T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Advice to Bachelors
Anonymous(From Merry Drollery, 1691) IF thou wilt know how to choose a shrew, | |
| Come listen unto me, | |
| I’ll tell you the signs, and the very very lines | |
| Of Love’s Physiognomy. | |
| If her hair be brown, with a flaxen crown, | 5 |
| And graced with a nutmeg hue, | |
| Both day and night, she’s best for delight, | |
| And her colour everlasting true. | |
| If her forehead be high, with a rolling eye, | |
| And lips that will sweetly melt: | 10 |
| The thing below is better you know, | |
| Although it be oft’ner felt. | |
| If her hair be red, she’ll sport in the bed, | |
| But take heed of the danger though: | |
| For if she carry fire in her upper attire, | 15 |
| What a devil doth she carry below? | |
| If her hair be yellow, she’ll tempt each fellow; | |
| In the Immanuel College: | |
| For she that doth follow the colour of Apollo, | |
| May be like him in zeal and knowledge. | 20 |
| If she be pale, and a Virgin stale, | |
| Inclin’d to the sickness green: | |
| Some raw fruit give her, to open her liver, | |
| Her stomach, and the thing between. | |
| If her Nose be long, and sharp as her Tongue, | 25 |
| Take heed of a desperate maid: | |
| For she that will swagger with an incurable dagger | |
| With stab and a kissing betrayed. | |
| If her face and her neck have here and there a speck, | |
| Ne’er stick, but straight you go stride her: | 30 |
| For it hath been try’d and never denied, | |
| Such flesh ne’er fails the Rider. | |
| If none of these thy fancy will please, | |
| Go seek thy complexion store, | |
| And take for thy saint a Lady that will paint, | 35 |
| Such beauties thou maist adore. | |
| If beauty do write in her face red and white, | |
| And Cupid his flowers there breed, | |
| It Pleaseth the eye, but the rose will die, | |
| As soon as it runs to seed. | 40 |