Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding, page 376
And didst thou trust what Jove hath charm’d,
To a poor sentinel unarmed?
A gun indeed the wretch had got,
But neither powder, ball, nor shot.
Come tell me, urchin, tell no lies;
Where was you hid, in Vince’s eyes?
Did you fair Bennet’s breast importune?
(I know you dearly love a fortune.)”
Poor Cupid now’ began to whine:
“Mamma, it was no fault of mine.
I in a dimple lay perdue,
That little guard-room chose by you.
A hundred loves (all arm’d) did grace
The beauties of her neck and face;
Thence, by a sigh, I dispossess’d,
Was blown to Harry Fielding’s breast;
Where I was forced all night to stay,
Because I could not find my way.
But did mamma know there what work
I’ve made, how acted like a Turk;
What pains, what torments he endures,
Which no physician ever cures,
She would forgive.” The goddess smiled,
And gently chuck’d her wicked child,
Bid him go back, and take more care,
And give her service to the fair.
TO THE SAME ON HER WISHING TO HAVE A LILIPUTIAN TO PLAY WITH
Is there a man who would not be,
My Celia, what is prized by thee?
A monkey beau, to please thy sight,
Would wish to be a monkey quite.
Or (couldst thou be delighted so)
Each man of sense would be a beau.
Courtiers would quit their faithless skill,
To be thy faithful dog Quadrille.
P — It — y, who does for freedom rage,
Would sing confined within thy cage;
And W — lp-le, for a tender pat,
Would leave his place to be thy cat.
May I, to please my lovely dame,
Be five foot shorter than I am;
And, to be greater in her eyes,
Be sunk to Lilliputian size.
While on thy hand I skipp’d the dance,
How I’d despise the king of France!
That hand! which can bestow a store
Richer than the Peruvian ore,
Richer than India, or the sea,
(That hand will give yourself away).
Upon your lap to lay me down,
Or hide in plaitings of your gown;
Or on your shoulder sitting high,
What monarch so enthroned as I!
Now on the rosy bud I’d rest.
Which borrows sweetness from thy breast;
Then when my Celia walks abroad,
I’d be her pocket’s little load:
Or sit astride, to frighten people,
Upon her hat’s new-fashioned steeple.
These for the day; and for the night,
I’d be a careful, watchful sprite;
Upon her pillow sitting still,
I’d guard her from th’ approach of ill.
Thus (for afraid she could not be
Of such a little thing as me)
While I survey her bosom rise,
Her lovely lips, her sleeping eyes,
While I survey, what to declare
Nor fancy can, nor words must dare,
Here would begin my former pain,
And wish to be myself again.
SIMILES
TO THE SAME
As wildest libertines would rate,
Compared with pleasure, an estate;
Or as his life a hero’d prize,
When honour claim’d the sacrifice;
Their souls as strongest misers hold,
When in the balance weigh’d with gold
Such, was thy happiness at stake,
My fortune, life, and soul, I’d make.
THE PRICE
TO THE SAME
CAN there on earth, my Celia, be
A price I would not pay for thee?
Yes, one dear precious tear of thine
Should not be shed to make thee mine.
HER CHRISTIAN NAME
TO THE SAME
A VERY good fish, very good way of selling
A very bad thing, with a little bad spelling,
Make the name by the parson and godfather given,
When a Christian was made of an angel from heaven.
TO THE SAME
HAVING BLAMED ME. GAY FOR HIS SEVERITY ON HER SEX
LET it not Celia’s gentle heart perplex
That Gay severe hath satirized her sex;
Had they, like her, a tenderness but known,
Back on himself each pointed dart had flown.
But blame thou last, in whose accomplish’d mind
The strongest satire on thy sex we find.
AN EPIGRAM
THAT Kate weds a fool what wonder can be,
Her husband has married a fool great as she.
ANOTHER EPIGRAM
Miss MOLLY lays down as a positive rule,
That no one should marry for love, but a fool:
Exceptions to rules even Lilly allows;
Moll has sure an example at home in her spouse.
TO THE MASTER OF THE SALISBURY ASSEMBLY
Occasioned by a dispute whether the company should have fresh candles
TAKE your candles away, let your music be mute,
My dancing, however, you shall not dispute;
Jenny’s eyes shall find light, and I’ll find a flute.
THE CAT AND FIDDLE
TO THE FAVOURITE CAT OF A FIDDLING MISER
THRICE happy cat, if, in thy A — House,
Thou luckily shouldst find a half-starved mouse;
The mice, that only for his music stay,
Are proofs that Orpheus did not better play.
Thou too, if danger could alarm thy fears,
Hast to this Orpheus strangely tied thy ears:
For oh! the fatal time will come, when he,
Prudent, will make his fiddle-strings of thee.
THE Queen of Beauty, t’other day
(As the Elysian journals say),
To ease herself of all her cares,
And better carry on affairs;
By privy-council moved above,
And Cupid minister of love,
To keep the earth in due obedience,
Resolved to substitute vice-regents;
To canton out her subject lands,
And give the fairest the commands.
She spoke, and to the earth’s far borders
Young Cupid issued out his orders,
That every nymph in its dimensions
Shall bring or send up her pretensions.
Like lightning swift the order flies,
Or swifter glance from Celia’s eyes:
Like wit from sparkling W —— tley’s tongue;
Or harmony from Pope, or Young.
Why should I sing what letters came;
Who boasts her face, or who her frame?
From black and brown, and red, and fair,
With eyes and teeth, and lips and hair.
One, fifty hidden charms discovers;
A second boasts as many lovers:
This beauty all mankind adore;
And this all women envy more.
This witnesses, by billets dour,
A thousand praises, and all true;
While that by jewels makes pretences
To triumph over kings and princes;
Bribing the goddess by that pelf,
By which she once was bribed herself.
So — borough towns, election brought on.
Ere yet corruption bill was thought on.
Sir Knight, to gain the voters’ favour,
Boasts of his former good behaviour;
Of speeches in the Senate made;
Love for its country, and its trade.
And, for a proof of zeal unshaken,
Distributes bribes he once had taken.
What matters who the prizes gain,
In India, Italy, or Spain;
Or who requires the brown commanders
Of Holland, Germany, and Flanders!
Thou, Britain, on my labours smile,
The Queen of Beauty’s favoured isle;
Whom she long since hath prized above
The Paphian, or the Cyprian grove.
And here, who ask the muse to tell,
That the court lot to R — chmond fell?
Or who so ignorant as wants
To know that S — per’s chose for Hants?
Sarum, thy candidates be named,
Sarum, for beauties ever famed,
Whose nymphs excel all beauty’s flowers,
As thy high steeple doth all towers.
The court was placed in manner fitting;
Venus upon the bench was sitting;
Cupid was secretary made.
The crier an O Yes display’d;
Like mortal crier’s loud alarum,
Bring in petitions from New Sarum.
When lo, in bright celestial state,
Jove came and thunder’d at the gate.
“And can you, daughter, doubt to whom
(He cried) belongs the happy doom,
While C — cks yet make bless’d the earth,
C — cks, who long before their birth,
I, by your own petition moved,
Decreed to be by all beloved.
C — cks, to whose celestial dower
I gave all beauties in my power;
To form whose lovely minds and faces,
I stripp’d half heaven of its graces.
Oh let them bear an equal sway,
So — shall mankind well-pleased obey.”
The god thus spoke, the goddess bow’d;
Her rising blushes straight avow’d
Her hapless memory and shame,
And Cupid glad writ down their name.
A PARODY
FROM THE FIRST AENEID
DIXIT; et avertens rosea cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere: pedes vestis defluxit ad imos,
Et vera incessu patuit Dea. —
She said; and turning, show’d her wrinkled neck,
In scales and colour like a roach’s back.
Forth from her greasy locks such odours flow,
As those who’ve smelt Dutch coffee-houses know.
To her mid-leg her petticoat was rear’d,
And the true slattern in her dress appear’d.
