Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookAvails me not! our birthright now is lost, And all our privilege, an empty boast! 135 For lo! where versed in every soothing art, The wily Greek assails his patron's heart, Finds in each dull harangue an air, a grace, And all Adonis in a Gorgon face; Admires the voice that grates upon the ear, 140 Like the shrill scream of amorous chanticleer; And equals the crane neck, and narrow chest, To Hercules, when, straining to his breast The giant son of Earth, his every vein Swells with the toil, and more than mortal pain. 145 We too can cringe as low, and praise as warm, But flattery from the Greeks alone can charm. See! they step forth, and figure to the life, The naked nymph, the mistress, or the wife, So just, you view the very woman there, 150 And fancy all beneath the girdle bare! No longer now, the favorites of the stage Boast their exclusive power to charm the age: The happy art with them a nation shares, GREECE IS A THEATRE, WHERE ALL ARE PLAYERS. 155 For lo! their patron smiles,--they burst with mirth; He weeps--they droop, the saddest souls on earth; He calls for fire--they court the mantle's heat; 'Tis warm, he cries--and they dissolve in sweat. Ill-matched!--secure of victory they start, 160 Who, taught from youth to play a borrowed part, Can, with a glance, the rising passion trace, And mould their own, to suit their patron's face; At deeds of shame their hands admiring raise, And mad debauchery's worst excesses praise. 165 Besides, no mound their raging lust restrains, All ties it breaks, all sanctity profanes; Wife, virgin-daughter, son unstained before-- And, where these fail, they tempt the grandam hoar: They notice every word, haunt every ear, 170 Your secrets learn, and fix you theirs from fear. Turn to their schools:--yon gray professor see, Smeared with the sanguine stains of perfidy! That tutor most accursed his pupil sold! That Stoic sacrificed his friend to gold! 175 A true-born Grecian! littered on the coast, Where the Gorgonian hack a pinion lost. Hence, Romans, hence! no place for you remains, Where Diphilus, where Erimanthus reigns; Miscreants, who, faithful to their native art, 180 Admit no rival in a patron's heart: For let them fasten on his easy ear, And drop one hint, one secret slander there, Sucked from their country's venom, or their own, That instant they possess the man alone; 185 While we are spurned, contemptuous, from the door, Our long, long slavery thought upon no more. 'Tis but a client lost!--and that, we find, Sits wondrous lightly on a patron's mind: And (not to flatter our poor pride, my friend) 190 What merit with the great can we pretend, Though, in our duty we prevent the day, And, darkling, run our humble court to pay; When the brisk prætor, long before, is gone, And hastening, with stern voice, his lictors on, 195 Lest his colleagues o'erpass him in the street, And first the rich and childless matrons greet, Alba and Modia, who impatient wait, And think the morning homage comes too late! Here freeborn youths wait the rich servant's call, 200 And, if they walk beside him, yield the wall; And wherefore? this, forsooth, can fling away, On one voluptuous night, a legion's pay, While those, when some Calvina, sweeping by, Inflames the fancy, check their roving eye, 205 And frugal of their scanty means, forbear, To tempt the wanton from her splendid chair. Produce, at Rome, your witness: let him boast, The sanctity of Berecynthia's host, Of Numa, or of him, whose zeal divine 210 Snatched pale Minerva from her blazing shrine: To search his rent-roll, first the bench prepares, His honesty employs their latest cares: What table does he keep, what slaves maintain, And what, they ask, and where, is his domain? 215 These weighty matters known, his faith they rate, And square his probity to his estate. The poor may swear by all the immortal Powers, By the Great Gods of Samothrace, and ours, His oaths are false, they cry; he scoffs at heaven, 220 And all its thunders; scoffs--and is forgiven! Add, that the wretch is still the theme of scorn, If the soiled cloak be patched, the gown o'erworn; If, through the bursting shoe, the foot be seen, Or the coarse seam tell where the rent has been. 225 O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined } Sink not so deep into the generous mind, } As the contempt and laughter of mankind! } "Up! up! these cushioned benches," Lectius cries, "Befit not your estates: for shame! arise." 230 For "shame!"--but you say well: the pander's heir, The spawn of bulks and stews, is seated there; The crier's spruce son, fresh from the fencer's school, And prompt the taste to settle and to rule.-- So Otho fixed it, whose preposterous pride 235 First dared to chase us from their Honors' side. In these cursed walls, devote alone to gain, When do the poor a wealthy wife obtain? When are they named in Wills? when called to share The Ædile's council, and assist the chair?-- 240 Long since should they have risen, thus slighted, spurned, And left their home, but--not to have returned! Depressed by indigence, the good and wise, In every clime, by painful efforts rise; HERE, by more painful still, where scanty cheer, 245 Poor lodging, mean attendance--all is dear. In earthen-ware HE scorns, at Rome, to eat, WHO, called abruptly to the Marsian's seat, From such, well pleased, would take his simple food, Nor blush to wear the cheap Venetian hood. 250 There's many a part of Italy, 'tis said, Where none assume the toga but the dead: There, when the toil foregone and annual play, Mark, from the rest, some high and solemn day, To theatres of turf the rustics throng, 255 Charmed with the farce that charmed their sires so long; While the pale infant, of the mask in dread, Hides, in his mother's breast, his little head. No modes of dress high birth distinguish THERE; All ranks, all orders, the same habit wear, 260 And the dread Ædile's dignity is known, O sacred badge! by his white vest alone. But HERE, beyond our power arrayed we go, In all the gay varieties of show; And when our purse supplies the charge no more, 265 Borrow, unblushing, from our neighbor's store: Such is the reigning vice; and so we flaunt, Proud in distress, and prodigal in want! Briefly, my friend, here all are slaves to gold, And words, and smiles, and every thing is sold. 270 What will you give for Cossus' nod? how high The silent notice of Veiento buy? --One favorite youth is shaved, another shorn; And, while to Jove the precious spoil is borne, Clients are taxed for offerings, and, (yet more 275 To gall their patience), from their little store, Constrained to swell the minion's ample hoard, And bribe the page, for leave to bribe his lord. Who fears the crash of houses in retreat? At simple Gabii, bleak Præneste's seat, 280 Volsinium's craggy heights, embowered in wood, Or Tibur, beetling o'er prone Anio's flood? While |