If Atticus in sumptuous fare delight,'Tis taste: if Rutilus, 'tis madness quite:And what diverts the sneering rabble moreThan an Apicius miserably poor?In every company, go where you will,5Bath, forum, theatre, the talk is stillOf Rutilus!—While fit (they cry) to wield,With firm and vigorous arm, the spear and shield,While his full veins beat high with youthful blood,Forced by no tribune—yet by none withstood,10He cultivates the gladiator's trade,And learns the imperious language of the blade.What swarms we see of this degenerate kind!Swarms whom their creditors can only findAt flesh and fish-stalls:—thither they repair,15Sure, though deceived at home, to catch them there.These live but for their palate; and, of these,The most distressed (while Ruin hastes to seizeThe crumbling mansion and disparting wall),Spread richer feasts, and riot as they fall!—20Meanwhile, ere yet the last supply be spent,They search for dainties every element,Awed by no price; nay, making this their boast,And still preferring that which costs them most,Joyous, and reckless of to-morrow's fate,25To raise a desperate sum, they pledge their plate,Or mother's fractured image; to prepareYet one treat more, though but in earthen ware!Then to the fencer's mess they come, of course,And mount the scaffold as a last resource.30No foe to sumptuous boards, I only scan,When such are spread, the motives, and the man,And praise or censure, as I see the feastOr by the noble or the beggar dress'd:In this, 'tis gluttony; in that, fit pride,35Sanctioned by wealth, by station dignified.—Whip me the fool, who marks how Atlas soarsO'er every hill on Mauritania's shores,Yet sees no difference 'twixt the coffer's hoards,And the poor pittance a small purse affords!40Heaven sent us "KNOW THYSELF!"—Be this impress'dIn living characters, upon thy breast,And still revolved; whether a wife thou choose,Or to theSACRED SENATEpoint thy views.—Or seek'st thou rather, in some doubtful cause,45To vindicate thy country's injured laws?Knock at thy bosom, play the censor's part,And note with caution what and who thou art,An orator of force and skill profound,Or a mere Matho, emptiness and sound!50Yes,KNOW THYSELF: in great concerns, in small,Be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all:Nor, when thy purse will scarce a gudgeon buy,With fond intemperance for turbots sigh!O think what end awaits thee, timely think,55If thy throat widens as thy pockets shrink,Thy throat, of all thy father's thrift could save,Flocks, herds, and fields, the insatiable grave!—At length, when naught remains a meal to bring,The last poor shift, off comes the knightly ring,60And "sad Sir Pollio" begs his daily fare,With undistinguished hands, and finger bare!To these, an early grave no terror brings,"A short and merry life!" the spendthrift sings;Death seems to him a refuge from despair,65And far less terrible than hoary hair.Mark now the progress of their rapid fate!Money (regardless of the monthly rate),On every side, they borrow, and apace,Waste what is borrowed before the lender's face:70Then, while they yet some wretched remnant hold,And the pale usurer trembles for his gold,They wisely sicken for the country air,And flock to Baiæ, Ostia, Jove knows where.—For now 'tis held (so rife the evil's grown)75No greater shame, for debt, to flee the town,Than from the thronged Suburra to remove,In dog-days, to the Esquilian shades above.One thought alone, what time they leave behindFriends, country, all, weighs heavy on their mind,80One thought alone—for twelve long months to loseThe dear delights of Rome, the public shows!Where sleeps the modest blood! In all our veins,No conscious drop, to form a blush, remains:Shame, from the town, derided, speeds her way,85And few, alas! solicit her to stay.Enough: to-day my Persicus shall seeWhether my precepts with my life agree;Whether, with feigned austerity, I prizeThe spare repast, a glutton in disguise!90Bawl for coarse pottage, that my friends may hear,But whisper "sweetmeats!" in my servant's ear.For since, by promise, you are now my guest,Know, I invite you to no sumptuous feast,But to such simple fare, as long, long since,95The good Evander bade the Trojan prince.Come then, my friend, you will not, sure, despiseThe food that pleased the offspring of the skies;Come, and while fancy brings past times to view,I'll think myself the king, the hero you.100Take now your bill of fare: my simple boardIs with no dainties from the market stored,But dishes all my own. From Tibur's stockA kid shall come, the fattest of the flock,The tenderest too, and yet too young to browse105The thistle's shoots, the willow's watery boughs,With more of milk than blood; and pullets dress'dWith new-laid eggs, yet tepid from the nest,And sperage wild, which, from the mountain's side,My