A SIMILE
FROM SILIUS ITALICUS
AUT ubi cecropius formidine nubis aquosæ
Sparsa super flores examina tollit Hymcttos;
Ad dulces ceras ct odori corticis antra,
Mellis apes gravidæ properant, densoque volatu
Eaucum connexæ glomerant ad limina murmur.
OR when th’ Hymettian shepherd, struck with fear
Of wat’ry clouds thick gather’d in the air,
Collects to waxen cells the scatter’d bees
Home from the sweetest flowers, and verdant trees;
Loaded with honey to the hive they fly,
And humming murmurs buzz along the sky.
TO EUTHALIA
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1728
BURNING with love, tormented with despair
Unable to forget or ease his care;
In vain each practised art Alexis tries;
In vain to books, to wine or women flies;
Each brings Euthalia’s image to his eyes.
In Locke’s or Newton’s page her learning glows;
Dryden the sweetness of her numbers shows;
In all their various excellence I find
The various beauties of her perfect mind.
How vain in wine a short relief I boast!
Each sparkling glass recalls my charming toast.
To women then successless I repair,
Engage the young, the witty, and the fair.
When Sappho’s wit each envious breast alarms,
And Rosalinda looks ten thousand charms;
In vain to them my restless thoughts would run;
Like fairest stars, they show the absent sun.
PART OF JUVENAL’S SIXTH SATIRE
MODERNISED IN BURLESQUE VERSE
JUVENALIS SATYRA SEXTA
CREDO pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
In terris, visamque diu; cum frigida parvas
Præberet spelimca domos, ignemque, Laremque,
Et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra:
Silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor
Frondibus et culmo, vicinarumqne ferarum
PART OF
JUVENAL’S SIXTH SATIRE
MODERNISED IN
BURLESQUE VERSE
DAME Chastity, without dispute,
Dwelt on the earth with good King Brute;
When a cold hut of modern Greenland
Had been a palace for a Queen Anne;
When hard and frugal temp’rance reign’d,
And men no other house contain’d
Than the wild thicket, or the den;
When household goods, and beasts, and men,
Together lay beneath one bough,
Which man and wife would scarce do now;
The rustic wife her husband’s bed
With leaves and straw, and beast-skin made.
Pellibus, hand similis tibi, Cynthia, nee tibi, cujus
Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos;
Sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis,
Et sæpe horridior glandem ructante marito.
Quippe aliter tune orbe novo, cœloque recenti
Vivebant homines; qui rupto robore nati,
Compositique luto nullos habuere parentes,
Multa pudicitiæ veteris vestigia forsan,
Not like Miss Cynthia, nor that other,
Who more bewail’d her bird than mother;
But fed her children from her bubbies.
Till they were grown up to great loobies:
Herself an ornament lest decent
Than spouse, who smell’d of acorn recent.
For, in the infancy of nature,
Man was a diff’rent sort of creature;
When dirt-engendered offspring broke
From the ripe womb of mother oak.
Ev’n in the reign of Jove, perhaps,
Ant aliqua extiterant, et sub Jove, sed Jove nondum
Barbato, nondum Græcis jurare paratis Per caput alterius; cum furem nemo timeret
Caulibus, aut pomis, sed aperto viveret horto.
Paulatim deinde ad superos Astræa recessit
Hac comité; atque duæ pariter fugere sorores.
Antiquum et vetus est, alienum, Posthume, lectum
Concutere, atque sacri genium contemnere fulcri.
Omne aliud crimen mox ferrea protulit ætas:
Yiderunt primos argentea secula mcechos.
Conventum tamen, et pactum, et sponsalia nostra
Tempestate paras; jamque a tonsore magistro
Pecteris, et digito pignus fortasse dedisti.
Certe sanus eras: uxorem, Posthume, ducis?
Die, qua Tisiphone? quibus exagitare colubris?
Ferre potes dominam sal vis tot restibus ullam?
The goddess may have shown her chaps;
But it was sure in its beginning,
Ere Jupiter had beard to grin in.
