Quoth Hudibras, The stars determine
You are my prisoners, base vermine! 
Could they not tell you so as well
As what I came to know foretell? 
By this what cheats you are we find, 1075
That in your own concerns are blind. 
Your lives are now at my dispose,
To be redeem’d by fine or blows: 
But who his honour wou’d defile,
To take or sell two lives so vile? 1080
I’ll give you quarter; but your pillage,
The conq’ring warrior’s crop and tillage,
Which with his sword he reaps and plows,
That’s mine, the law of arms allows.

This said, in haste, in haste he fell 1085
To rummaging of Sidrophel. 
First, he expounded both his pockets,
And found a watch, with rings and lockets,
Which had been left with him t’ erect
A figure for, and so detect; 1090
A copper-plate, with almanacks
Engrav’d upon’t; with other knacks,
Of BOOKER’s LILLY’s, Sarah JIMMERS’,
And blank-schemes to discover nimmers;
A moon-dial, with Napier’s bones, 1095
And sev’ral constellation stones,
Engrav’d in planetary hours,
That over mortals had strange powers
To make ’em thrive in law or trade,
And stab or poison to evade; 1100
In wit or wisdom to improve,
And be victorious in love,
Whachum had neither cross nor pile;
His plunder was not worth the while;
All which the conq’rer did discompt, 1105
To pay for curing of his rump. 
But Sidrophel, as full of tricks
As Rota-men of politicks,
Straight cast about to over-reach
Th’ unwary conqu’ror with a fetch, 1110
And make him clad (at least) to quit
His victory, and fly the pit,
Before the Secular Prince of Darkness
Arriv’d to seize upon his carcass? 
And as a fox, with hot pursuit 1115
Chac’d thro’ a warren, casts about
To save his credit, and among
Dead vermin on a gallows hung,
And while the dogs run underneath,
Escap’d (by counterfeiting death) 1120
Not out of cunning, but a train
Of atoms justling in his brain,
As learn’d philosophers give out,
So SIDROPHELLO cast about,
And fell to’s wonted trade again, 1125
To feign himself in earnest slain: 
First stretch’d out one leg, than another,
And seeming in his breath to smother
A broken sigh; quoth he, Where am I,
Alive or dead? or which way came I, 1130
Through so immense a space so soon
But now I thought myself in th’ Moon
And that a monster with huge whiskers,
More formidable than a Switzer’s,
My body through and through had drill’d, 1135
And Whachum by my side had kill’d: