It did belong t' a worthy Knight,
Howe'er this goblin is come by't.140
When Hudibras the lady heard,
Discoursing thus upon his beard.[1]
And speak with such respect and honour,
Both of the beard and the beard's owner,[2]
He thought it best to set as good145
A face upon it as he could,
And thus he spoke: Lady, your bright
And radiant eyes are in the right;
The beard's th' identique beard you knew,
The same numerically true: 150
Nor is it worn by fiend or elf,
But its proprietor himself.
O heavens! quoth she, can that be true?
I do begin to fear 'tis you;
Not by your individual whiskers,155
But by you dialect and discourse,
That never spoke to man or beast,
In notions vulgarly exprest:
But what malignant star, alas!
Has brought you both to this sad pass?160
Quoth he. The fortune of the war,
Which I am less afflicted for,
- ↑ Var. To take kind notice of his beard. The clergy in the middle ages threatened to excommunicate the Knights who persisted in wearing their beards, because their clipped chins, "like stubble land at harvest home," made them disagreeable to their ladies.
- ↑ See the dignity of the beard maintained by Dr Bulwer in his Artificial Changeling, p. 196. He says, shaving the chin is justly to be accounted a note of effeminacy, as appears by eunuchs, who produce not a beard, the sign of virility. Alexander and his officers did not shave their beards till they were effeminated by Persian luxury. It was late before barbers were in request at Rome: they first came from Sicily 454 years after the foundation of Rome. Varro tells us, they were introduced bv Ticinius Mena. Scipio Africanus was the first who shaved his face every day: the emperor Augustus used this practice. See Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. vii. c. 56. Diogenes, seeing one with a smooth-shaved chin, said to him, "Hast thou whereof to accuse nature for making thee a man and not a woman?"—The Rhodians and Byzantines, contrary to the practice of modern Russians, persisted against their laws and edicts in shaving and the use of the razor,—Ulmus, in his de fine barbæ humanæ, is of opinion that nature gave to mankind a beard, that it might remain as an index of the masculine generative faculty.—Beard-haters are by Barclay clapped on board the ship of fools.
