Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Booktheir court to pay, Next to the forum, to support his cause, Thence to Apollo, learned in the laws, And the triumphal statues; where some Jew, 205 Some mongrel Arab, some--I know not who-- Has impudently dared a niche to seize, Fit to be p---- against, or--what you please.-- Returning home, he drops them at the gate: And now the weary clients, wise too late, 210 Resign their hopes, and supperless retire, To spend the paltry dole in herbs and fire. Meanwhile, their patron sees his palace stored With every dainty earth and sea afford: Stretched on th' unsocial couch, he rolls his eyes 215 O'er many an orb of matchless form and size, Selects the fairest to receive his plate, And, at one meal, devours a whole estate!-- But who (for not a parasite is there) The selfishness of luxury can bear? 220 See! the lone glutton craves whole boars! a beast Designed, by nature, for the social feast!-- But speedy wrath o'ertakes him: gorged with food, And swollen and fretted by the peacock crude, He seeks the bath, his feverish pulse to still, 225 Hence sudden death, and age without a Will! Swift flies the tale, by witty spleen increast, And furnishes a laugh at every feast; The laugh, his friends not undelighted hear, And, fallen from all their hopes, insult his bier. 230 NOTHING is left, NOTHING, for future times To add to the full catalogue of crimes; The baffled sons must feel the same desires, And act the same mad follies, as their sires. VICE HAS ATTAINED ITS ZENITH:--Then set sail, 235 Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale-- But where the powers so vast a theme requires? Where the plain times, the simple, when our sires Enjoyed a freedom, which I dare not name, And gave the public sin to public shame, 240 Heedless who smiled or frowned?--Now, let a line But glance at Tigellinus, and you shine, Chained to a stake, in pitchy robes, and light, Lugubrious torch, the deepening shades of night; Or, writhing on a hook, are dragged around, 245 And, with your mangled members, plow the ground. What, shall the wretch of hard, unpitying soul, Who for THREE uncles mixed the deadly bowl, Propped on his plumy couch, that all may see, Tower by triumphant, and look down on me! 250 Yes; let him look. He comes! avoid his way, And on your lip your cautious finger lay; Crowds of informers linger in his rear, And, if a whisper pass, will overhear. Bring, if you please, Æneas on the stage, 255 Fierce war, with the Rutulian prince, to wage; Subdue the stern Achilles; and once more, With Hylas! Hylas! fill the echoing shore; Harmless, nay pleasant, shall the tale be found, It bares no ulcer, and it probes no wound. 260 But when Lucilius, fired with virtuous rage, Waves his keen falchion o'er a guilty age, The conscious villain shudders at his sin, And burning blushes speak the pangs within; Cold drops of sweat from every member roll, 265 And growing terrors harrow up his soul: Then tears of shame, and dire revenge succeed-- Say, have you pondered well the advent'rous deed? Now--ere the trumpet sounds--your strength debate; The soldier, once engaged, repents too late. 270 J. Yet I MUST write: and since these iron times, From living knaves preclude my angry rhymes, I point my pen against the guilty dead, And pour its gall on each obnoxious head. SATIRE II. O FOR an eagle's wings! that I might fly To the bleak regions of the polar sky, When from their lips the cant of virtue falls, Who preach like Curii, live like Bacchanals! Devoid of knowledge, as of worth, they thrust, 5 In every nook, some philosophic bust; For he, among them, counts himself most wise, Who most old sages of the sculptor buys; Sets most true Zenos, or Cleanthes' heads, To guard the volumes which he--never reads! 10 TRUST NOT TO OUTWARD SHOW: in every street Obscenity, in formal garb, we meet.-- And dost thou, hypocrite, our lusts arraign, Thou! of Socratic catamites the drain! Nature thy rough and shaggy limbs designed 15 To mark a stern, inexorable mind; But all's so smooth below!--"the surgeon smiles, And scarcely can, for laughter, lance the piles." Gravely demure, in wisdom's awful chair, His beetling eyebrows longer than his hair, 20 In solemn state, the affected Stoic sits, And drops his maxims on the crowd by fits!-- Yon Peribomius, whose emaciate air, And tottering gait, his foul disease declare, With patience I can view; he braves disgrace, 25 Not skulks behind a sanctimonious face: Him may his folly, or his fate excuse-- But whip me those, who Virtue's name abuse, And, soiled with all the vices of the times, Thunder damnation on their neighbor's crimes! 30 "Shrink at the pathic Sextus! Can I be, Whate'er my guilt, more infamous than he?" Varillus cries: Let those who tread aright, Deride the halt; the swarthy Moor, the white; This we might bear; but who his spleen could rein, 35 And hear the Gracchi of the mob complain? Who would not mingle earth, and sea, and sky, Should Milo murder, Verres theft, decry, Clodius adultery? Catiline accuse Cethegus, Lentulus, of factious views, 40 Or Sylla's pupils, soil'd with deeper guilt, Arraign their master for the blood he spilt? Yet have we seen--O shame, for ever fled!-- A barbarous judge start from the incestuous bed, And, with stern voice, those rigid laws awake, 45 At which the powers of War and Beauty quake, What time his drugs were speeding to the tomb The abortive fruit of Julia's teeming womb!-- And must not, now, the most debased and vile, Hear these false Scauri with a scornful smile; 50 And, while the hypocrites their crimes arraign, Turn, like the trampled asp, and bite again! They must; they do:--When late, amid the crowd, A zealot of the sect exclaimed aloud, Where sleeps the Julian law? Laronia eyed 55 The scowling Stoicide, and taunting, cried, "Blest be the age that such a censor gave, The groaning world to chasten and to save! Blush, Rome, and from the sink of sin arise-- Lo! a THIRD CATO, sent thee from the skies! 60 But--tell me yet--What shop the balm supplied, Which, from your brawny neck and bristly hide, Such potent fragrance breathes? nor let it shame Your gravity, to show the vender's name. "If ancient laws must reassume their course, 65 Give the Scantinian first its proper force. Look, look at home; the ways of men explore-- Our faults, you say, are many; theirs are more: Yet safe from censure, as from fear, they stand, A firm, compact, impenetrable band! 70 We know your monstrous leagues; but can you find One proof in us, of this detested kind? Pure days and nights with Cluvia, Flora led, And Tedia chastely shared Catulla's bed; While Hippo's brutal itch both sexes tried, 75 And proved, by turns, the bridegroom and the bride! We ne'er, with misspent zeal, explore the laws, We throng no forum, and we plead no cause: Some few, perhaps, may wrestle, some be fed, To aid their breath, with strong athletic b |