SATIRE VII.

A man,[511] a man, a kingdom for a man!
Why, how now, currish, mad Athenian?
Thou Cynic dog, see’st not the[512] streets do swarm
With troops of men? No, no: for Circe’s charm
Hath turn’d them all to swine. I never shall
Think those same Samian[513] saws authentical:
But rather, I dare swear, the souls of swine
Do live in men. For that same radiant shine—
That lustre wherewith Nature’s nature decked
Our intellectual part—that gloss is soiled    10
With staining spots of vile impiety,
And muddy dirt of sensuality.
These are no men, but apparitions,
Ignes fatui, glowworms, fictions,[514]
Meteors, rats of Nilus, fantasies,
Colosses, pictures, shades, resemblances.
Ho, Lynceus!
Seest thou yon gallant in the sumptuous clothes,
How brisk, how spruce, how gorgeously he shows?
Note his French herring-bones:[515] but note no more,    20
Unless thou spy his fair appendant whore,
That lackies him. Mark nothing but his clothes,
His new-stamp’d compliment, his cannon oaths;
Mark those: for naught but such lewd viciousness
E’er gracèd him, save Sodom beastliness.
Is this a man? Nay, an incarnate devil,
That struts in vice and glorieth in evil.
A man, a man! Peace, Cynic, yon is one:
A complete soul of all perfection.
What, mean’st thou him that walks all open-breasted,    30
Drawn through the ear, with ribands,[516] plumy-crested;
He that doth snort in fat-fed luxury,
And gapes for some grinding monopoly;
He that in effeminate invention,
In beastly source of all pollution,
In riot, lust, and fleshly seeming sweetness,
Sleeps sound, secure, under the shade of greatness?
Mean’st thou that senseless, sensual epicure—
That sink of filth, that guzzel[517] most impure—
What, he? Lynceus, on my word thus presume,    40
He’s nought but clothes, and scenting sweet perfume;
His very soul, assure thee, Lynceus,
Is not so big as is an atomus:
Nay, he is spriteless, sense or soul hath none,
Since last Medusa turn’d him to a stone.
A man, a man! Lo, yonder I espy
The shade of Nestor in sad gravity.
Since old Silenus brake his ass’s back,
He now is forc’d his paunch and guts to pack
In a fair tumbrel.[518] Why, sour satirist,    50
Canst thou unman him? Here I dare insist
And soothly say, he is a perfect soul,
Eats nectar, drinks ambrosia, sans control;
An inundation of felicity
Fats him with honour and huge treasury.
Canst thou not, Lynceus, cast thy searching eye,
And spy his imminent[519] catastrophe?
He’s but a sponge, and shortly needs must leese[520]
His wrong-got juice, when greatness’ fist shall squeeze
His liquor out. Would not some shallow[521] head,    60
That is with seeming shadows only fed,
Swear yon same damask-coat, yon garded[522] man,
Were some grave sober Cato Utican?
When, let him but in judgment’s sight uncase,
He’s naught but budge,[523] old gards, brown fox-fur face;
He hath no soul the which the Stagyrite
Term’d rational: for beastly appetite,
Base dunghill thoughts, and sensual action,
Hath made him lose that fair creation.
And now no man, since Circe’s magic charm    70
Hath turn’d him to a maggot that doth swarm
In tainted flesh, whose foul corruption
Is his fair food: whose generation
Another’s ruin. O Canaan’s dread curse,
To live in people’s sins! Nay, far more worse,
To muck rank hate! But, sirra Lynceus,
Seest thou that troop that now effronteth us?
They are naught but eels,[524] that never will appear
Till that tempestuous winds or thunder tear
Their slimy beds. But prithee stay a while;    80
Look, yon comes John-a-Noke and John-a-Stile;
They are nought but slow-paced, dilatory pleas,
Demure demurrers, still striving to appease
Hot zealous love. The language that they speak
Is the pure barbarous blacksaunt[525] of the Gete;
Their only skill rests in collusions,
Abatements, stoppels, inhibitions.
Heavy-paced jades, dull-pated jobbernouls,
Quick in delays, checking with vain controls
Fair Justice’ course; vile necessary evils,    90
Smooth-seeming saints, yet damn’d incarnate devils.
Far be it from my sharp satiric muse,
Those grave and reverent[526] legists to abuse,
That aid Astræa, that do further right;
But these Megeras that inflame despite,
That broach deep rancour, that study still
To ruin right, that they their paunch may fill
With Irus’ blood—these furies I do mean,
These hedgehogs, that disturb Astrea’s scene.
