No More Learning

}
But, stranger yet, and harder to conceive,
She could the playhouse and the players leave.
Born of rich parentage, and nicely bred,
She lodged on down, and in a damask bed;
Yet daring now the dangers of the deep,
On a hard mattress is content to sleep.
Ere this, 'tis true, she did her fame expose;
But that great ladies with great ease can lose.
The tender nymph could the rude ocean bear,
So much her lust was stronger than her fear.
But had some honest cause her passage prest,
The smallest hardship had disturbed her breast.
Each inconvenience makes their virtue cold;
But womankind in ills is ever bold.
Were she to follow her own lord to sea,
What doubts and scruples would she raise to stay?
Her stomach sick, and her head giddy grows,
The tar and pitch are nauseous to her nose;
But in love's voyage nothing can offend,
Women are never sea-sick with a friend.
Amidst the crew she walks upon the board, }
She eats, she drinks, she handles every cord; }
And if she spews, 'tis thinking of her lord. }
Now ask, for whom her friends and fame she lost?
What youth, what beauty, could the adulterer boast?
What was the face, for which she could sustain
To be called mistress to so base a man?
The gallant of his days had known the best; }
Deep scars were seen indented on his breast, }
And all his battered limbs required their needful rest; }
A promontory wen, with grisly grace,
Stood high upon the handle of his face:
His blear-eyes ran in gutters to his chin;
His beard was stubble, and his cheeks were thin.
But 'twas his fencing did her fancy move;
'Tis arms, and blood, and cruelty, they love.
But should he quit his trade, and sheath his sword,
Her lover would begin to be her lord.
This was a private crime; but you shall hear
What fruits the sacred brows of monarchs bear:[111]
The good old sluggard but began to snore,
When, from his side, up rose the imperial whore;
She, who preferred the pleasures of the night
To pomps, that are but impotent delight,
Strode from the palace, with an eager pace,
To cope with a more masculine embrace.
Muffled she marched, like Juno in a cloud,
Of all her train but one poor wench allowed;
One whom in secret-service she could trust,
The rival and companion of her lust.
To the known brothel-house she takes her way, }
And for a nasty room gives double pay; }
That room in which the rankest harlot lay. }
Prepared for fight, expectingly she lies,
With heaving breasts, and with desiring eyes.
Still as one drops, another takes his place,
And, baffled, still succeeds to like disgrace.
At length, when friendly darkness is expired,
And every strumpet from her cell retired,
She lags behind and, lingering at the gate,
With a repining sigh submits to fate;
All filth without, and all a fire within,
Tired with the toil, unsated with the sin.
Old Cæsar's bed the modest matron seeks,
The steam of lamps still hanging on her cheeks
In ropy smut; thus foul, and thus bedight,
She brings him back the product of the night.
Now, should I sing what poisons they provide,
With all their trumpery of charms beside,
And all their arts of death,--it would be known,
Lust is the smallest sin the sex can own.
Cæsinia still, they say, is guiltless found }
Of every vice, by her own lord renowned; }
And well she may, she brought ten thousand pound. }
She brought him wherewithal to be called chaste;
His tongue is tied in golden fetters fast:
He sighs, adores, and courts her every hour;
Who would not do as much for such a dower?
She writes love-letters to the youth in grace,
Nay, tips the wink before the cuckold's face;
And might do more, her portion makes it good;
Wealth has the privilege of widowhood. [112]
These truths with his example you disprove,
Who with his wife is monstrously in love:
But know him better; for I heard him swear,
'Tis not that she's his wife, but that she's fair.
Let her but have three wrinkles in her face,
Let her eyes lessen, and her skin unbrace,
Soon you will hear the saucy steward say,--
Pack up with all your trinkets, and away;
You grow offensive both at bed and board;
Your betters must be had to please my lord.
Meantime she's absolute upon the throne,
And, knowing time is precious, loses none.
She must have flocks of sheep, with wool more fine
Than silk, and vineyards of the noblest wine;
Whole droves of pages for her train she craves,
And sweeps the prisons for attending slaves.
In short, whatever in her eyes can come,
Or others have abroad, she wants at home.
When winter shuts the seas, and fleecy snows
Make houses white, she to the merchant goes;
Rich crystals of the rock she takes up there,
Huge agate vases, and old china ware;
Then Berenice's ring[113] her finger proves,
More precious made by her incestuous loves,
And infamously dear; a brother's bribe,
Even God's anointed, and of Judah's tribe;
Where barefoot they approach the sacred shrine,
And think it only sin to feed on swine.
But is none worthy to be made a wife }
In all this town? Suppose her free from strife, }
Rich, fair, and fruitful, of unblemished life; }
Chaste as the Sabines, whose prevailing charms,
Dismissed their husbands' and their brothers' arms;
Grant her, besides, of noble blood, that ran
In ancient veins, ere heraldry began;
Suppose all these, and take a poet's word,
A black swan is not half so rare a bird.
A wife, so hung with virtues, such a freight,
What mortal shoulders could support the weight!
Some country girl, scarce to a curtsey bred,
Would I much rather than Cornelia[114] wed;
If supercilious, haughty, proud, and vain,
She brought her father's triumphs in her train.
Away with all your Carthaginian state; }
Let vanquished Hannibal without doors wait, }
Too burly, and too big, to pass my narrow gate. }
O Pæan! cries Amphion,[115] bend thy bow }
Against my wife, and let my children go! -- }
But sullen Pæan shoots at sons and mothers too. }
His Niobe and all his boys he lost;
Even her, who did her numerous offspring boast,
As fair and fruitful as the sow that carried
The thirty pigs, at one large litter farrowed. [116]
What beauty, or what chastity, can bear
So great a price, if, stately and severe,
She still insults, and you must still adore?
Grant that the honey's much, the gall is more.
Upbraided with the virtues she displays,
Seven hours in twelve you loath the wife you praise.
Some faults, though small, intolerable grow;
For what so nauseous and affected too,
As those that think they due perfection want,
Who have not learnt to lisp the Grecian cant? [117]
In Greece, their whole accomplishments they seek:
Their fashion, breeding, language, must be Greek;
But, raw in all that does to Rome belong,
They scorn to cultivate their mother-tongue.
In Greek they flatter, all their fears they speak;
Tell all their secrets; nay, they scold in Greek:
Even in the feat of love, they use that tongue.
Such affectations may become the young;
But thou, old hag, of three score years and three,
Is showing of thy parts in Greek for thee?
#Zôê kai psychê! # All those tender words
The momentary trembling bliss affords;
The kind soft murmurs of the private sheets
Are bawdy, while thou speak'st in public streets.
Those words have fingers; and their force is such,
They raise the dead, and mount him with a touch.
But all provocatives from thee are vain;
No blandishment the slackened nerve can strain.
If then thy lawful spouse thou canst not love,
What reason should thy mind to marriage move?
Why all the charges of the nuptial feast,
Wine and deserts, and sweet-meats to digest?
The endowing gold that buys the dear delight,
Given for thy first and only happy night?
If thou art thus uxoriously inclined,
To bear thy bondage with a willing mind,
Prepare thy neck, and put it in the yoke;
But for no mercy from thy woman look.
For though, perhaps, she loves with equal fires,
To absolute dominion she aspires,
Joys in the spoils, and triumphs o'er thy purse;
The better husband makes the wife the worse.
Nothing is thine to give, or sell, or buy, }
All offices of ancient friendship die, }
Nor hast thou leave to make a legacy. [118] }
By thy imperious wife thou art bereft
A privilege, to pimps and panders left;
Thy testament's her will; where she prefers }
Her ruffians, drudges, and adulterers, }