Not yet the Greeks made truth their sport,
And bore false evidence in court;
Their truth was yet become no adage;
Men fear’d no thieves of pears and cabbage.
By small degrees Astrea flies,
With her two sisters to the skies.
O ‘tis a very ancient custom,
To taint the genial bed, my Posthum!
Fearless lest husband should discover it,
Or else the genius that rules over it.
The iron age gave other crimes,
Adult’ry grew in silver times.
But you, in this age, boldly dare
The marriage settlements prepare;
Perhaps have bought the wedding garment,
And ring too, thinking there’s no harm in’t.
Sure you was in your senses, honey.
You marry. Say, what Tisiphone
Possesses you with all her snakes,
Those curls which in her pole she shakes?
Cum pateant altæ, caligantesque fenestras?
Cum tibi vieinum se præbeat Æmilius pons?
Aut si de multis nullus placet exitus; illud
Nonne putas melius, quod tecum pusio dormit?
Pusio qui noctu non litigat: exigit a te
Nulla jacens illie munuscula, nee queritur quod
Et lateri parcas, nec, quantum jussit, anheles.
Sed placet Ursidio lex Julia: tollere dulcem
Cogitât hæredem, cariturus turture magno,
Mullorumque jubis, et captatore macello.
Quid fieri non posse putes, si jungitur ulla
Usidio? si mœchorum notissimus olim
Stulta maritali jam porrigit ora capistro,
Quem toties texit periturum cista Latini?
What, wilt thou wear the marriage chain,
While one whole halter doth remain;
When open windows death present ye,
And Thames hath water in great plenty?
But verdicts of ten thousand pound
Most sweetly to Ursidius sound.
“We’ll all (he cries) be cuckolds nem con.
While the rich action lies of crim con.”
And who would lose the precious joy
Of a fine thumping darling boy?
Who, while you dance him, calls you daddy
(So he’s instructed by my lady).
What tho’ no ven’son, fowl, or fish,
Presented, henceforth grace the dish:
Such he hath had, but dates no merit hence;
He knows they came for his inheritance.
To a poor sentinel unarmed?
A gun indeed the wretch had got,
But neither powder, ball, nor shot.
Come tell me, urchin, tell no lies;
Where was you hid, in Vince’s eyes?
Did you fair Bennet’s breast importune?
(I know you dearly love a fortune.)”
Poor Cupid now’ began to whine:
“Mamma, it was no fault of mine.
I in a dimple lay perdue,
That little guard-room chose by you.
A hundred loves (all arm’d) did grace
The beauties of her neck and face;
Thence, by a sigh, I dispossess’d,
Was blown to Harry Fielding’s breast;
Where I was forced all night to stay,
Because I could not find my way.
But did mamma know there what work
I’ve made, how acted like a Turk;
What pains, what torments he endures,
Which no physician ever cures,
She would forgive.” The goddess smiled,
And gently chuck’d her wicked child,
Bid him go back, and take more care,
And give her service to the fair.
TO THE SAME ON HER WISHING TO HAVE A LILIPUTIAN TO PLAY WITH
Is there a man who would not be,
My Celia, what is prized by thee?
A monkey beau, to please thy sight,
Would wish to be a monkey quite.
Or (couldst thou be delighted so)
Each man of sense would be a beau.
Courtiers would quit their faithless skill,
To be thy faithful dog Quadrille.
P — It — y, who does for freedom rage,
Would sing confined within thy cage;
And W — lp-le, for a tender pat,
Would leave his place to be thy cat.
May I, to please my lovely dame,
Be five foot shorter than I am;
And, to be greater in her eyes,
Be sunk to Lilliputian size.
While on thy hand I skipp’d the dance,
How I’d despise the king of France!
That hand! which can bestow a store
Richer than the Peruvian ore,
Richer than India, or the sea,
(That hand will give yourself away).
Upon your lap to lay me down,
Or hide in plaitings of your gown;
Or on your shoulder sitting high,
What monarch so enthroned as I!
Now on the rosy bud I’d rest.