housemaid left her spindle to provide;110And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair,And the rich Signian and the Syrian pear;And apples, that in flavor and in smellThe boasted Picene equal, or excel:—Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use,115For age has mellowed and improved their juice.How homely this! and yet this homely fareA senator would, once, have counted rare;When the good Curius thought it no disgraceO'er a few sticks a little pot to place,120With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied—Food, which the squalid wretch would now deride,Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret,The tavern's savory dish remembers yet!Time was, when, on the rack, a man would lay125The seasoned flitch, against a solemn day;And think the friends who met, with decent mirth,To celebrate the hour which gave him birth,On this, and what of fresh the altars spared(For altars then were honored), nobly fared.130Some kinsman, who had camps and senates swayed,Had thrice been consul, once dictator made,From public cares retired, would gayly haste,Before the wonted hour, to such repast,Shouldering the spade, that, with no common toil,135Had tamed the genius of the mountain soil.—Yes, when the world was filled with Rome's just fame,And Romans trembled at the Fabian name,The Scauran, and Fabrician; when they sawA censor's rigor even a censor awe,140No son of Troy e'er thought it his concern,Or worth a moment's serious care, to learn,What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred,Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed.—His bed was small, and did no signs impart145Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art,Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass,Showed the rude features of a vine-crowned ass;An uncouth brute, round which his children played,And laughed and jested at the face it made!150Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food,Were uniformly plain, and simply good.Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by GreeceTo hang, enraptured, o'er a finished piece,If haply, 'mid the congregated spoils155(Proofs of his power, and guerdon of his toils),Some antique vase of master-hands were found,Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground;That, in new forms, the molten fragments dress'd,Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest,160Or, flashing from his burnished helmet, show(A dreadful omen to the trembling foe)The mighty sire, with glittering shield and spear,Hovering, enamored, o'er the sleeping fair,The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild,165And, playful at her side, each wondrous child.Thus, all the wealth those simple times could boast,Small wealth! their horses and their arms engross'd;The rest was homely, and their frugal fare,Cooked without art, was served in earthen ware:170Yet worthy all our envy, were the breastBut with one spark of noble spleen possess'd.Thenshone the fanes with majesty divine,A present god was felt at every shrine!And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls,175At midnight's solemn hour, announced the Gauls,Now rushing from the main; while, prompt to save,Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave!Yet, when he thus revealed the will of fate,And watched attentive o'er the Latian state,180His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mould,Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold.Those good old times no foreign tables sought;From their own woods the walnut-tree was brought,When withering limbs declared its pith unsound,185Or winds uptore, and stretched it on the ground.But now, such strange caprice has seized the great,They find no pleasure in the costliest treat,Suspect the flowers a sickly scent exhale,And think the ven'son rank, the turbot stale,190Unless wide-yawning panthers, towering high—Enormous pedestals of ivory,Formed of the teeth which Elephantis sends,Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian, vends,Or those which, now, too heavy for the head,195The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed—The spacious ORBS support: then they can feed,And every dish is delicate indeed!For silver feet are viewed with equal scorn,As iron rings upon the finger worn.200To me, forever be the guest unknown,Who, measuring my expenses by his own,Remarks the difference with a scornful leer,And slights my humble house and homely cheer.Look not to me for ivory; I have none:205My chess-board and my men are all of bone;Nay, my knife-handles; yet, my friend, for this,My pullets neither cut nor taste amiss.I boast no artist, tutored in the schoolOf learned Trypherus, to carve by rule;210Where large sow-paps of elm, and boar, and hare,And phœnicopter, and pygargus rare,Getulian