Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

He that would write an epitaph for thee,

And do it well, must first begin to be

Such as thou wert; for none can truly know

Thy worth, thy life, but he that hath lived so.

He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down;

Enough to keep the gallants of the town.

He must have learning plenty; both the laws,

Civil and common, to judge any cause;

Divinity, great store above the rest,

Not of the last edition, but the best.

He must have language, travel, all the arts,

Judgment to use, or else he want thy parts.

He must have friends the highest, able to do,

Such as Maecenas, and Augustus too.

He must have such a sickness, such a death,

Or else his vain descriptions come beneath.

Who then shall write an epitaph for thee,

He must be dead first! Let it alone, for me.

Like to the thund’ring tone of unspoke speeches,

Or like a lobster clad in logick breeches,

Or like the gray freeze of a crimson cat,

Or like a moon-calf in a slipshoo hat,

Or like a shadow when the sunne is gone,

Or like a thought that neere was thought upon,

Even such is man, who never was begoten

Untill his children were both dead and rotten.

Like to the fiery touchstone of a cabbage,

Or like a crablouse with his bagge and baggage,

Or like th’ abortive issue of a fizle,

Or like the bagge-pudding of a plowmans whistle,

Or like the foure square circle of a ring,

Or like the singing of hey downe a ding,

Even such is man, who, breathles without doubt,

Spake to smal purpose when his tongue was out.

Like to the greene fresh fading withered rose,

Or like to rime or verse that runs in prose,

Or like the humbles of a tinder-box,

Or like a man that’s sound, yet hath the poxe,

Or like a hobnaile coyn’d in single pence,

Or like the present preterperfect tense,

Even such is man, who dy’d and then did laffe

To see such strange lines writ on ‘s Epitaph.