Facetiae : Musarum deliciae, or, The Muses recreation, conteining ...

1 6 4 Epigrams.642. Of an ill Wife.Priscus was weeping when his wife did dye,Yet he was then in better case than I :I should be merry, and should think to thrive,Had I but his dead wife for mine alive.643. Meum &> Tuum.Megge lets her husband boast of rule and riches,But she rules all the roast, and wears the breeches.644. Deaths trade.Death is a Fisherman, the world we seeHis Fish-pond is,and we the Fishes be.He sometimes, Angler-like, doth with us play,And slily takes us one by one away ;Diseases are the murthering-hooks, which heDoth catch us with, the bait mortality,Which we poor sillyfish devour, till strook,At last too late we feel the bitter hook.At other times he brings his net, and thenAt once sweeps up whole Cities full of men,Drawing up thousands at a draught, and savesOnely some few, to make the others graves :His Net some raging pestilence ;now heIs not so kind as other Fishers be ;For if they take one of the smaller frye,They throw him in again, he shall not dye :But death is sure to kill all he can get,And all is Fish with him that comes to Net.