oryx, Scythian pheasants, point,The nice anatomy of every joint;And dull blunt tools, severing the wooden treat,215Clatter around, and deafen all the street.My simple lad, whose highest efforts riseTo broil a steak in the plain country guise,Knows no such art; humbly content to serve,And bring the dishes which he can not kerve.220Another lad (for I have two to-day),Clad, like the first, in homespun russet gray,Shall fill our earthen bowls: no Phrygian he,No pampered attribute of luxury,But a rude rustic:—when you want him, speak,225And speak in Latin, for he knows not Greek.Both go alike, with close-cropp'd hair, undress'd,But spruced to-day in honor of my guest;And both were born on my estate, and oneIs my rough shepherd's, one, my neatherd's son.230Poor youth! he mourns, with many an artless tear,His long, long absence from his mother dear;Sighs for his little cottage, and would fainMeet his old playfellows, the goats, again.Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace235Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face;Charming suffusion! that would well becomeThe youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome.—He, Persicus, shall fill us wine which grewWhere first the breath of life the stripling drew,240On Tibur's hills;—dear hills, that many a dayWitnessed the transports of his infant play.But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throngOf Gaditanian girls, with dance and song,To kindle loose desire; girls, that now bound}245Aloft with active grace, now, on the ground,}Quivering, alight, while peals of praise go round.}Lo! wives, beside their husbands placed, behold,What could not in their ear, for shame, be told;Expedients of the rich, the blood to fire,250And wake the dying embers of desire.Behold? O heavens! they view, with keenest gust,These strong provocatives of jaded lust;With every gesture feel their passions rise,And draw in pleasure both at ears and eyes!255Such vicious fancies are too great for me.Let him the wanton dance unblushing see,And hear the immodest terms which, in the stews,The veriest strumpet would disdain to use,Whose drunken spawlings roll, tumultuous, o'er260The proud expansion of a marble floor:For there the world a large allowance make,And spare the folly for the fortune's sake.—Dice, and adultery, with a small estate,Are damning crimes; but venial, with a great;265Venial? nay, graceful: witty, gallant, brave,And such wild tricks "as gentlemen should have!"My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford:Hushed as we sit around the frugal board.Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll,270And mighty Maro elevate the soul;Maro, who, warmed with all the poet's fire,Disputes the palm of victory with his sire:Nor fear my rustic clerks; read as they will,The bard, the bard, shall rise superior still!275Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare,And quit awhile your business and your care;The day is all our own: come, and forgetBonds, interest, all; the credit and the debt;Nay, e'en your wife: though, with the dawning light,280She left your couch, and late returned at night;Though her loose hair in wild disorder flowed,Her eye yet glistened, and her cheek yet glowed,Her rumpled girdle busy hands express'd—Yet, at my threshold, tranquilize your breast;285There leave the thoughts of home, and what the hasteOf heedless slaves may in your absence waste;And, what the generous spirit most offends,O, more than all, leave thereungrateful Friends.But see! the napkin, waved aloft, proclaims290The glad commencement of the Idæan games,And the proud prætor, in triumphal state,Ascends his car, the arbiter of fate!Ere this, all Rome (if 'tis, for once, allowed,To say all Rome, of so immense a crowd)295The Circus throngs, and—Hark! loud shouts arise—From these, I guess theGreenhas won the prize;For had it lost, all joy had been suppress'd,And grief and horror seized the public breast;As when dire Carthage forced our arms to yield,300And poured our noblest blood on Cannæ's field.Thither let youth, whom it befits, repair,And seat themselves beside some favorite fair,Wrangle, and urge the desperate bet aloud;While we, retired from business and the crowd,305Stretch our shrunk limbs by sunny bank or stream,And drink, at every pore, the vernal beam.Haste, then: for we may use our freedom now,And bathe, an hour ere noon, with fearless brow—Indulge for once:—Yet such delights as these,310In five short morns, would lose the power to please;For still, the sweetest pleasures soonest cloy,And its best flavor temperance gives to joy.