A man, a man! Peace, Cynic, yon’s a man;    100
Behold yon sprightly dread Mavortian;
With him I stop thy currish barking chops.—
What, mean’st thou him that in his swaggering slops
Wallows unbracèd, all along the street;
He that salutes each gallant he doth meet
With “Farewell, sweet captain, kind heart, adieu;”
He that last night, tumbling thou didst view
From out the great man’s head,[527] and thinking still
He had been sentinel of warlike Brill,[528]
Cries out, “Que va la? zounds, que?” and out doth draw    110
His transform’d poniard, to a syringe straw,
And stabs the drawer? What, that ringo-root![529]
Mean’st thou that wasted leg, puff bumbast boot;
What, he that’s drawn and quarterèd with lace;
That Wesphalian gammon clove-stuck[530] face?
Why, he is nought but huge blaspheming oaths,
Swart snout, big looks, misshapen Switzers’[531] clothes;
Weak meagre lust hath now consumèd quite,
And wasted clean away his martial sprite;
Enfeebling riot, all vices’ confluence,    120
Hath eaten out that sacred influence
Which made him man.
That divine part is soak’d away in sin,
In sensual lust, and midnight bezelling,[532]
Rank inundation of luxuriousness[533]
Have tainted him with such gross beastliness,
That now the seat of that celestial essence
Is all possess’d with Naples’ pestilence.[534]
Fat peace, and dissolute impiety,
Have lullèd him in such security,    130
That now, let whirlwinds and confusion tear
The centre of our state; let giants’ rear
Hill upon hill; let western termagant
Shake heaven’s vault: he, with his occupant,[535]
Are cling’d so close, like dew-worms in the morn,
That he’ll not stir till out his guts are torn
With eating filth. Tubrio, snort on, snort on,
Till thou art waked with sad confusion.
Now rail no more at my sharp cynic sound,
Thou brutish world, that in all vileness drown’d    140
Hast lost thy soul: for nought but shades I see—
Resemblances of men inhabit thee.
Yon tissue slop, yon holy-crossèd pane,[536]
Is but a water-spaniel that will fawn,
And kiss the water, whilst it pleasures him;
But being once arrivèd at the brim,
He shakes it off.
Yon in the cap’ring cloak, a mimic ape,
That only strives to seem another’s shape.
Yon’s Æsop’s ass; yon sad civility    150
Is but an ox that with base drudgery
Ears up the land, whilst some gilt ass doth chaw
The golden wheat, he well apaid with straw.
Yon’s but a muckhill overspread with snow,
Which with that veil doth even as fairly show
As the green meads, whose native outward fair[537]
Breathes sweet perfumes into the neighbour air.
Yon effeminate sanguine Ganymede
Is but a beaver,[538] hunted for the bed.
Peace, Cynic; see, what yonder doth approach;    160
A cart? a tumbrel? No, a badged[539] coach.
What’s in’t? Some man. No, nor yet womankind,
But a celestial angel, fair, refined.
The devil as soon! Her mask so hinders me,
I cannot see her beauty’s deity.
Now that is off, she is so vizarded,
So steep’d in lemon’s[540] juice, so surphulèd,
I cannot see her face. Under one hood
Two faces; but I never understood
Or saw one face under two hoods till now:    170
’Tis the right resemblance of old Janus’ brow.
Her mask, her vizard, her loose-hanging gown
(For her loose-lying body), her bright-spangled crown,
Her long slit sleeve,[541] stiff busk, puff verdingal,
Is all that makes her thus angelical.
Alas! her soul struts round about her neck;
Her seat of sense is her rebato[542] set;
Her intellectual is a feignèd niceness,
Nothing but clothes and simpering preciseness.
Out on these puppets, painted images,    180
Haberdashers’ shops, torchlight maskeries,
Perfuming-pans, Dutch ancients,[543] glow-worms bright,
That soil our souls, and damp our reason’s light!
Away, away, hence, coachman, go enshrine
Thy new-glazed puppet in port Esquiline![544]
Blush, Martia, fear not, or look pale, all’s one;
Margara keeps thy set complexion.
Sure I ne’er think those axioms to be true,
That souls of men from that great soul ensue,
And of his essence do participate    190
As ’twere by pipes; when so degenerate,
So adverse is our nature’s motion
To his immaculate condition,
That such foul filth from such fair purity,
Such sensual acts from such a Deity,
Can ne’er proceed. But if that dream were so,
Then sure the slime, that from our souls do flow,
Have stopp’d those pipes by which it was convey’d,
And now no human creatures, once disray’d
Of that fair gem.    200
Beasts’ sense, plants’ growth, like being as a stone;
But out, alas! our cognisance is gone.

PROEMIUM IN LIBRUM TERTIUM.

