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PDFBelow all other Planets run.
Some Mercury, some Venus, seat
Above the Sun himself in height.
The learned scaliger complain’d,
880
Gainst what Copernicus maintain’d,
That, in twelve hundred years and odd,
The Sun had left its ancient road,
And nearer to time earth is come
’Bove fifty thousand miles from home: 885
Swore ’twas a most notorious flam;
And he that had so little shame
To vent such fopperies abroad,
Deserv’d to have his rump well claw’d;
Which Monsieur Bodin hearing, swore 890
That he deserv’d the rod much more,
That durst upon a truth give doom;
He knew less than the Pope of Rome.
Cardan believ’d great states depend
Upon the tip o’ th’ Bear’s tail’s end; 895
That, as she whisk’d it t’wards the Sun,
Strow’d mighty empires up and down;
Which others say must needs be false,
Because your true bears have no tails.
Some say the Zodiack Constellations 900
Have long since chang’d their antique stations
Above a sign, and prove the same
In Taurus now once in the Ram;
Affirm the trigons chop’d and chang’d,
The wat’ry with the fiery rang’d: 905
Then how can their effects still hold
To be the same they were of old?
This, though the art were true, would make
Our modern soothsayers mistake: 910
And in one cause they tell more lies,
In figures and nativities,
Than th’ old Chaldean conjurers
In so many hundred thousand years
Beside their nonsense in translating, 915
For want of accidence and Latin,
Like Idus, and Calendae, Englisht
The quarter-days by skilful linguist;
And yet with canting, sleight and, cheat,
’Twill serve their turn to do the feat; 920
Make fools believe in their foreseeing
Of things before they are in being
To swallow gudgeons ere th’ are catch’d;
And count their chickens ere th’ are hatch’d
Make them the constellations prompt, 925
And give ’em back their own accompt
But still the best to him that gives
The best price for’t, or best believes.
Some towns and cities, some, for brevity,
Have cast the ’versal world’s nativity, 930
And made the infant-stars confess,
Like fools or children, what they please.
Some calculate the hidden fates
Of monkeys, puppy-dogs, and cats
Some running-nags and fighting cocks, 935
Some love, trade, law-suits, and the pox;
Some take a measure of the lives
Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives;
Make opposition, trine, and quartile,
Tell who is barren, and who fertile; 940
As if the planet’s first aspect
Some Mercury, some Venus, seat
Above the Sun himself in height.
Gainst what Copernicus maintain’d,
That, in twelve hundred years and odd,
The Sun had left its ancient road,
And nearer to time earth is come
’Bove fifty thousand miles from home: 885
Swore ’twas a most notorious flam;
And he that had so little shame
To vent such fopperies abroad,
Deserv’d to have his rump well claw’d;
Which Monsieur Bodin hearing, swore 890
That he deserv’d the rod much more,
That durst upon a truth give doom;
He knew less than the Pope of Rome.
Cardan believ’d great states depend
Upon the tip o’ th’ Bear’s tail’s end; 895
That, as she whisk’d it t’wards the Sun,
Strow’d mighty empires up and down;
Which others say must needs be false,
Because your true bears have no tails.
Some say the Zodiack Constellations 900
Have long since chang’d their antique stations
Above a sign, and prove the same
In Taurus now once in the Ram;
Affirm the trigons chop’d and chang’d,
The wat’ry with the fiery rang’d: 905
Then how can their effects still hold
To be the same they were of old?
This, though the art were true, would make
Our modern soothsayers mistake: 910
And in one cause they tell more lies,
In figures and nativities,
Than th’ old
In so many hundred thousand years
Beside their nonsense in translating, 915
For want of accidence and Latin,
Like Idus, and Calendae, Englisht
The quarter-days by skilful linguist;
And yet with canting, sleight and, cheat,
’Twill serve their turn to do the feat; 920
Make fools believe in their foreseeing
Of things before they are in being
To swallow gudgeons ere th’ are catch’d;
And count their chickens ere th’ are hatch’d
Make them the constellations prompt, 925
And give ’em back their own accompt
But still the best to him that gives
The best price for’t, or best believes.
Some towns and cities, some, for brevity,
Have cast the ’versal world’s nativity, 930
And made the infant-stars confess,
Like fools or children, what they please.
Some calculate the hidden fates
Of monkeys, puppy-dogs, and cats
Some running-nags and fighting cocks, 935
Some love, trade, law-suits, and the pox;
Some take a measure of the lives
Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives;
Make opposition, trine, and quartile,
Tell who is barren, and who fertile; 940
As if the planet’s first aspect
