Thus you the sad catastrophe have seen, <br />Occasioned by a mistress and a queen. <br />Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say; <br />But English manufacture got the day. <br />Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver; <br />Fair Rosamond was but her nom de guerre. <br />Now tell me, gallants, would you lead your life <br />With such a mistress, or with such a wife? <br />If one must be your choice, which d' ye approve, <br />The curtain lecture, or the curtain love? <br />Would ye be godly with perpetual strife, <br />Still drudging on with homely Joan, your wife, <br />Or take your pleasure in a wicked way, <br />Like honest whoring Harry in the play? <br />I guess your minds; the mistress would be taking, <br />And nauseous matrimony sent a packing. <br />The devil's in you all; mankind's a rogue; <br />You love the bride, but you detest the clog. <br />After a year, poor spouse is left i' the lurch, <br />And you, like Haynes, return to mother-church. <br />Or, if the name of church comes cross your mind, <br />Chapels-of-ease behind our scenes you find. <br />The playhouse is a kind of market-place; <br />One chaffers for a voice, another for a face; <br />Nay, some of you,—I dare not say how many,— <br />Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny. <br />E'en this poor face, which with my fan I hide, <br />Would make a shift my portion to provide, <br />With some small perquisites I have beside. <br />Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care, <br />I could not hate a man that bids me fair. <br />What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell; <br />But I was drenched to-day for loving well, <br />And fear the poison that would make me swell.<br /><br />John Dryden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epilogue-to-henry-ii/