If Atticus in sumptuous fare delight,'Tis taste: if Rutilus, 'tis madness quite:And what diverts the sneering rabble moreThan an Apicius miserably poor?In every company, go where you will,5Bath, forum, theatre, the talk is stillOf Rutilus!—While fit (they cry) to wield,With firm and vigorous arm, the spear and shield,While his full veins beat high with youthful blood,Forced by no tribune—yet by none withstood,10He cultivates the gladiator's trade,And learns the imperious language of the blade.What swarms we see of this degenerate kind!Swarms whom their creditors can only findAt flesh and fish-stalls:—thither they repair,15Sure, though deceived at home, to catch them there.These live but for their palate; and, of these,The most distressed (while Ruin hastes to seizeThe crumbling mansion and disparting wall),Spread richer feasts, and riot as they fall!—20Meanwhile, ere yet the last supply be spent,They search for dainties every element,Awed by no price; nay, making this their boast,And still preferring that which costs them most,Joyous, and reckless of to-morrow's fate,25To raise a desperate sum, they pledge their plate,Or mother's fractured image; to prepareYet one treat more, though but in earthen ware!Then to the fencer's mess they come, of course,And mount the scaffold as a last resource.30No foe to sumptuous boards, I only scan,When such are spread, the motives, and the man,And praise or censure, as I see the feastOr by the noble or the beggar dress'd:In this, 'tis gluttony; in that, fit pride,35Sanctioned by wealth, by station dignified.—Whip me the fool, who marks how Atlas soarsO'er every hill on Mauritania's shores,Yet sees no difference 'twixt the coffer's hoards,And the poor pittance a small purse affords!40Heaven sent us "KNOW THYSELF!"—Be this impress'dIn living characters, upon thy breast,And still revolved; whether a wife thou choose,Or to theSACRED SENATEpoint thy views.—Or seek'st thou rather, in some doubtful cause,45To vindicate thy country's injured laws?Knock at thy bosom, play the censor's part,And note with caution what and who thou art,An orator of force and skill profound,Or a mere Matho, emptiness and sound!50Yes,KNOW THYSELF: in great concerns, in small,Be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all:Nor, when thy purse will scarce a gudgeon buy,With fond intemperance for turbots sigh!O think what end awaits thee, timely think,55If thy throat widens as thy pockets shrink,Thy throat, of all thy father's thrift could save,Flocks, herds, and fields, the insatiable grave!—At length, when naught remains a meal to bring,The last poor shift, off comes the knightly ring,60And "sad Sir Pollio" begs his daily fare,With undistinguished hands, and finger bare!To these, an early grave no terror brings,"A short and merry life!" the spendthrift sings;Death seems to him a refuge from despair,65And far less terrible than hoary hair.Mark now the progress of their rapid fate!Money (regardless of the monthly rate),On every side, they borrow, and apace,Waste what is borrowed before the lender's face:70Then, while they yet some wretched remnant hold,And the pale usurer trembles for his gold,They wisely sicken for the country air,And flock to Baiæ, Ostia, Jove knows where.—For now 'tis held (so rife the evil's grown)75No greater shame, for debt, to flee the town,Than from the thronged Suburra to remove,In dog-days, to the Esquilian shades above.One thought alone, what time they leave behindFriends, country, all, weighs heavy on their mind,80One thought alone—for twelve long months to loseThe dear delights of Rome, the public shows!Where sleeps the modest blood! In all our veins,No conscious drop, to form a blush, remains:Shame, from the town, derided, speeds her way,85And few, alas! solicit her to stay.Enough: to-day my Persicus shall seeWhether my precepts with my life agree;Whether, with feigned austerity, I prizeThe spare repast, a glutton in disguise!90Bawl for coarse pottage, that my friends may hear,But whisper "sweetmeats!" in my servant's ear.For since, by promise, you are now my guest,Know, I invite you to no sumptuous feast,But to such simple fare, as long, long since,95The good Evander bade the Trojan prince.Come then, my friend, you will not, sure, despiseThe food that pleased the offspring of the skies;Come, and while fancy brings past times to view,I'll think myself the king, the hero you.100Take now your bill of fare: my simple boardIs with no dainties from the market stored,But dishes all my own. From Tibur's stockA kid shall come, the fattest of the flock,The tenderest too, and yet too young to browse105The thistle's shoots, the willow's watery boughs,With more of milk than blood; and pullets dress'dWith new-laid eggs, yet tepid from the nest,And sperage wild, which, from the mountain's side,My housemaid left her spindle to provide;110And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair,And the rich Signian and the Syrian pear;And apples, that in flavor and in smellThe boasted Picene equal, or