Page:Hudibras - Volume 2 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/304

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442
HUDIBRAS.
[THE LADY'S
Marriage, at best, is but a vow, 155
Which all men either break or bow;
Then what will those forbear to do,
Who perjure when they do but woo?
Such as beforehand swear and lie,
For earnest to their treachery, 160
And, rather than a crime confess,
With greater strive to make it less:
Like thieves, who, after sentence past,
Maintain their inn'cence to the last;
And when their crimes were made appear 165
As plain as witnesses can swear,
Yet when the wretches come to die,
Will take upon their death a lie.
Nor are the virtues you confess'd
T' your ghostly father, as you guess'd, 170
So slight as to be justified,
By be'ng as shamefully denied;
As if you thought your word would pass,
Point-blank, on both sides of a case;
Or credit were not to be lost 175
B' a brave knight-errant of the post,
That eats perfidiously his word,
And swears his ears through a two-inch board;[1]
Can own the same thing, and disown,
And perjure booty pro and con; 180
Can make the Gospel serve his turn,
And help him out to be forsworn;
When 'tis laid hands upon, and kist,
To be betray'd and sold, like Christ.
These are the virtues in whose name 185
A right to all the world you claim,
And boldly challenge a dominion,
In grace and nature, o'er all women;

    him; what a setting dog is to a sportsman. Butler here seems to say that those who tell the cards in another's hand, cannot always tell how they will be played.

  1. That is, endeavours to shield himself from the punishment due to perjury, the loss of his ears, by a desperate perseverance in false swearing. A person is said to swear through a two-inch hoard, when he makes oath of anything which was concealed from him by a thick door or partition.