomach, owe their thanks of right:
The first it drains, of the last quicks appetite.
Laughter (though thou say malice) flows from hence-
These two in one cannot have residence.
But thou most grossly dost mistake to think
The spleen for all you three was made a sink.
Of all the rest thou 'st nothing there to do;
But if thou hast, that malice is from you.
Again, you often touch my swarthy hue.
That black is black, and I am black, is true,
But yet more comely far, I dare avow,
Than is thy torrid nose or brazen brow.
But that which shows how high your spite is bent
Is charging me to be thy excrement.
Thy loathsome imputation I defy.
So plain a slander needeth no reply.
When by thy heat thou 'st baked thyself to crust,
And so art called 'black' Choler, or adust,
Thou, witless, thinkest that I am thy excretion,
So mean thou art in art as in discretion.
But by your leave I'll let your greatness see
What officer thou art to us all three-
The kitchen drudge, the cleanser of the sinks,
That casts out all that man e'er eats or drinks.
If any doubt the truth whence this should come,
Show them thy passage to the duodenum;
Thy biting quality still irritates,
Till filth and thee nature exonerates.
If there thou 'rt stopped, to the liver thou dost turn in,
And thence with jaundice saffron all the skin.
No further time I'll spend in confutation;
I trust I've cleared your slanderous imputation.
I now speak unto all, no more to one;
Pray hear, admire, and learn instruction.
My virtues yours surpass without compare:
The first my constancy, that jewel rare.
Choler's too rash this golden gift to hold,
And Sanguine is more fickle manifold;—
Here, there, her restless thoughts do ever fly,
Constant in nothing but unconstancy.
And what Phlegm is we know, like to her mother;
Unstable is the one, and so the other.
With me is noble patience also found.
Impatient Choler loveth not the sound.
What Sanguine is, she doth not heed nor care,
Now up, now down, transported like the air.
Phlegm's patient because her nature's tame.
But I by virtue do acquire the same.
My temperance, chastity, are eminent;
But these with you are seldom resident.
Now could I stain my ruddy sister's face
With deeper red, to show you her disgrace.
But rather I with silence veil her shame
Than cause her blush while I relate the same.
Nor are ye free from this enormity,
Although she bear the greatest obloquy.
My prudence, judgment, I might now reveal;
But wisdom 't is my wisdom to conceal.
Unto diseases not inclined as you,
Nor cold nor hot, ague nor pleurisy,
Nor cough nor quinsy, nor the burning fever,
I rarely feel to act his fierce endeavor.
My sickness in conceit chiefly doth lie;
What I imagine, that's my malady.
Chimeras strange are in my fantasy,
And things that never were, nor shall I see.
I love not talk; reason lies not in length,
Nor multitude of words argues our strength.
I've done. Pray, sister Phlegm, proceed in course.
We shall expect much sound, but little force."
"Patient I am, patient I'd need to be,
To bear with the injurious taunts of three.
Though wit I want, and anger I have less,
Enough of both my wrongs now to express.
I've not forgot how bitter Choler spake,
Nor how her gall on me she causeless brake;
Nor wonder 't was, for hatred there's not small
Where opposition is diametrical.
To what is truth I freely will assent,
Although my name do suffer detriment;
What's slanderous, repel; doubtful, dispute;
And when I've nothing left to say, be mute.
Valor I want; no soldier am, 't is true-
I'll leave that manly property to you;
I love no thundering guns, nor bloody wars;
My polished skin was not ordained for scars.
But though the pitchéd field I 've ever fled,
At home the conquerors have conqueréd.
Nay, I could tell you what's more true than meet,
That kings have laid their scepters at my feet:
When sister Sanguine paints my ivory face,
The monarchs bend and sue but for my grace;
My lily-white, when joinéd with her red,
Princes hath slaved, and captains captivéd.
Country with country, Greece with Asia, fights,
Sixty-nine princes, all stout hero knights,
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