Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Samuel Butler (1612–1680)

Extracts from Hudibras: Amantium Irae

[From Part III.]

ALTHOUGH some fits of small contest

Sometimes fall out among the best,

That is no more than every lover

Does from his hackney-lady suffer,

That makes no breach of faith and love,

But rather sometimes serves to improve.

For as in running every pace

Is but between two legs a race,

In which both do their uttermost

To get before and win the post,

Yet when they ’re at their races’ ends

They ’re still as kind and constant friends,

And, to relieve their weariness,

By turns give one another ease;

So all those false alarms of strife

Between the husband and the wife,

And little quarrels, often prove

To be but new recruits of love,

When those who ’re always kind or coy

In time must either tire or cloy.