Adopting all thy rivals for thy heirs. }
Go drag that slave to death! --Your reason? why
Should the poor innocent be doomed to die?
What proofs? For, when man's life is in debate,
The judge can ne'er too long deliberate. --
Call'st thou that slave a man? the wife replies;
Proved, or unproved, the crime, the villain dies.
I have the sovereign power to save, or kill,
And give no other reason but my will. --
Thus the she-tyrant reigns, till, pleased with change,
Her wild affections to new empires range;
Another subject-husband she desires;
Divorced from him, she to the first retires,
While the last wedding-feast is scarcely o'er,
And garlands hang yet green upon the door.
So still the reckoning rises; and appears
In total sum, eight husbands in five years.
The title for a tomb-stone might be fit,
But that it would too commonly be writ.
Her mother living, hope no quiet day; }
She sharpens her, instructs her how to flay }
Her husband bare, and then divides the prey. }
She takes love-letters, with a crafty smile,
And, in her daughter's answer, mends the style.
In vain the husband sets his watchful spies;
She cheats their cunning, or she bribes their eyes.
The doctor's called; the daughter, taught the trick,
Pretends to faint, and in full health is sick.
The panting stallion, at the closet-door,
Hears the consult, and wishes it were o'er.
Canst thou, in reason, hope, a bawd so known,
Should teach her other manners than her own?
Her interest is in all the advice she gives;
'Tis on the daughter's rents the mother lives.
No cause is tried at the litigious bar,
But women plaintiffs or defendants are;
They form the process, all the briefs they write, }
The topics furnish, and the pleas indict, }
And teach the toothless lawyer how to bite. }
They turn viragos too; the wrestler's toil
They try, and smear the naked limbs with oil;
Against the post their wicker shields they crush,
Flourish the sword, and at the flastron push.
Of every exercise the mannish crew
Fulfils the parts, and oft excels us too;
Prepared not only in feigned fights to engage,
But rout the gladiators on the stage.
What sense of shame in such a breast can lie,
Inured to arms, and her own sex to fly?
Yet to be wholly man she would disclaim; }
To quit her tenfold pleasure at the game, }
For frothy praises and an empty name. }
Oh what a decent sight 'tis to behold
All thy wife's magazine by auction sold!
The belt, the crested plume, the several suits
Of armour, and the Spanish leather boots!
Yet these are they, that cannot bear the heat
Of figured silks, and under sarcenet sweat.
Behold the strutting Amazonian whore,
She stands in guard with her right foot before;
Her coats tucked up, and all her motions just,
She stamps, and then cries,--Hah! at every thrust;
But laugh to see her, tired with many a bout,
Call for the pot, and like a man piss out.
The ghosts of ancient Romans, should they rise,
Would grin to see their daughters play a prize.
Besides, what endless brawls by wives are bred?
The curtain-lecture makes a mournful bed.
Then, when she has thee sure within the sheets,
Her cry begins, and the whole day repeats.
Conscious of crimes herself, she teazes first;
Thy servants are accused; thy whore is curst;
She acts the jealous, and at will she cries;
For womens' tears are but the sweat of eyes.
Poor cuckold fool! thou think'st that love sincere,
And sucks between her lips the falling tear;
But search her cabinet, and thou shalt find
Each tiller there with love-epistles lined.
Suppose her taken in a close embrace, }
This you would think so manifest a case, }
No rhetoric could defend, no impudence outface; }
And yet even then she cries,--The marriage-vow
A mental reservation must allow;
And there's a silent bargain still implied, }
The parties should be pleased on either side, }
And both may for their private needs provide. }
Though men yourselves, and women us you call,
Yet _homo_ is a common name for all. --
There's nothing bolder than a woman caught;
Guilt gives them courage to maintain their fault.
You ask, from whence proceed these monstrous crimes?
Once poor, and therefore chaste, in former times
Our matrons were; no luxury found room,
In low-roofed houses, and bare walls of loam;
Their hands with labour hardened while 'twas light,
And frugal sleep supplied the quiet night;
While pinched with want, their hunger held them straight,
When Hannibal was hovering at the gate:
But wanton now, and lolling at our ease,
We suffer all the inveterate ills of peace,
And wasteful riot; whose destructive charms,
Revenge the vanquished world of our victorious arms.
No crime, no lustful postures are unknown,
Since Poverty, our guardian god, is gone;
Pride, laziness, and all luxurious arts,
Pour, like a deluge, in from foreign parts:
Since gold obscene, and silver found the way, }
Strange fashions, with strange bullion, to convey, }
And our plain simple manners to betray. }
What care our drunken dames to whom they spread?
Wine no distinction makes of tail or head.
Who lewdly dancing at a midnight ball,
For hot eringoes and fat oysters call:
Full brimmers to their fuddled noses thrust,
Brimmers, the last provocatives of lust;
When vapours to their swimming brains advance,
And double tapers on the table dance.
Now think what bawdy dialogues they have,
What Tullia talks to her confiding slave,
At Modesty's old statue; when by night
They make a stand, and from their litters light;
The good man early to the levee goes,
And treads the nasty paddle of his spouse.
The secrets of the goddess named the Good,[119]
Are even by boys and barbers understood;
Where the rank matrons, dancing to the pipe,
Gig with their bums, and are for action ripe;
With music raised, they spread abroad their hair,
And toss their heads like an enamoured mare;
Laufella lays her garland by, and proves
The mimic lechery of manly loves.
Ranked with the lady the cheap sinner lies;
For here not blood, but virtue, gives the prize.
Nothing is feigned in this venereal strife;
'Tis downright lust, and acted to the life.
So full, so fierce, so vigorous, and so strong,
That looking on would make old Nestor young.
Impatient of delay, a general sound, }
An universal groan of lust goes round; }
For then, and only then, the sex sincere is found. }
Now is the time of action; now begin,
They cry, and let the lusty lovers in.
The whoresons are asleep; then bring the slaves,
And watermen, a race of strong-backed knaves.
I wish, at least, our sacred rites were free
From those pollutions of obscenity:
But 'tis well known what singer,[120] how disguised,
A lewd audacious action enterprized;
Into the fair, with women mixed, he went,
Armed with a huge two-handed instrument;
A grateful present to those holy choirs,
Where the mouse, guilty of his sex, retires,
And even male pictures modestly are veiled:
Yet no profaneness in that age prevailed;
No scoffers at religious rites were found,
Though now at every altar they abound.
I hear your cautious counsel; you would say,
Keep close your women under lock and key:--
But, who shall keep those keepers? Women, nurst
In craft; begin with those, and bribe them first.
The sex is turned all whore; they love the game,
And mistresses and maids are both the same.
The poor Ogulnia, on the poet's day,
Will borrow clothes and chair to see the play;
She, who before had mortgaged her estate,
And pawned the last remaining piece of plate.
Some are reduced their utmost shifts to try;
But women have no shame of poverty.
They live beyond their stint, as if their store
The more exhausted, would encrease the more:
Some men, instructed by the labouring ant,
Provide against the extremities of want;
But womankind, that never knows a mean,
Down to the dregs their sinking fortune drain:
Hourly they give, and spend, and waste, and wear,
And think no pleasure can be bought too dear.
There are, who in soft eunuchs place their bliss,
To shun the scrubbing of a bearded kiss,
And 'scape abortion; but their solid joy
Is when the page, already past a boy,
Is caponed late, and to the gelder shown,
With his two-pounders to perfection grown;
When all the navel-string could give, appears;
All but the beard, and that's the barber's loss, not theirs.
Seen from afar, and famous for his ware,
