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Puttenham, George, -1590

"The Arte of English Poesie"

And wherein I would faine learne, lay this
vndecencie? in the skurrill and filthy termes not meete for a kings eare?
perchance so. For the king was a wise and graue man, and though he hated
not a faire woman, liked he nothing well to heare speeches of ribaudrie:
as they report of th'emperour _Octauian: Licet fuerit ipse
incontinentissimus, fuit tamen incontinense feuerissimus vltor._ But the
very cause in deed was for that _Flamocks_ reply answered not the kings
expectation, for the kings rime commencing with a pleasant and amorous
proposition: Sir _Andrew Flamock_ to finish it not with loue but with
lothsomnesse, by termes very rude and vnciuill, and seing the king greatly
fauour that Ladie for her much beauty by like or some other good partes,
by his fastidious aunswer to make her seeme odious to him, it helde a
great disproportion to the kings appetite, for nothing is so vnpleasant to
a man, as to be encountered in his chiefe affection, & specially in his
loues, & whom we honour we should also reuerence their appetites, or at
the least beare with them (not being wicked and vtterly euill) and
whatsoeuer they do affect, we do not as becommeth vs if we make it seeme
to them horrible. This in mine opinion was the chiefe cause of the
vndecencie and also of the kings offence.


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