Volume 5 — A Cure for Melancholy.
Reading edition
[Listen]
ARE you grown so Melancholy, That you think on nought but Folly; Are you sad, Are you Mad, Are you worse; Do you think, Want of Chink Is a Curse: Do you wish for to have, Longer Life, or a Grave, Thus would I Cure ye. First I would have a Bag of Gold, That should ten Thousand Pieces hold, And all that, In thy Hat, Would I pour; For to spend, On thy Friend, Or thy Whore: For to cast away at Dice, Or to shift you of your Lice, Thus would I Cure ye. Next I would have a soft Bed made, Wherein a Virgin should be laid; That would Play, Any way You’ll devise; That would stick Like a Tick, To your Thighs, That would bill like a Dove, Lye beneath or above, Thus would I Cure ye. Next that same Bowl, where Jove Divine, Drank Nectar in, I’d fill with Wine; That whereas, You should pause, You should quaff; Like a Greek, Till your Cheek, To Ceres and to Venus, To Bacchus and Silenus, Thus would I Cure ye. Last of all there should appear, Seven Eunuchs sphere-like Singing here, In the Praise, Of those Ways, Of delights; Venus can, Use with Man, In the Night; When he strives to adorn, Vulcan’s Head with a HORN, Thus would I Cure ye. But if not Gold, nor Woman can, Nor Wine, nor Songs, make merry then; Let the Batt, Be thy Mate, And the Owl; Let a Pain, In thy Brain, Make thee Howl; Let the Pox be thy Friend, And the Plague work thy end, Thus I would Cure you.