He struts into the bath among the fair;
The admiring crew to their devotions fall,
And, kneeling, on their new Priapus call.
Kerved for his lady's use, with her he lies;
And let him drudge for her, if thou art wise,
Rather than trust him with thy favourite boy;
He proffers death, in proffering to enjoy.
If songs they love, the singer's voice they force
Beyond his compass, 'till his quail-pipe's hoarse.
His lute and lyre with their embrace is worn;
With knots they trim it, and with gems adorn;
Run over all the strings, and kiss the case,
And make love to it in the master's place.
A certain lady once, of high degree,
To Janus vowed, and Vesta's deity,
That Pollio[121] might, in singing, win the prize;
Pollio, the dear, the darling of her eyes:
She prayed, and bribed; what could she more have done
For a sick husband, or an only son?
With her face veiled, and heaving up her hands,
The shameless suppliant at the altar stands;
The forms of prayer she solemnly pursues,
And, pale with fear, the offered entrails views.
Answer, ye powers; for, if you heard her vow,
Your godships, sure, had little else to do.
This is not all; for actors[122] they implore;
An impudence unknown to heaven before.
The Aruspex,[123] tired with this religious rout,
Is forced to stand so long, he gets the gout.
But suffer not thy wife abroad to roam:
If she loves singing, let her sing at home;
Not strut in streets with Amazonian pace,
For that's to cuckold thee before thy face.
Their endless itch of news comes next in play;
They vent their own, and hear what others say;
Know what in Thrace, or what in France is done;
The intrigues betwixt the stepdame and the son;
Tell who loves who, what favours some partake,
And who is jilted for another's sake;
What pregnant widow in what month was made;
How oft she did, and, doing, what she said.
She first beholds the raging comet rise,
Knows whom it threatens, and what lands destroys;
Still for the newest news she lies in wait,
And takes reports just entering at the gate.
Wrecks, floods, and fires, whatever she can meet,
She spreads, and is the fame of every street.
This is a grievance; but the next is worse;
A very judgment, and her neighbours' curse;
For, if their barking dog disturb her ease,
No prayer can bend her, no excuse appease.
The unmannered malefactor is arraigned;
But first the master, who the cur maintained,
Must feel the scourge. By night she leaves her bed,
By night her bathing equipage is led,
That marching armies a less noise create;
She moves in tumult, and she sweats in state.
Meanwhile, her guests their appetites must keep;
Some gape for hunger, and some gasp for sleep.
At length she comes, all flushed; but ere she sup, }
Swallows a swinging preparation-cup, }
And then, to clear her stomach, spews it up. }
The deluge-vomit all the floor o'erflows,
And the sour savour nauseates every nose.
She drinks again, again she spews a lake;
Her wretched husband sees, and dares not speak;
But mutters many a curse against his wife,
And damns himself for choosing such a life.
But of all plagues, the greatest is untold;
The book-learned wife, in Greek and Latin bold;
The critic-dame, who at her table sits, }
Homer and Virgil quotes, and weighs their wits, }
And pities Dido's agonizing fits. }
She has so far the ascendant of the board,
The prating pedant puts not in one word;
The man of law is non-plust in his suit,
Nay, every other female tongue is mute.
Hammers, and beating anvils, you would swear,
And Vulcan, with his whole militia, there.
Tabors and trumpets, cease; for she alone
Is able to redeem the labouring moon. [124]
Even wit's a burthen, when it talks too long;
But she, who has no continence of tongue,
Should walk in breeches, and should wear a beard,
And mix among the philosophic herd.
O what a midnight curse has he, whose side
Is pestered with a mood and figure bride!
Let mine, ye gods! (if such must be my fate,)
No logic learn, nor history translate,
But rather be a quiet, humble fool;
I hate a wife to whom I go to school,
Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows
Where noun, and verb, and participle grows;
Corrects her country-neighbour; and, a-bed,
For breaking Priscian's breaks her husband's head. [125]
The gaudy gossip, when she's set agog,
In jewels drest, and at each ear a bob,
Goes flaunting out, and, in her trim of pride,
Thinks all she says or does is justified.
When poor, she's scarce a tolerable evil;
But rich, and fine, a wife's a very devil.
She duly, once a month, renews her face;
Meantime, it lies in daub, and hid in grease.
Those are the husband's nights; she craves her due,
He takes fat kisses, and is stuck in glue.
But to the loved adulterer when she steers,
Fresh from the bath, in brightness she appears:
For him the rich Arabia sweats her gum, }
And precious oils from distant Indies come, }
How haggardly soe'er she looks at home. }
The eclipse then vanishes, and all her face
Is opened, and restored to every grace;
The crust removed, her cheeks, as smooth as silk,
Are polished with a wash of asses milk;
And should she to the farthest north be sent,
A train of these[126] attend her banishment.
But hadst thou seen her plaistered up before,
'Twas so unlike a face, it seemed a sore.
'Tis worth our while, to know what all the day
They do, and how they pass their time away;
For, if o'er-night the husband has been slack, }
Or counterfeited sleep, and turned his back, }
Next day, be sure, the servants go to wrack. }
The chamber-maid and dresser are called whores,
The page is stript, and beaten out of doors;
The whole house suffers for the master's crime,
And he himself is warned to wake another time.
She hires tormentors by the year; she treats
Her visitors, and talks, but still she beats;
Beats while she paints her face, surveys her gown,
Casts up the day's account, and still beats on:
Tired out, at length, with an outrageous tone,
She bids them in the devil's name be gone.
Compared with such a proud, insulting dame,
Sicilian tyrants[127] may renounce their name.
For, if she hastes abroad to take the air,
Or goes to Isis' church, (the bawdy house of prayer,)
She hurries all her handmaids to the task;
Her head, alone, will twenty dressers ask.
Psecas, the chief, with breast and shoulders bare,
Trembling, considers every sacred hair;
If any straggler from his rank be found,
A pinch must for the mortal sin compound.
Psecas is not in fault; but in the glass,
The dame's offended at her own ill face.
That maid is banished; and another girl,
More dexterous, manages the comb and curl.
The rest are summoned on a point so nice,
And, first, the grave old woman gives advice;
The next is called, and so the turn goes round,
As each for age, or wisdom, is renowned:
Such counsel, such deliberate care they take,
As if her life and honour lay at stake:
With curls on curls, they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tower.
A giantess she seems; but look behind,
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.
Duck-legged, short-waisted, such a dwarf she is,
That she must rise on tip-toes for a kiss.
Meanwhile, her husband's whole estate is spent!
He may go bare, while she receives his rent.
She minds him not; she lives not as a wife,
But, like a bawling neighbour, full of strife:
Near him in this alone, that she extends
Her hate to all his servants and his friends.
Bellona's priests,[128] an eunuch at their head,
About the streets a mad procession lead;
The venerable gelding, large, and high,
O'erlooks the herd of his inferior fry.
His aukward clergymen about him prance,
And beat the timbrels to their mystic dance;
Guiltless of testicles, they tear their throats,
And squeak, in treble, their unmanly notes.
Meanwhile, his cheeks the mitred prophet swells,
And dire presages of the year foretels;
Unless with eggs (his priestly hire) they haste
To expiate, and avert the autumnal blast;
And add beside a murrey-coloured vest,[129]
Which, in their places, may receive the pest,
And, thrown into the flood, their crimes may bear,
To purge the unlucky omens of the year.
The astonished matrons pay, before the rest;
That sex is still obnoxious to the priest.
Through ye they beat, and plunge into the stream,
If so the God has warned them in a dream.
