SAINT PETERS Complaynt - by Robert Southwell: 289-324/792

Small gnats enforced th' Egiptian King to stoupe,
Yet they in swarmes, and arm'd with piercing stings: [290]
Smart, noyse, annoyance, made his courage droupe,
No small incombrance such small vermine brings:
I quayld at wordes that neither bit nor stonge,
And those delivered from a womans tonuge.

Ah feare, abortive impe of drooping mind: [295]
Selfe overthrow; false friend; roote of remorce:
Sighted, in seeing evils; in shunning blind;
Foyld without field; by fancie not by force;
Ague of valour; phrensie of the wise;
True honour's staine; loves frost; the mint of lies.[300]

Can vertue, wisedome, strength, by woemen spild
In Davids, Salomons, and Sampsons falls,
With semblance of excuse my error gild,
Or lend a marble glose to muddy walles?
O no their fault had show of some pretence. [305]
No veyle can hide the shame of my offence.

The blaze of beauties beames allur'd their lookes,
Their lookes, by seeing oft, conceived love:
Love, by affecting, swallowed pleasures hooks:
Thus beauty, love, and pleasure them did moove. [310]
These Syrens sugred tunes rockt them a sleepe:
Enough, to damne, yet not to damne so deepe.

But gratious features dazeled not mine eies,
Two homely droyles were authors of my death:
Not love, but feare, my sences did surprize: [315]
Not feare of force, but feare of womans breath.
And those unarm'd, ill grac'd, despisde, unknowne:
So base a blast my truthe hath overthrown.

O women, woe to men: traps for their fals;
Still actors in all tragicall mischances; [320]
Earthes necessarie evils, captiving thralls,
Now murdring with your tongs, now with your glances,
Parents of life, and love: spoilers of both,
The theeves of Harts: false, do you love or loth.

Notes

[ll289-92] Small gnats...brings: This is a reference to the fourth of the ten plagues that the Lord God visited upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians:

[24] And the Lord did so. And there came a very grievous swarm of flies into the houses of Pharao and of his servants, and into all the land of Egypt: and the land was corrupted by this kind of flies.
[30] So Moses went out from Pharao, and prayed to the Lord. [31] And he did according to his word: and he took away the flies from Pharao, and from his servants, and from his people: there was not left so much as one. [Exodus 8]

[l295] abortive: Of, relating to, or resulting from abortion or failure. Also: monstrous.

[l295] impe:  Scion (esp. of a noble house); offspring, child (usually male). Obsolete since 17th cent

[l298] Foyld: foyle v. To overthrow, defeat, baffle. Defeated without entering a field of battle.

[l299] Ague: A state or bout of distress, fear, or other strong emotion; a fit or spell of shaking or shivering.

[l311] Syrens: Classical Mythology. One of several fabulous monsters, part woman, part bird, who were supposed to lure sailors to destruction by their enchanting singing.In early use frequently confused with the mermaid.
An imaginary species of serpent. Obsolete.This sense is derived from glossarial explanations of Latin sirenes in the Vulgate text of Isaiah xiii. 22, where the Wycliffite versions have ‘wengid edderes’ and ‘fliynge serpentis’.

[l314] droyles: droyle - A servant of all work; a drudge. A reference to the ancillae (maidservants) who suspected Peter of being one of Jesus' disciples.

[l319] O women, woe to men: cf spelling in l301 woemen. Possibly reflecting the pronunciation and therefore reinforcing the wordplay.

[l320] Still: Abstaining from action. In contrast with 'actors'.
Of a voice, sounds, utterances: Subdued, soft, not loud. Now arch. Characteristic of a woman's voice.
Constant, continual; continued until now. Habitually playing this role.