225
With some whom they have taught that cunning. 
The furthest way about t’ o’ercome,
In the end does prove the nearest home. 
By laws of learned duellists,
They that are bruis’d with wood or fists, 230
And think one beating may for once
Suffice, are cowards and pultroons: 
But if they dare engage t’ a second,
They’re stout and gallant fellows reckon’d.

Th’ old Romans freedom did bestow, 235
Our princes worship, with a blow. 
King Pyrrhus cur’d his splenetic
And testy courtiers with a kick. 
The Negus, when some mighty lord
Or potentate’s to be restor’d 240
And pardon’d for some great offence,
With which be’s willing to dispense,
First has him laid upon his belly,
Then beaten back and side to a jelly;
That done, he rises, humbly bows, 245
And gives thanks for the princely blows;
Departs not meanly proud, and boasting
Of this magnificent rib-roasting. 
The beaten soldier proves most manful,
That, like his sword, endures the anvil, 250
And justly’s held more formidable,
The more his valour’s malleable: 
But he that fears a bastinado
Will run away from his own shadow: 
And though I’m now in durance fast, 255
By our own party basely cast,
Ransom, exchange, parole refus’d,
And worse than by the enemy us’d;
In close catasta shut, past hope
Of wit or valour to elope; 260
As beards the nearer that they tend
To th’ earth still grow more reverend;
And cannons shoot the higher pitches,
The lower we let down their breeches;
I’ll make this low dejected fate 265
Advance me to a greater height.

Quoth she, Y’ have almost made me in love
With that which did my pity move. 
Great wits and valours, like great states,
Do sometimes sink with their own weights: 
Th’ extremes of glory and of shame, 270
Like East and West, become the same: 
No Indian Prince has to his palace
More foll’wers than a thief to th’ gallows,
But if a beating seem so brave, 275
What glories must a whipping have
Such great atchievements cannot fail
To cast salt on a woman’s tail: 
For if I thought your nat’ral talent
Of passive courage were so gallant, 280
As you strain hard to have it thought,
I could grow amorous, and dote.

When Hudibras this language heard,
He prick’d up’s ears and strok’d his beard;
Thought he, this is the lucky hour; 285
Wines work when vines are in the flow’r;
This crisis then I’ll set my rest on,
And put her boldly to the question.