Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/228

144 Because the pangs his bones endure, Contribute nothing to the cure; Yet honour hurt, is wont to rage With pain no med'cine can assuage. Quoth he, That honour's very squeamish That takes a basting for a blemish: For what's more honourable than scars, Or skin to tatters rent in wars? Some have been beaten till they know What wood a cudgel's of by th' blow; Some kick'd, until they can feel whether A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather: And yet have met, after long running, With some whom they have taught that cunning. The furthest way about, t' o'ercome, I' th' end does prove the nearest home. By laws of learned duellists. They that are bruis'd with wood or fists, And think one beating may for once Suffice, are cowards and poltroons: But if they dare engage t' a second, They're stout and gallant fellows reckon'd. Th' old Romans freedom did bestow, Our princes worship, with a blow: King Pyrrhus cur'd his splenetic And testy courtiers with a kick. The Negus, when some mighty lord Or potentate's to be restor'd,