Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe (November 1567 – c. 1601) was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, poet and satirist.

• What is Logicke but the highe waie to wrangling, contayning in it a world of bibble babble. Neede we anie of your Greeke, Latine, Hebrue, or anie such gibbrige, when wee have the word of God in English?
  • An Almond for a Parrot (1590)

• Evermore mayst thou be canonized as the Nonparreille of impious epistlers.
  • Four Letters (1592)

• The Sun shineth as well on the good as the bad: God from on high beholdeth all the workers of iniquity, as well as the upright of heart.
  • Christ's Tears over Jerusalem (1593)

• O, 'tis a precious apophthegmatical pedant who will find matter enough to dilate a whole day of the first invention of “Fy, fa, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
  • Have with You to Saffron-Walden (1596)

    Cf. Shakespeare, King Lear, act 3, sc. 4

• Dreaming is no other than groaning, while sleep our surgeon hath us in cure.

• A dream is nothing else but the echo of our conceits in the day.

• A dream is nothing else but a bubbling scum or froth of the fancy, which the day hath left undigested; or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations.

• Fair Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore:
  So fair a summer look for never more.
  All good things vanish, less than in a day,
  Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay.
  Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year;
  The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.
  • Lines 105–110

• Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant King,
  Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
  Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
  Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu wee, to witta woo!
  • Lines 161–164 (Song: "Spring, the sweet Spring", st. 1)

• Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day.
  • Line 166 (Song: "Spring, the sweet Spring", st. 2)

• The fields breath sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
  Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit.
  • Lines 169–170 (Song: "Spring, the sweet Spring", st. 3)

• Blest is that government where no art thrives.
  • Line 1425

• Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss,
  This world uncertain is,
  Fond are life’s lustful joys,
  Death proves them all but toys,
  None from his darts can fly;
  I am sick, I must die:
  Lord, have mercy on us.
  • Lines 1574–1580 ("In Time of Pestilence, 1593", st. 1)

• Beauty is but a flower
  Which wrinkles will devour.
  • Lines 1588–1589 ("In Time of Pestilence, 1593", st. 3)

• Brightness falls from the air,
  Queens have died young and fair,
  Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
  I am sick, I must die:
  Lord, have mercy on us.
  • Lines 1590–1594 ("In Time of Pestilence, 1593", st. 3)

• Strength stoops unto the grave,
  Worms feed on Hector brave,
  Swords may not fight with fate,
  Earth still holds ope her gate.
  Come, come, the bells do cry.
  I am sick, I must die.
  • Lines 1595–1600 ("In Time of Pestilence, 1593", st. 4)

• From winter, plague, and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us.
  • Line 1878

• Works by Thomas Nashe at Project Gutenberg
• Summers Last Will and Testament at ElizabethanAuthors