Weak in their limbs, but in devotion strong, }
On their bare hands and feet they crawl along }
A whole field's length, the laughter of the throng. }
Should Io (Io's priest, I mean) command
A pilgrimage to Meroe's burning sand,
Through deserts they would seek the secret spring,
And holy water for lustration bring.
How can they pay their priests too much respect,
Who trade with heaven, and earthly gains neglect!
With him domestic gods discourse by night;
By day, attended by his choir in white,
The bald pate tribe runs madding through the street,
And smile to see with how much ease they cheat.
The ghostly sire forgives the wife's delights,
Who sins, through frailty, on forbidden nights,
And tempts her husband in the holy time,
When carnal pleasure is a mortal crime.
The sweating image shakes his head, but he,
With mumbled prayers, atones the deity.
The pious priesthood the fat goose receive,
And, they once bribed, the godhead must forgive.
No sooner these remove, but full of fear,
A gipsey Jewess whispers in your ear,
And begs an alms; an high-priest's daughter she, }
Versed in their Talmud, and divinity, }
And prophesies beneath a shady tree. }
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed,
She strolls, and, telling fortunes, gains her bread:
Farthings, and some small monies, are her fees;
Yet she interprets all your dreams for these,
Foretels the estate, when the rich uncle dies,
And sees a sweetheart in the sacrifice.
Such toys, a pigeon's entrails can disclose,
Which yet the Armenian augur far outgoes;
In dogs, a victim more obscene, he rakes;
And murdered infants for inspection takes:
For gain his impious practice he pursues;
For gain will his accomplices accuse.
More credit yet is to Chaldeans[130] given;
What they foretel, is deemed the voice of heaven.
Their answers, as from Hammon's altar, come;
Since now the Delphian oracles are dumb,
And mankind, ignorant of future fate,
Believes what fond astrologers relate.
Of these the most in vogue is he, who, sent
Beyond seas, is returned from banishment;
His art who to aspiring Otho[131] sold,
And sure succession to the crown foretold;
For his esteem is in his exile placed;
The more believed, the more he was disgraced.
No astrologic wizard honour gains,
Who has not oft been banished, or in chains.
He gets renown, who, to the halter near,
But narrowly escapes, and buys it dear.
From him your wife enquires the planets' will,
When the black jaundice shall her mother kill;
Her sister's and her uncle's end would know,
But, first, consults his art, when you shall go;
And,--what's the greatest gift that heaven can give,--
If after her the adulterer shall live.
She neither knows, nor cares to know, the rest,
If Mars and Saturn[132] shall the world infest;
Or Jove and Venus, with their friendly rays,
Will interpose, and bring us better days.
Beware the woman too, and shun her sight,
Who in these studies does herself delight,
By whom a greasy almanack is born,
With often handling, like chaft amber worn:
Not now consulting, but consulted, she
Of the twelve houses, and their lords, is free.
She, if the scheme a fatal journey show,
Stays safe at home, but lets her husband go.
If but a mile she travel out of town,
The planetary hour must first be known,
And lucky moment; if her eye but aches,
Or itches, its decumbiture she takes;
No nourishment receives in her disease,
But what the stars and Ptolemy[133] shall please.
The middle sort, who have not much to spare, }
To chiromancers' cheaper art repair, }
Who clap the pretty palm, to make the lines more fair. }
But the rich matron, who has more to give,
Her answers from the Brachman[134] will receive;
Skilled in the globe and sphere, he gravely stands,
And, with his compass, measures seas and lands.
The poorest of the sex have still an itch
To know their fortunes, equal to the rich.
The dairy-maid enquires, if she shall take
The trusty tailor, and the cook forsake.
Yet these, though poor, the pain of childbed bear,
And without nurses their own infants rear:
You seldom hear of the rich mantle spread
For the babe, born in the great lady's bed.
Such is the power of herbs, such arts they use
To make them barren, or their fruit to lose.
But thou, whatever slops she will have bought,
Be thankful, and supply the deadly draught;
Help her to make man-slaughter; let her bleed,
And never want for savin at her need.
For, if she holds till her nine months be run,
Thou may'st be father to an Ethiop's son;[135]
A boy, who, ready gotten to thy hands,
By law is to inherit all thy lands;
One of that hue, that, should he cross the way,
His omen would discolour all the day. [136]
I pass the foundling by, a race unknown,
At doors exposed, whom matrons make their own;
And into noble families advance
A nameless issue, the blind work of chance.
Indulgent fortune does her care employ,
And, smiling, broods upon the naked boy:
Her garment spreads, and laps him in the fold,
And covers with her wings from nightly cold:
Gives him her blessing, puts him in a way,
Sets up the farce, and laughs at her own play.
Him she promotes; she favours him alone,
And makes provision for him as her own.
The craving wife the force of magic tries,
And filters for the unable husband buys;
The potion works not on the part designed,
But turns his brains, and stupifies his mind.
The sotted moon-calf gapes, and, staring on,
Sees his own business by another done:
A long oblivion, a benumbing frost,
Constrains his head, and yesterday is lost.
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave,
Like that Cæsonia[137] to her Caius gave,
Who, plucking from the forehead of the foal
His mother's love,[138] infused it in the bowl;
The boiling blood ran hissing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The Thunderer was not half so much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his desire.
What woman will not use the poisoning trade,
When Cæsar's wife the precedent has made?
Let Agrippina's mushroom[139] be forgot,
Given to a slavering, old, unuseful sot;
That only closed the driv'ling dotard's eyes,
And sent his godhead downward to the skies;
But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword,
Nor spares the commons, when it strikes the lord.
So many mischiefs were in one combined;
So much one single poisoner cost mankind.
If step-dames seek their sons-in-law to kill,
'Tis venial trespass--let them have their will;
But let the child, entrusted to the care
Of his own mother, of her bread beware;
Beware the food she reaches with her hand,--
The morsel is intended for thy land.
Thy tutor be thy taster, ere thou eat;
There's poison in thy drink and in thy meat.
You think this feigned; the satire, in a rage,
Struts in the buskins of the tragic stage;
Forgets his business is to laugh and bite,
And will of deaths and dire revenges write.
Would it were all a fable that you read!
But Drymon's wife[140] pleads guilty to the deed.
I, she confesses, in the fact was caught,
Two sons dispatching at one deadly draught.
What, two! two sons, thou viper, in one day!
Yes, seven, she cries, if seven were in my way.
Medea's legend is no more a lie,
Our age adds credit to antiquity.
Great ills, we grant, in former times did reign,
And murders then were done, but not for gain.
Less admiration to great crimes is due,
Which they through wrath, or through revenge pursue;
For, weak of reason, impotent of will,
The sex is hurried headlong into ill;
And like a cliff, from its foundations torn
By raging earthquakes, into seas is borne.
But those are fiends, who crimes from thought begin,
And, cool in mischief, meditate the sin.
They read the example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would save their lap-dog sooner than their lord.
Where'er you walk the Belides[141] you meet,
And Clytemnestras grow in every street;
But here's the difference,--Agamemnon's wife
Was a gross butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder now is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employed alone;
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts.
In such a case, reserved for such a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] When Jove had driven his father into banishment, the Silver Age
began, according to the poets.

