How silly were those sages heretofore
To fright their heroes with a syren-whore?
Make 'em believe a water-witch with charms
Could sink their men-of-war as easy as storms,
And turn their mariners, that heard them sing,
Into land-porpoises, and cod, and ling,
To terrify those mighty champions,
As we do children now with bloody-bones;
Until the subtlest of their conjurors
Sealed up the labels to his soul, his ears,
And tied his deafened sailors (while he passed
The dreadful lady's lodgings) to the mast,
And rather venture drowning than to wrong
The sea-pugs' chaste ears with a bawdy song:
To be out of countenance, and like an ass
Not pledge the lady Circe one beer-glass;
Unmannerly refuse her treat and wine
For fear of being tuned into a swine;
When one of our heroic adventurers now
Would drink her down, and turn her into a sow.