In serious jest, and jesting seriousness,
I strive to scourge polluting beastliness;
I invocate no Delian deity,
No sacred offspring of Mnemosyne;
I pray in aid of no Castalian[545] muse,
No nymph, no female angel, to infuse
A sprightly wit to raise my flagging wings,
And teach me tune these harsh discordant strings.
I crave no sirens of our halcyon times,
To grace the accents of my rough-hew’d rhymes;    10
But grim Reproof, stern hate of villainy,
Inspire and guide a Satire’s poesy.
Fair Detestation of foul odious sin,
In which our swinish times lie wallowing,
Be thou my conduct and my genius,
My wits-inciting sweet-breath’d Zephyrus.
O that a Satire’s hand had force to pluck
Some floodgate up, to purge the world from muck!
Would God I could turn Alpheus river in,
To purge this Augean oxstall from foul sin!    20
Well, I will try; awake, Impurity,
And view the veil drawn from thy villainy!

SATIRE VIII.

What Myrmidon, or hard Dolopian,
What savage-minded rude Cyclopian,
But such a sweet pathetic Paphian
Would force to laughter? Ho, Amphitrion,
Thou art no cuckold. What, though Jove dallièd,
During thy wars, in fair Alcmena’s bed,
Yet Hercules, true born, that imbecility
Of corrupt nature, all apparently    30
Appears in him. O foul indignity!
I heard him vow himself a slave to Omphale,
Puling “Aye me!” O valour’s obloquy!
He that the inmost nooks of hell did know,
Whose ne’er-crazed[546] prowess all did overthrow,
Lies streaking[547] brawny limbs in weak’ning bed;
Perfumed, smooth-kemb’d, new glazed, fair surphulèd.
O that the boundless power of the soul
Should be subjected to such base control!
Big-limb’d Alcides, doff thy honour’s crown,    40
Go spin, huge slave, lest Omphale should frown.
By my best hopes, I blush with grief and shame
To broach the peasant baseness of our name.
O, now my ruder hand begins to quake,
To think what lofty cedars I must shake;
But if the canker fret, the barks of oaks,
Like humbler shrubs, shall equal bear the strokes
Of my respectless rude satiric hand.
Unless the Destin’s adamantine band
Should tie my teeth, I cannot choose, but bite,    50
To view Mavortius metamorphos’d quite,
To puling sighs, and into “Aye me’s” state,
With voice distinct, all fine articulate,
Lisping, “Fair saint, my woe compassionate;
By heaven! thine eye is my soul-guiding fate.”
The god of wounds had wont on Cyprian couch
To streak himself, and with incensing touch
To faint his force, only when wrath had end;
But now, ’mong furious garboils,[548] he doth spend
His feebled valour, in tilt and tourneying,    60
With wet turn’d kisses, melting dallying.
A pox upon’t that Bacchis’[549] name should be
The watchword given to the soldiery!
Go, troop to field, mount thy obscurèd fame,
Cry out St. George, invoke thy mistress’ name;
Thy mistress and St. George, alarum cry!
Weak force, weak aid, that sprouts from luxury!
Thou tedious[550] workmanship of lust-stung Jove,
Down from thy skies, enjoy our females’ love:
Some fifty more Beotian girls will sue    70
To have thy love, so that thy back be true.
O, now me thinks I hear swart Martius cry,
Swooping[551] along in wars’ feign’d maskery;
By Lais’ starry front he’ll forthwith dye
In clutter’d[552] blood, his mistress’ livery;
Her fancy’s colours waves upon his head.
O, well-fenced Albion, mainly manly sped,
When those that are soldadoes[553] in thy state
Do bear the badge of base, effeminate,
Even on their plumy crests; brutes sensual,    80
Having no spark of intellectual!
Alack! what hope, when some rank nasty wench
Is subject of their vows and confidence?
Publius hates vainly to idolatrise[554]
And laughs that Papists honour images;
And yet (O madness!) these mine eyes did see
Him melt in moving plaints, obsequiously
Imploring favour; twining his kind arms,
Using enchantments, exorcisms, charms;
The oil of sonnets, wanton blandishment,    90
The force of tears, and seeming languishment,
Unto the picture of a painted lass!
I saw him court his mistress’ looking-glass,
Worship a busk-point, which, in secresy,
I fear was conscious of strange villainy;
I saw him crouch, devote his livelihood,
Swear, protest, vow peasant servitude
Unto a painted puppet; to her eyes
I heard him swear his sighs to sacrifice.
But if he get her itch-allaying pin,    100
O sacred relic! straight he must begin
To rave outright,—then thus: “Celestial bliss,
Can Heaven grant so rich a grace as this?
Touch it not (by the Lord! sir), ’tis divine!
It once beheld her radiant eye’s bright shine!
Her hair embraced it. O thrice-happy prick,
That there was throned, and in her hair didst stick!”
