Try Before You Trust

Try Before You Trust, by Thomas Vaux

edited by Craig B. Morton

Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden, lived from 1510 to 1556. He was educated at Cambridge and served as a French ambassador for Wolsey in 1527 and for Henry VIII in 1532. "Try Before You Trust" did not appear in print until The Paradise of Dainty Devices came out in 1576, twenty years after Vaux's death, and, since we've got nothing else to go on, no one seems to know the date of composition. However, if Wyatt wrote his satires during a period of exile from the courts, then perhaps Vaux, whose popularity at court temporarily vanished between 1536 and the accession of Mary, wrote this bitter outcry against courtly excesses when he, too, was out of favor.

Vaux's poems have been edited by Alexander Grosart, in the nineteenth-century, and by Larry Vonalt, in 1960. Perhaps surprisingly, Grosart's version remains faithful to the original, whereas Vonalt's edition must be consulted with care.

  To counsel my estate, abandoned to the spoil
 Of forged friends, whose grossest fraud is set with finest foil;
 To verify true dealing wights, whose trust no treason dreads,
 And all too dear th'acquaintance be, of such most harmful heads;
 I am advised thus: who so doth friend, friend so,                           5
 As though tomorrow next he feared for to become a foe.

  To have a feigned friend, no peril like I find;
 Oft fleering face may mantle best a mischief in the mind.
 A pair of angel's ears oft times doth hide a serpent's heart,
 Under whose grips who so doth come, too late complains the smart.10
 Wherefore I do advise, who doth friend, friend so,
 As though tomorrow next he should become a mortal foe.

  Refuse respecting friends that courtly know to feign,
 For gold that wins for gold shall lose the selfsame friends again.
 The quail needs never fear in fowler's nets to fall,                       15
 If he would never bend his ear to listen to his call.
 Therefore trust not too soon, but when you friend, friend so,
 As though tomorrow next ye feared for to become a foe.

1. estate] state or condition in general, whether material or moral, bodily or mental.
spoil] the action or fact of damaging; damage, harm, impairment, or injury, especially of a serious or complete kind.
2. foil] anything that serves by contrast of color or quality to adorn another thing or set it off to advantage.
3. wights] persons.
8. fleering] sneering, mocking.
mantle] to cover or conceal; obscure.
9. angel's ears] a bizarre phrase that nevertheless agrees with the first two editions of the poem and with Grosart's later rendering.
13-14. The syntax of these lines is thorny, but the basic idea seems to be that you should refuse friends who for monetary gain pretend to respect you, because money will lure those "friends" away from you again.

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