[108] The poet makes Justice and Chastity sisters; and says, that they
fled to heaven together, and left earth for ever.

[109] When the Roman women were forbidden to bed with their husbands.

[110] She fled to Egypt, which wondered at the enormity of her crime.

[111] He tells the famous story of Messalina, wife to the Emperor
Claudius.

[112] His meaning is, that a wife, who brings a large dowry, may do
what she pleases, and has all the privileges of a widow.

[113] A ring of great price, which Herod Agrippa gave to his sister
Berenice. He was king of the Jews, but tributary to the Romans.

[114] Cornelia was mother to the Gracchi, of the family of the
Cornelii, from whence Scipio the African was descended, who triumphed
over Hannibal.

[115] He alludes to the known fable of Niobe, in Ovid. Amphion was her
husband. Pæan was Apollo; who with his arrows killed her children,
because she boasted that she was more fruitful than Latona, Apollo's
mother.

[116] He alludes to the white sow in Virgil, who farrowed thirty pigs.

[117] Women then learned Greek, as ours speak French.

[118] All the Romans, even the most inferior, and most infamous sort of
them, had the power of making wills.

[119] The _Bona Dea_, or Good Goddess, at whose feasts no men were to
be present.

[120] He alludes to the story of P. Clodius, who, disguised in the
habit of a singing woman, went into the house of Cæsar, where the feast
of the Good Goddess was celebrated, to find an opportunity with Cæsar's
wife, Pompeia.

[121] A famous singing boy.

[122] That such an actor, whom they love, might obtain the prize.

[123] He who inspects the entrails of the sacrifice, and from thence
foretels the success of the prayer.

[124] The ancients endeavoured to help the moon, during an eclipse, by
sounding trumpets.

[125] A woman-grammarian, who corrects her husband for speaking false
Latin, which is called breaking Priscian's head.

[126] _i. e. _ of the milk asses.

[127] Sicilian tyrants were grown to a proverb, in Latin, for their
cruelty.

[128] Bellona's priests were a sort of fortune-tellers; and their high
priest an eunuch.

[129] A garment was given to the priest, which he threw, or was
supposed to throw, into the river; and that, they thought, bore all the
sins of the people, which were drowned with it.

[130] Chaldeans are thought to have been the first astrologers.

[131] Otho succeeded Galba in the empire, which was foretold him by an
astrologer.

[132] Mars and Saturn are the two unfortunate planets; Jupiter and
Venus the two fortunate.

[133] A famous astrologer; an Egyptian.

[134] The Brachmans are Indian philosophers, who remain to this day;
and hold, after Pythagoras, the translation of souls from one body to
another.

[135] Juvenal's meaning is, help her to any kind of slops which may
cause her to miscarry, for fear she may be brought to bed of a black
Moor, which thou, being her husband, art bound to father; and that
bastard may, by law, inherit thy estate.

[136] The Romans thought it ominous to see a black Moor in the morning,
if he were the first man they met.

[137] Cæsonia, wife to Caius Caligula, the great tyrant. It is said she
gave him a love-potion, which, flying up into his head, distracted him,
and was the occasion of his committing so many acts of cruelty.