Which borrows sweetness from thy breast;
Then when my Celia walks abroad,
I’d be her pocket’s little load:
Or sit astride, to frighten people,
Upon her hat’s new-fashioned steeple.
These for the day; and for the night,
I’d be a careful, watchful sprite;
Upon her pillow sitting still,
I’d guard her from th’ approach of ill.
Thus (for afraid she could not be
Of such a little thing as me)
While I survey her bosom rise,
Her lovely lips, her sleeping eyes,
While I survey, what to declare
Nor fancy can, nor words must dare,
Here would begin my former pain,
And wish to be myself again.
SIMILES
TO THE SAME
As wildest libertines would rate,
Compared with pleasure, an estate;
Or as his life a hero’d prize,
When honour claim’d the sacrifice;
Their souls as strongest misers hold,
When in the balance weigh’d with gold
Such, was thy happiness at stake,
My fortune, life, and soul, I’d make.
THE PRICE
TO THE SAME
CAN there on earth, my Celia, be
A price I would not pay for thee?
Yes, one dear precious tear of thine
Should not be shed to make thee mine.
HER CHRISTIAN NAME
TO THE SAME
A VERY good fish, very good way of selling
A very bad thing, with a little bad spelling,
Make the name by the parson and godfather given,
When a Christian was made of an angel from heaven.
TO THE SAME
HAVING BLAMED ME. GAY FOR HIS SEVERITY ON HER SEX
LET it not Celia’s gentle heart perplex
That Gay severe hath satirized her sex;
Had they, like her, a tenderness but known,
Back on himself each pointed dart had flown.
But blame thou last, in whose accomplish’d mind
The strongest satire on thy sex we find.
AN EPIGRAM
THAT Kate weds a fool what wonder can be,
Her husband has married a fool great as she.
ANOTHER EPIGRAM
Miss MOLLY lays down as a positive rule,
That no one should marry for love, but a fool:
Exceptions to rules even Lilly allows;
Moll has sure an example at home in her spouse.
TO THE MASTER OF THE SALISBURY ASSEMBLY
Occasioned by a dispute whether the company should have fresh candles
TAKE your candles away, let your music be mute,
My dancing, however, you shall not dispute;
Jenny’s eyes shall find light, and I’ll find a flute.
THE CAT AND FIDDLE
TO THE FAVOURITE CAT OF A FIDDLING MISER
THRICE happy cat, if, in thy A — House,
Thou luckily shouldst find a half-starved mouse;
The mice, that only for his music stay,
Are proofs that Orpheus did not better play.
Thou too, if danger could alarm thy fears,
Hast to this Orpheus strangely tied thy ears:
For oh! the fatal time will come, when he,
Prudent, will make his fiddle-strings of thee.
THE Queen of Beauty, t’other day
(As the Elysian journals say),
To ease herself of all her cares,
And better carry on affairs;
By privy-council moved above,
And Cupid minister of love,
To keep the earth in due obedience,
Resolved to substitute vice-regents;
To canton out her subject lands,
And give the fairest the commands.
She spoke, and to the earth’s far borders
Young Cupid issued out his orders,
That every nymph in its dimensions
Shall bring or send up her pretensions.
Like lightning swift the order flies,
Or swifter glance from Celia’s eyes:
Like wit from sparkling W —— tley’s tongue;
Or harmony from Pope, or Young.
Why should I sing what letters came;
Who boasts her face, or who her frame?
From black and brown, and red, and fair,
With eyes and teeth, and lips and hair.
One, fifty hidden charms discovers;
A second boasts as many lovers:
This beauty all mankind adore;
And this all women envy more.
This witnesses, by billets dour,
A thousand praises, and all true;
While that by jewels makes pretences
To triumph over kings and princes;
Bribing the goddess by that pelf,
By which she once was bribed herself.
So — borough towns, election brought on.
Ere yet corruption bill was thought on.
Sir Knight, to gain the voters’ favour,
Boasts of his former good behaviour;
Of speeches in the Senate made;
Love for its country, and its trade.