Kiss, bless, adore it, Publius, never lin;
Some sacred virtue lurketh in the pin.
O frantic, fond, pathetic passion!    110
Is’t possible such sensual action
Should clip the wings of contemplation?
O can it be the spirit’s function,
The soul, not subject to dimension,
Should be made slave to reprehension
Of crafty nature’s paint? Fie! can our soul
Be underling to such a vile control?
Saturio wish’d himself his mistress’ busk,
That he might sweetly lie, and softly lusk[555]
Between her paps; then must he have an eye    120
At either end, that freely might descry
Both hills and dales. But, out on Phrigio,
That wish’d he were his mistress’ dog, to go
And lick her milk-white fist! O pretty grace!
That pretty Phrigio begs but Pretty’s place.
Parthenophil,[556] thy wish I will omit,
So beastly ’tis I may not utter it.
But Punicus, of all I’ll bear with thee,
That fain wouldst be thy mistress’ smug monkey.
Here’s one would be a flea[557] (jest comical!);    130
Another, his sweet lady’s verdingal,
To clip her tender breech; another, he
Her silver-handled fan would gladly be;
Here’s one would be his mistress’ necklace, fain
To clip her fair, and kiss her azure vein.
Fond fools, well wish’d, and pity but [’t] should be;
For beastly shape to brutish souls agree.
If Laura’s painted lip do deign a kiss
To her enamour’d slave, “O Heaven’s bliss!”
(Straight he exclaims) “not to be match’d with this!”
Blaspheming dolt! go threescore sonnets write    141
Upon a picture’s kiss, O raving sprite!
I am not sapless, old, or rheumatic,
No Hipponax, misshapen stigmatic,[558]
That I should thus inveigh ’gainst amorous sprite
Of him whose soul doth turn hermaphrodite;
But I do sadly grieve, and inly vex,
To view the base dishonour of our sex.
Tush! guiltless doves, when gods, to force foul rapes,
Will turn themselves to any brutish shapes;    150
Base bastard powers, whom the world doth see
Transform’d to swine for sensual luxury!
The son of Saturn is become a bull,
To crop the beauties of some female trull.
Now, when he hath his first wife Metis[559] sped,
And fairly choked,[560] lest foul[561] gods should be bred
Of that fond mule; Themis, his second wife,
Hath turn’d away, that his unbridled life
Might have more scope; yet, last, his sister’s love
Must satiate the lustful thoughts of Jove.    160
Now doth the lecher in a cuckold’s shape,
Commit a monstrous and incestuous rape.
Thrice sacred gods! and O thrice blessèd skies,
Whose orbs include such virtuous deities!
What should I say? Lust hath confounded all;
The bright gloss of our intellectual
Is foully soil’d. The wanton wallowing
In fond delights, and amorous dallying,
Hath dusk’d the fairest splendour of our soul;
Nothing now left but carcass, loathsome, foul;    170
For sure, if that some sprite remainèd still,
Could it be subject to lewd Lais’ will?
Reason, by prudence in her function,
Had wont to tutor all our action,
Aiding, with precepts of philosophy,
Our feeblèd natures’ imbecility;
But now affection, will, concupiscence,
Have got o’er reason chief pre-eminence.
’Tis so; else how should such vile baseness taint
As force it be made slave to nature’s paint?    180
Methinks the spirit’s Pegase, Fantasy,
Should hoise the soul from such base slavery;
But now I see, and can right plainly show
From whence such abject thoughts and actions grow.
Our adverse body, being earthly, cold,
Heavy, dull, mortal, would not long enfold
A stranger inmate, that was backward still
To all his dungy, brutish, sensual will:
Now hereupon our intellectual,
Compact of fire all celestial,    190
Invisible, immortal, and divine,
Grew straight to scorn his landlord’s muddy slime;
And therefore now is closely slunk away
(Leaving his smoky house of mortal clay),
Adorn’d with all his beauty’s lineaments
And brightest gems of shining ornaments,
His parts divine, sacred, spiritual,
Attending on him; leaving the sensual
Base hangers-on lusking at home in slime,
Such as wont to stop port Esquiline.[562]    200
Now doth the body, led with senseless will
(The which, in reason’s absence, ruleth still),
Rave, talk idly, as ’twere some deity,
Adoring[563] female painted puppetry;
Playing at put-pin,[564] doting on some glass
(Which, breath’d but on, his falsèd gloss doth pass);
Toying with babies,[565] and with fond pastime,
Some children’s sport, deflow’ring of chaste time;
Employing all his wits in vain expense,
Abusing all his organons of sense.    210
Return, return, sacred Synderesis!
Inspire our trunks! Let not such mud as this
Pollute us still. Awake our lethargy,
Raise us from out our brain-sick foolery!