Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/226

142 Than to be seen with beard and face By you in such a homely case. Quoth she, Those need not be asham'd For being honourably maim'd; If he that is in battle conquer'd Have any title to his own beard, Tho' yours be sorely lugg'd and torn, It does your visage more adorn Than if 'twere prun'd, and starch'd, and lander'd, And cut square by the Russian standard. A torn beard's like a tatter'd ensign. That's bravest which there are most rents in. That petticoat, about your shoulders, Does not so well become a soldier's; And I'm afraid they are worse handled, Altho' i' th' rear your beard the van led; And those uneasy bruises make My heart for company to ache, To see so worshipful a friend I' th' pillory set, at the wrong end. Quoth Hudibras, This thing call'd pain, Is, as the learned Stoics maintain, Not bad simpliciter, nor good, But merely as 'tis understood.