And, for a proof of zeal unshaken,
Distributes bribes he once had taken.
What matters who the prizes gain,
In India, Italy, or Spain;
Or who requires the brown commanders
Of Holland, Germany, and Flanders!
Thou, Britain, on my labours smile,
The Queen of Beauty’s favoured isle;
Whom she long since hath prized above
The Paphian, or the Cyprian grove.
And here, who ask the muse to tell,
That the court lot to R — chmond fell?
Or who so ignorant as wants
To know that S — per’s chose for Hants?
Sarum, thy candidates be named,
Sarum, for beauties ever famed,
Whose nymphs excel all beauty’s flowers,
As thy high steeple doth all towers.
The court was placed in manner fitting;
Venus upon the bench was sitting;
Cupid was secretary made.
The crier an O Yes display’d;
Like mortal crier’s loud alarum,
Bring in petitions from New Sarum.
When lo, in bright celestial state,
Jove came and thunder’d at the gate.
“And can you, daughter, doubt to whom
(He cried) belongs the happy doom,
While C — cks yet make bless’d the earth,
C — cks, who long before their birth,
I, by your own petition moved,
Decreed to be by all beloved.
C — cks, to whose celestial dower
I gave all beauties in my power;
To form whose lovely minds and faces,
I stripp’d half heaven of its graces.
Oh let them bear an equal sway,
So — shall mankind well-pleased obey.”
The god thus spoke, the goddess bow’d;
Her rising blushes straight avow’d
Her hapless memory and shame,
And Cupid glad writ down their name.
A PARODY
FROM THE FIRST AENEID
DIXIT; et avertens rosea cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere: pedes vestis defluxit ad imos,
Et vera incessu patuit Dea. —
She said; and turning, show’d her wrinkled neck,
In scales and colour like a roach’s back.
Forth from her greasy locks such odours flow,
As those who’ve smelt Dutch coffee-houses know.
To her mid-leg her petticoat was rear’d,
And the true slattern in her dress appear’d.
A SIMILE
FROM SILIUS ITALICUS
AUT ubi cecropius formidine nubis aquosæ
Sparsa super flores examina tollit Hymcttos;
Ad dulces ceras ct odori corticis antra,
Mellis apes gravidæ properant, densoque volatu
Eaucum connexæ glomerant ad limina murmur.
OR when th’ Hymettian shepherd, struck with fear
Of wat’ry clouds thick gather’d in the air,
Collects to waxen cells the scatter’d bees
Home from the sweetest flowers, and verdant trees;
Loaded with honey to the hive they fly,
And humming murmurs buzz along the sky.
TO EUTHALIA
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1728
BURNING with love, tormented with despair
Unable to forget or ease his care;
In vain each practised art Alexis tries;
In vain to books, to wine or women flies;
Each brings Euthalia’s image to his eyes.
In Locke’s or Newton’s page her learning glows;
Dryden the sweetness of her numbers shows;
In all their various excellence I find
The various beauties of her perfect mind.
How vain in wine a short relief I boast!
Each sparkling glass recalls my charming toast.
To women then successless I repair,
Engage the young, the witty, and the fair.
When Sappho’s wit each envious breast alarms,
And Rosalinda looks ten thousand charms;
In vain to them my restless thoughts would run;
Like fairest stars, they show the absent sun.
PART OF JUVENAL’S SIXTH SATIRE
MODERNISED IN BURLESQUE VERSE
JUVENALIS SATYRA SEXTA
CREDO pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
In terris, visamque diu; cum frigida parvas
Præberet spelimca domos, ignemque, Laremque,
Et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra:
Silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor
Frondibus et culmo, vicinarumqne ferarum
PART OF
JUVENAL’S SIXTH SATIRE
MODERNISED IN
BURLESQUE VERSE
DAME Chastity, without dispute,
Dwelt on the earth with good King Brute;
When a cold hut of modern Greenland
Had been a palace for a Queen Anne;
When hard and frugal temp’rance reign’d,
And men no other house contain’d
Than the wild thicket, or the den;
When household goods, and beasts, and men,
Together lay beneath one bough,
Which man and wife would scarce do now;
The rustic wife her husband’s bed
With leaves and straw, and beast-skin made.