[138] The hippomanes, a fleshy excrescence, which the ancients supposed
grew in the forehead of a foal, and which the mare bites off when it is
born. It was supposed to be a sovereign ingredient in philtres. EDITOR.

[139] Agrippina was the mother of the tyrant Nero, who poisoned her
husband Claudius, that Nero might succeed, who was her son, and not
Britannicus, who was the son of Claudius, by a former wife.

[140] The widow of Drymon poisoned her sons, that she might succeed to
their estate: This was done in the poet's time, or just before it.

[141] The Belides were fifty sisters, married to fifty young men, their
cousin-germans; and killed them all on their wedding-night, excepting
Hipermnestra, who saved her husband Linus.




THE

TENTH SATIRE

OF

JUVENAL.


THE ARGUMENT.

_The Poet's design, in this divine Satire, is, to represent the
various wishes and desires of mankind, and to set out the
folly of them. He runs through all the several heads, of
riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial achievements,
long life, and beauty; and gives instances in each, how
frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned
them. He concludes, therefore, that, since we generally
choose so ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it
to the gods to make the choice for us. All we can safely
ask of heaven, lies within a very small compass--it is
but health of body and mind; and if we have these, it is
not much matter what we want besides; for we have already
enough to make us happy. _

Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.
How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well designed, so luckily begun,
But when we have our wish, we wish undone?
Whole houses, of their whole desires possest,
Are often ruined at their own request.
In wars and peace things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own desire.
With laurels some have fatally been crowned; }
Some, who the depths of eloquence have found, }
In that unnavigable stream were drowned. }
The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast;
In that presuming confidence was lost;[142]
But more have been by avarice opprest,
And heaps of money crowded in the chest:
Unwieldy sums of wealth, which higher mount
Than files of marshalled figures can account;
To which the stores of Croesus, in the scale, }
Would look like little dolphins, when they sail }
In the vast shadow of the British whale. }
For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,
When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize
The rich men's goods, and gut their palaces:
The mob, commissioned by the government,
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The fearful passenger, who travels late,
Charged with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush,
And sees a red-coat rise from every bush;
The beggar sings, even when he sees the place
Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the first and chief request
Of each, is--to be richer than the rest:
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught controul,
He dreads no poison in his homely bowl;
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.
Will you not now the pair of sages praise,
Who the same end pursued by several ways?
One pitied, one contemned, the woeful times;
One laughed at follies, one lamented crimes.
Laughter is easy; but the wonder lies,
What stores of brine supplied the weeper's eyes.
Democritus could feed his spleen, and shake
His sides and shoulders, till he felt them ache;
Though in his country town no lictors were,
Nor rods, nor axe, nor tribune, did appear;
Nor all the foppish gravity of show,
Which cunning magistrates on crowds bestow.
What had he done, had he beheld on high
Our prætor seated in mock majesty;
His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,
While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face,
He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroidered coat upon his back!
A suit of hangings had not more opprest
His shoulders, than that long laborious vest;
A heavy gewgaw, called a crown, that spread
About his temples, drowned his narrow head,
And would have crushed it with the massy freight,
But that a sweating slave sustained the weight;
A slave, in the same chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
Add now the imperial eagle, raised on high,
With golden beak, the mark of majesty;
Trumpets before, and on the left and right
A cavalcade of nobles, all in white;
In their own natures false and flattering tribes,
But made his friends by places and by bribes.
In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind:
Learn from so great a wit; a land of bogs,
With ditches fenced, a heaven fat with fogs,
May form a spirit fit to sway the state,
And make the neighbouring monarchs fear their fate.
He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears;
At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears:
An equal temper in his mind he found,
When fortune flattered him, and when she frowned.
'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request
Are hurtful things, or useless at the best.
Some ask for envied power; which public hate
Pursues, and hurries headlong to their fate:
Down go the titles; and the statue crowned,
Is by base hands in the next river drowned.
The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel,
The same effects of vulgar fury feel:
The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke,
While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke.
Sejanus, almost first of Roman names,[143]
The great Sejanus crackles in the flames:
Formed in the forge, the pliant brass is laid }
On anvils; and of head and limbs are made, }
Pans, cans, and piss-pots, a whole kitchen trade. }
Adorn your doors with laurels; and a bull,
Milk white, and large, lead to the Capitol;
Sejanus with a rope is dragged along,
The sport and laughter of the giddy throng!
Good Lord! they cry, what Ethiop lips he has;
How foul a snout, and what a hanging face!
By heaven, I never could endure his sight!
But say, how came his monstrous crimes to light?
What is the charge, and who the evidence,
(The saviour of the nation and the prince? )
Nothing of this; but our old Cæsar sent
A noisy letter to his parliament.
Nay, sirs, if Cæsar writ, I ask no more;
He's guilty, and the question's out of door.
How goes the mob? (for that's a mighty thing,)
When the king's trump, the mob are for the king:
They follow fortune, and the common cry
Is still against the rogue condemned to die.
But the same very mob, that rascal crowd,
Had cried Sejanus, with a shout as loud,
Had his designs (by fortune's favour blest)
Succeeded, and the prince's age opprest.
But long, long since, the times have changed their face,
The people grown degenerate and base;
Not suffered now the freedom of their choice
To make their magistrates, and sell their voice.
Our wise forefathers, great by sea and land,
Had once the power and absolute command;
All offices of trust themselves disposed;
Raised whom they pleased, and whom they pleased deposed:
But we, who give our native rights away,
And our enslaved posterity betray,
Are now reduced to beg an alms, and go
On holidays to see a puppet-show.
There was a damned design, cries one, no doubt,
For warrants are already issued out:
I met Brutidius in a mortal fright,
He's dipt for certain, and plays least in sight;
I fear the rage of our offended prince,
Who thinks the senate slack in his defence.
Come, let us haste, our loyal zeal to show,
And spurn the wretched corpse of Cæsar's foe:
But let our slaves be present there; lest they
Accuse their masters, and for gain betray. --
Such were the whispers of those jealous times,
About Sejanus' punishment and crimes.
Now, tell me truly, wouldst thou change thy fate,
To be, like him, first minister of state?
To have thy levees crowded with resort,
