"Barnes in the defence of the Berde" is another curious piece of verse,
or rather of arrant doggrel, printed in the 16th century. It is
addressed to Andrew Borde, the learned and facetious physician, in the
time of Henry VIII, who seems to have written a tract against the
wearing of beards, of which nothing is now known. In the second part
Barnes (whoever he was) says:
But, syr, I praye you, yf you tell can,
Declare to me, when God made man,
(I meane by our forefather Adam)
Whyther he had a berde than;
And yf he had, who dyd hym shave,
Syth that a barber he coulde not have.
Well, then, ye prove hym there a knave,
Bicause his berde he dyd so save:
I fere it not.
* * * * *
Sampson, with many thousandes more
Of auncient phylosophers (!), full great store,
Wolde not be shaven, to dye therefore;
Why shulde you, then, repyne so sore?
Admit that men doth imytate
Thynges of antyquite, and noble state,
Such counterfeat thinges oftymes do mytygate
Moche ernest yre and debate:
I fere it not.
Therefore, to cease, I thinke be best;
For berdyd men wolde lyve in rest.
You prove yourselfe a homly gest,
So folysshely to rayle and jest;
For if I wolde go make in ryme,
How new shavyd men loke lyke scraped swyne,
And so rayle forth, from tyme to tyme,
A knavysshe laude then shulde be myne:
I fere it not.
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