Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/126

58 To lay their native arms aside, Their modesty, and ride astride; To run a-tilt at men, and wield Their naked tools in open field; As stout Armida, bold Thalestris, And she that would have been the mistress Of Gondibert, but he had grace, And rather took a country lass: They say 'tis false, without all sense But of pernicious consequence To government, which they suppose Can never be upheld in prose; Strip nature naked to the skin, You'll find about her no such thing. It may be so, yet what we tell Of Trulla, that's improbable, Shall be deposed by those have seen't, Or, what's as good, produced in print; And if they will not take our word, We'll prove it true upon record.
 * The upright Cerdon next advanc't,

Of all his race the valiant'st; Cerdon the Great, renown'd in song, Like Herc'les, for repair of wrong: He raised the low, and fortified The weak against the strongest side.