Of a depending, gaping, servile court;
Dispose all honours of the sword and gown,
Grace with a nod, and ruin with a frown;
To hold thy prince in pupillage, and sway
That monarch, whom the mastered world obey?
While he, intent on secret lusts alone,
Lives to himself, abandoning the throne;
Cooped in a narrow isle,[144] observing dreams
With flattering wizards, and erecting schemes!
I well believe thou wouldst be great as he,
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Even they would have the power, who want the will:
But wouldst thou have thy wishes understood,
To take the bad together with the good?
Wouldst thou not rather choose a small renown,
To be the mayor of some poor paltry town;
Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak;
To pound false weights, and scanty measures break?
Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray
In every wish, and knew not how to pray;
For he, who grasped the world's exhausted store,
Yet never had enough, but wished for more,
Raised a top-heavy tower, of monstrous height,
Which, mouldering, crushed him underneath the weight.
What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget,
And ruined him, who, greater than the Great,[145]
The stubborn pride of Roman nobles broke,
And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke:
What else but his immoderate lust of power,
Prayers made and granted in a luckless hour?
For few usurpers to the shades descend
By a dry death, or with a quiet end.
The boy, who scarce has paid his entrance down
To his proud pedant, or declined a noun,
(So small an elf, that, when the days are foul,
He and his satchel must be borne to school,)
Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less,
To prove a Tully, or Demosthenes:
But both those orators, so much renowned,
In their own depths of eloquence were drowned:[146]
The hand and head were never lost of those
Who dealt in doggrel, or who punned in prose.
"Fortune foretuned the dying notes of Rome,
Till I, thy consul sole, consoled thy doom. "[147]
His fate had crept below the lifted swords,
Had all his malice been to murder words.
I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
Than that Philippic[148], fatally divine,
Which is inscribed the second, should be mine.
Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng,
Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue,
Who shook the theatres, and swayed the state
Of Athens, found a more propitious fate.
Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope,
His sire, the blear-eyed Vulcan of a shop,
From Mars his forge, sent to Minerva's schools,
To learn the unlucky art of wheedling fools.
With itch of honour, and opinion vain,
All things beyond their native worth we strain;
The spoils of war, brought to Feretrian Jove,
An empty coat of armour hung above
The conqueror's chariot and in triumph borne,
A streamer from a boarded galley torn,
A chap-fallen beaver loosely hanging by
The cloven helm, an arch of victory;
On whose high convex sits a captive foe,
And, sighing, casts a mournful look below;[149]--
Of every nation each illustrious name,
Such toys as these have cheated into fame;
Exchanging solid quiet, to obtain
The windy satisfaction of the brain.
So much the thirst of honour fires the blood;
So many would be great, so few be good:
For who would Virtue for herself regard,
Or wed, without the portion of reward?
Yet this mad chace of fame, by few pursued,
Has drawn destruction on the multitude;
This avarice of praise in times to come,
Those long inscriptions crowded on the tomb;
Should some wild fig-tree take her native bent,
And heave below the gaudy monument,
Would crack the marble titles, and disperse
The characters of all the lying verse.
For sepulchres themselves must crumbling fall
In time's abyss, the common grave of all.
Great Hannibal within the balance lay,
And tell how many pounds his ashes weigh;
Whom Afric was not able to contain,
Whose length runs level with the Atlantic main,
And wearies fruitful Nilus, to convey
His sun-beat waters by so long a way;
Which Ethiopia's double clime divides,
And elephants in other mountains hides.
Spain first he won, the Pyreneans past,
And steepy Alps, the mounds that nature cast;
And with corroding juices, as he went,
A passage through the living rocks he rent:
Then, like a torrent rolling from on high,
He pours his headlong rage on Italy,
In three victorious battles over-run;
Yet, still uneasy, cries,--There's nothing done,
Till level with the ground their gates are laid,
And Punic flags on Roman towers displayed.
Ask what a face belonged to this high fame,
His picture scarcely would deserve a frame:
A sign-post dauber would disdain to paint
The one-eyed hero on his elephant.
Now, what's his end, O charming Glory! say,
What rare fifth act to crown this huffing play?
In one deciding battle overcome,
He flies, is banished from his native home;
Begs refuge in a foreign court, and there
Attends, his mean petition to prefer;
Repulsed by surly grooms, who wait before
The sleeping tyrant's interdicted door.
What wonderous sort of death has heaven designed, }
Distinguished from the herd of human kind, }
For so untamed, so turbulent a mind? }
Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war;
But poison, drawn through a ring's hollow plate,
Must finish him--a sucking infant's fate.
Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,
To please the boys, and be a theme at school.
One world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
Cooped up, he seemed in earth and seas confined,
And, struggling, stretched his restless limbs about
The narrow globe, to find a passage out:
Yet entered in the brick-built town,[150] he tried
The tomb, and found the strait dimensions wide.
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.
Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out,[151]
Cut from the continent, and sailed about;
Seas hid with navies, chariots passing o'er
The channel, on a bridge from shore to shore:
Rivers, whose depth no sharp beholder sees,
Drunk at an army's dinner to the lees;
With a long legend of romantic things,
Which in his cups the bowsy poet sings.
But how did he return, this haughty brave,
Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave?
(Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound, }
And Eurus never such hard usage found }
In his Æolian prison under ground;) }
What god so mean, even he who points the way,[152]
So merciless a tyrant to obey!
But how returned he, let us ask again? }
In a poor skiff he passed the bloody main, }
Choked with the slaughtered bodies of his train. }
For fame he prayed, but let the event declare
He had no mighty penn'worth of his prayer.
Jove, grant me length of life, and years good store
Heap on my bending back! I ask no more. --
Both sick and healthful, old and young, conspire
In this one silly mischievous desire.
Mistaken blessing, which old age they call,
'Tis a long, nasty, darksome hospital:
A ropy chain of rheums; a visage rough,
Deformed, unfeatured, and a skin of buff;
A stitch-fallen cheek, that hangs below the jaw;
Such wrinkles as a skilful hand would draw
For an old grandame ape, when, with a grace,
She sits at squat, and scrubs her leathern face.
In youth, distinctions infinite abound;
No shape, or feature, just alike are found;
The fair, the black, the feeble, and the strong: }
But the same foulness does to age belong. }
The self-same palsy, both in limbs and tongue; }
The skull and forehead one bald barren plain,
And gums unarmed to mumble meat in vain;
Besides, the eternal drivel, that supplies
The dropping beard, from nostrils, mouth, and eyes.
His wife and children lothe him, and, what's worse,
Himself does his offensive carrion curse!
Flatterers forsake him too; for who would kill
Himself, to be remembered in a will?
His taste not only pall'd to wine and meat,
But to the relish of a nobler treat.
