XIV. Julia

HARK, news, O envy; thou shalt hear descried

My Julia; who as yet was ne’er envied.

To vomit gall in slander, swell her veins

With calumny, that hell itself disdains,

Is her continual practice; does her best,

To tear opinion e’en out of the breast

Of dearest friends, and—which is worse than vile—

Sticks jealousy in wedlock; her own child

Scapes not the showers of envy. To repeat

The monstrous fashions how, were alive to eat

Dear reputation; would to God she were

But half so loth to act vice, as to hear

My mild reproof. Lived Mantuan now again

That female Mastix to limn with his pen,

This she Chimera that hath eyes of fire,

Burning with anger—anger feeds desire—

Tongued like the night crow, whose ill boding cries

Give out for nothing but new injuries;

Her breath like to the juice in Tænarus,

That blasts the springs, though ne’er so prosperous;

Her hands, I know not how, used more to spill

The food of others than herself to fill;

But O! her mind, that Orcus, which includes

Legions of mischief, countless multitudes

Of formless curses, projects unmade up,

Abuses yet unfashion’d, thoughts corrupt,

Misshapen cavils, palpable untroths,

Inevitable errors, self-accusing loaths.

These, like those atoms swarming in the sun,

Throng in her bosom for creation.

I blush to give her half her due; yet say,

No poison’s half so bad as Julia.