Pellibus, hand similis tibi, Cynthia, nee tibi, cujus
Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos;
Sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis,
Et sæpe horridior glandem ructante marito.
Quippe aliter tune orbe novo, cœloque recenti
Vivebant homines; qui rupto robore nati,
Compositique luto nullos habuere parentes,
Multa pudicitiæ veteris vestigia forsan,
Not like Miss Cynthia, nor that other,
Who more bewail’d her bird than mother;
But fed her children from her bubbies.
Till they were grown up to great loobies:
Herself an ornament lest decent
Than spouse, who smell’d of acorn recent.
For, in the infancy of nature,
Man was a diff’rent sort of creature;
When dirt-engendered offspring broke
From the ripe womb of mother oak.
Ev’n in the reign of Jove, perhaps,
Ant aliqua extiterant, et sub Jove, sed Jove nondum
Barbato, nondum Græcis jurare paratis Per caput alterius; cum furem nemo timeret
Caulibus, aut pomis, sed aperto viveret horto.
Paulatim deinde ad superos Astræa recessit
Hac comité; atque duæ pariter fugere sorores.
Antiquum et vetus est, alienum, Posthume, lectum
Concutere, atque sacri genium contemnere fulcri.
Omne aliud crimen mox ferrea protulit ætas:
Yiderunt primos argentea secula mcechos.
Conventum tamen, et pactum, et sponsalia nostra
Tempestate paras; jamque a tonsore magistro
Pecteris, et digito pignus fortasse dedisti.
Certe sanus eras: uxorem, Posthume, ducis?
Die, qua Tisiphone? quibus exagitare colubris?
Ferre potes dominam sal vis tot restibus ullam?
The goddess may have shown her chaps;
But it was sure in its beginning,
Ere Jupiter had beard to grin in.
Not yet the Greeks made truth their sport,
And bore false evidence in court;
Their truth was yet become no adage;
Men fear’d no thieves of pears and cabbage.
By small degrees Astrea flies,
With her two sisters to the skies.
O ‘tis a very ancient custom,
To taint the genial bed, my Posthum!
Fearless lest husband should discover it,
Or else the genius that rules over it.
The iron age gave other crimes,
Adult’ry grew in silver times.
But you, in this age, boldly dare
The marriage settlements prepare;
Perhaps have bought the wedding garment,
And ring too, thinking there’s no harm in’t.
Sure you was in your senses, honey.
You marry. Say, what Tisiphone
Possesses you with all her snakes,
Those curls which in her pole she shakes?
Cum pateant altæ, caligantesque fenestras?
Cum tibi vieinum se præbeat Æmilius pons?
Aut si de multis nullus placet exitus; illud
Nonne putas melius, quod tecum pusio dormit?
Pusio qui noctu non litigat: exigit a te
Nulla jacens illie munuscula, nee queritur quod
Et lateri parcas, nec, quantum jussit, anheles.
Sed placet Ursidio lex Julia: tollere dulcem
Cogitât hæredem, cariturus turture magno,
Mullorumque jubis, et captatore macello.
Quid fieri non posse putes, si jungitur ulla
Usidio? si mœchorum notissimus olim
Stulta maritali jam porrigit ora capistro,
Quem toties texit periturum cista Latini?
What, wilt thou wear the marriage chain,
While one whole halter doth remain;
When open windows death present ye,
And Thames hath water in great plenty?
But verdicts of ten thousand pound
Most sweetly to Ursidius sound.
“We’ll all (he cries) be cuckolds nem con.
While the rich action lies of crim con.”
And who would lose the precious joy
Of a fine thumping darling boy?
Who, while you dance him, calls you daddy
(So he’s instructed by my lady).
What tho’ no ven’son, fowl, or fish,
Presented, henceforth grace the dish:
Such he hath had, but dates no merit hence;
He knows they came for his inheritance.