The limber nerve, in vain provoked to rise,
Inglorious from the field of battle flies;
Poor feeble dotard! how could he advance
With his blue head-piece, and his broken lance?
Add, that, endeavouring still, without effect,
A lust more sordid justly we suspect.
Those senses lost, behold a new defeat,
The soul dislodging from another seat.
What music, or enchanting voice, can cheer
A stupid, old, impenetrable ear?
No matter in what place, or what degree
Of the full theatre he sits to see;
Cornets and trumpets cannot reach his ear;
Under an actor's nose he's never near.
His boy must bawl, to make him understand
The hour o'the day, or such a lord's at hand;
The little blood that creeps within his veins,
Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.
In fine, he wears no limb about him sound,
With sores and sicknesses beleaguered round
Ask me their names, I sooner could relate
How many drudges on salt Hippia wait;
What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
Or how, last fall, he raised the weekly bills;
What provinces by Basilus were spoiled;
What herds of heirs by guardians are beguiled;
How many bouts a-day that bitch has tried;
How many boys that pedagogue can ride;
What lands and lordships for their owner know
My quondam barber, but his worship now.
This dotard of his broken back complains;
One his legs fail, and one his shoulder pains:
Another is of both his eyes bereft,
And envies who has one for aiming left;
A fifth, with trembling lips expecting stands
As in his childhood, crammed by others hands;
One, who at sight of supper opened wide }
His jaws before, and whetted grinders tried, }
Now only yawns, and waits to be supplied; }
Like a young swallow, when, with weary wings,
Expected food her fasting mother brings.
His loss of members is a heavy curse,
But all his faculties decayed, a worse.
His servants' names he has forgotten quite;
Knows not his friend who supped with him last night:
Not even the children he begot and bred;
Or his will knows them not; for, in their stead,
In form of law, a common hackney jade,
Sole heir, for secret services, is made:
So lewd, and such a battered brothel whore,
That she defies all comers at her door.
Well, yet suppose his senses are his own,
He lives to be chief mourner for his son:
Before his face, his wife and brother burns;
He numbers all his kindred in their urns.
These are the fines he pays for living long,
And dragging tedious age in his own wrong;
Griefs always green, a household still in tears, }
Sad pomps, a threshold thronged with daily biers, }
And liveries of black for length of years. }
Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king[153]
Was longest lived of any two-legged thing.
Blest, to defraud the grave so long, to mount
His numbered years, and on his right hand count! [154]
Three hundred seasons, guzzling must of wine! --
But hold a while, and hear himself repine
At fate's unequal laws, and at the clue
Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister drew. [155]
When his brave son upon the funeral pyre
He saw extended, and his beard on fire,
He turned, and, weeping, asked his friends, what crime
Had cursed his age to this unhappy time?
Thus mourned old Peleus for Achilles slain,
And thus Ulysses' father did complain.
How fortunate an end had Priam made,
Among his ancestors a mighty shade,
While Troy yet stood; when Hector, with the race
Of royal bastards, might his funeral grace;
Amidst the tears of Trojan dames inurned,
And by his loyal daughters truly mourned!
Had heaven so blest him, he had died before
The fatal fleet to Sparta Paris bore:
But mark what age produced,--he lived to see
His town in flames, his falling monarchy.
In fine, the feeble sire, reduced by fate,
To change his sceptre for a sword, too late,
His last effort before Jove's altar tries,
A soldier half, and half a sacrifice:
Falls like an ox that waits the coming blow,
Old and unprofitable to the plough. [156]
At least he died a man; his queen survived,
To howl, and in a barking body lived. [157]
I hasten to our own; nor will relate
Great Mithridates,[158] and rich Croesus' fate;[159]
Whom Solon wisely counselled to attend
The name of happy, till he knew his end.
That Marius was an exile, that he fled,
Was ta'en, in ruined Carthage begged his bread;
All these were owing to a life too long:
For whom had Rome beheld so happy, young?
High in his chariot, and with laurel crowned,
When he had led the Cimbrian captives round
The Roman streets, descending from his state,
In that blest hour he should have begged his fate;
Then, then, he might have died of all admired,
And his triumphant soul with shouts expired.
Campania, Fortune's malice to prevent,
To Pompey an indulgent fever sent;
But public prayers imposed on heaven to give
Their much loved leader an unkind reprieve;
The city's fate and his conspired to save
The head reserved for an Egyptian slave. [160]
Cethegus, though a traitor to the state,
And tortured, 'scaped this ignominious fate;[161]
And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely tried,
All of a piece, and undiminished, died. [162]
To Venus, the fond mother makes a prayer,
That all her sons and daughters may be fair:
True, for the boys a mumbling vow she sends,
But for the girls the vaulted temple rends:
They must be finished pieces; 'tis allowed
Diana's beauty made Latona proud,
And pleased to see the wondering people pray
To the new-rising sister of the day.
And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow;
And fair Virginia[163] would her fate bestow
On Rutila, and change her faultless make
For the foul rumple of her camel back.
But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what frights
His parents have by day, what anxious nights!
Form joined with virtue is a sight too rare;
Chaste is no epithet to suit with fair.
Suppose the same traditionary strain
Of rigid manners in the house remain;
Inveterate truth, an old plain Sabine's heart;
Suppose that nature too has done her part,
Infused into his soul a sober grace,
And blushed a modest blood into his face,
(For nature is a better guardian far
Than saucy pedants, or dull tutors are;)
Yet still the youth must ne'er arrive at man,
(So much almighty bribes and presents can;)
Even with a parent, where persuasions fail,
Money is impudent, and will prevail.
We never read of such a tyrant king,
Who gelt a boy deformed, to hear him sing;
Nor Nero, in his more luxurious rage,
E'er made a mistress of an ugly page:
Sporus, his spouse, nor crooked was, nor lame, }
With mountain back, and belly, from the game }
Cross-barred; but both his sexes well became. }
Go, boast your Springal, by his beauty curst
To ills, nor think I have declared the worst;
His form procures him journey-work; a strife
Betwixt town-madams, and the merchant's wife:
Guess, when he undertakes this public war,
What furious beasts offended cuckolds are.
Adulterers are with dangers round beset;
Born under Mars, they cannot 'scape the net;
And, from revengeful husbands, oft have tried
Worse handling than severest laws provide:
One stabs, one slashes, one, with cruel art,
Makes colon suffer for the peccant part.
But your Endymion, your smooth smock-faced boy,
Unrivalled, shall a beauteous dame enjoy.
Not so: one more salacious, rich, and old,
Outbids, and buys her pleasure for her gold:
Now, he must moil, and drudge, for one he lothes;
She keeps him high in equipage and clothes;
She pawns her jewels, and her rich attire,
And thinks the workman worthy of his hire.
In all things else immoral, stingy, mean,
But, in her lusts, a conscionable quean.
She may be handsome, yet be chaste, you say;--
Good observator, not so fast away;
Did it not cost the modest youth his life,
Who shunned the embraces of his father's wife? [164]
And was not t'other stripling forced to fly, }
Who coldly did his patron's queen deny, }
And pleaded laws of hospitality?