Some with Arabian spices strive 595
T' embalm her cruelly alive;
Or season her, as French cooks use
Their haut-gouts, bouillies, or ragouts;[1]
Use her so barbarously ill,
To grind her lips upon a mill,[2]600
Until the facet doublet doth[3]
Fit their rhymes rather than her mouth;[4]
Her mouth compar'd t' an oyster's, with
A row of pearl in't, 'stead of teeth;
Others make posies of her cheeks,605
Where red and whitest colours mix;
In which the lily and the rose,
For Indian lake and ceruse goes.[5]
The sun and moon, by her bright eyes,
Eclips'd and darken'd in the skies;610
Are but black patches that she wears,
Cut into suns, and moons, and stars,[6]
By which astrologers, as well
As those in heav'n above, can tell
What strange events they do foreshow,615
Unto her under-world below.[7]
- ↑ Till the edition of 1704, this Hue stood:
Their haut-gusts, buollies, or ragusts.
These things were "made-dishes," and were all highly flavoured, and hot with spices. - ↑ As they do by comparing her lips to rubies, which are polished by a mill.
- ↑ Facet, a little face, or small surface. Diamonds and precious stones are ground à la facette, or with many faces or small surfaces, that they may have the greater lustre. A doublet is a false stone, made of two crystals joined together with green or red cement between them, in order to resemble stones of that colour. Facet doublet, therefore, is a false stone cut in faces.
- ↑ See Don Quixote, ch. 73 and ch. 38; also the description of "a Whore," by John Taylor, the water poet, for other satires on this fantastic habit of lovers.
- ↑ These are the names of two pigments, the former crimson; the latter a preparation of white lead and vinegar.
- ↑ The ladies formerly were very fond of wearing a great number of black patches on their faces, often cut in fantastical shapes. See Bulwer's Artificial Changeling, p. 252, &c.; Spectator, No. 50; and Beaumont and Fletcher's "Elder Brother," Act iii. sc. II.
- ↑ A double entendre. This and the three preceding lines do not appear in the editions of 1664, but were added in 1674.