excel:—Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use,115For age has mellowed and improved their juice.How homely this! and yet this homely fareA senator would, once, have counted rare;When the good Curius thought it no disgraceO'er a few sticks a little pot to place,120With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied—Food, which the squalid wretch would now deride,Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret,The tavern's savory dish remembers yet!Time was, when, on the rack, a man would lay125The seasoned flitch, against a solemn day;And think the friends who met, with decent mirth,To celebrate the hour which gave him birth,On this, and what of fresh the altars spared(For altars then were honored), nobly fared.130Some kinsman, who had camps and senates swayed,Had thrice been consul, once dictator made,From public cares retired, would gayly haste,Before the wonted hour, to such repast,Shouldering the spade, that, with no common toil,135Had tamed the genius of the mountain soil.—Yes, when the world was filled with Rome's just fame,And Romans trembled at the Fabian name,The Scauran, and Fabrician; when they sawA censor's rigor even a censor awe,140No son of Troy e'er thought it his concern,Or worth a moment's serious care, to learn,What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred,Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed.—His bed was small, and did no signs impart145Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art,Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass,Showed the rude features of a vine-crowned ass;An uncouth brute, round which his children played,And laughed and jested at the face it made!150Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food,Were uniformly plain, and simply good.Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by GreeceTo hang, enraptured, o'er a finished piece,If haply, 'mid the congregated spoils155(Proofs of his power, and guerdon of his toils),Some antique vase of master-hands were found,Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground;That, in new forms, the molten fragments dress'd,Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest,160Or, flashing from his burnished helmet, show(A dreadful omen to the trembling foe)The mighty sire, with glittering shield and spear,Hovering, enamored, o'er the sleeping fair,The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild,165And, playful at her side, each wondrous child.Thus, all the wealth those simple times could boast,Small wealth! their horses and their arms engross'd;The rest was homely, and their frugal fare,Cooked without art, was served in earthen ware:170Yet worthy all our envy, were the breastBut with one spark of noble spleen possess'd.Thenshone the fanes with majesty divine,A present god was felt at every shrine!And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls,175At midnight's solemn hour, announced the Gauls,Now rushing from the main; while, prompt to save,Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave!Yet, when he thus revealed the will of fate,And watched attentive o'er the Latian state,180His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mould,Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold.Those good old times no foreign tables sought;From their own woods the walnut-tree was brought,When withering limbs declared its pith unsound,185Or winds uptore, and stretched it on the ground.But now, such strange caprice has seized the great,They find no pleasure in the costliest treat,Suspect the flowers a sickly scent exhale,And think the ven'son rank, the turbot stale,190Unless wide-yawning panthers, towering high—Enormous pedestals of ivory,Formed of the teeth which Elephantis sends,Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian, vends,Or those which, now, too heavy for the head,195The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed—The spacious ORBS support: then they can feed,And every dish is delicate indeed!For silver feet are viewed with equal scorn,As iron rings upon the finger worn.200To me, forever be the guest unknown,Who, measuring my expenses by his own,Remarks the difference with a scornful leer,And slights my humble house and homely cheer.Look not to me for ivory; I have none:205My chess-board and my men are all of bone;Nay, my knife-handles; yet, my friend, for this,My pullets neither cut nor taste amiss.I boast no artist, tutored in the schoolOf learned Trypherus, to carve by rule;210Where large sow-paps of elm, and boar, and hare,And phœnicopter, and pygargus rare,Getulian oryx, Scythian pheasants, point,The nice anatomy of every joint;And dull blunt tools, severing the wooden treat,215Clatter around, and deafen all the street.My simple lad, whose highest efforts riseTo broil a steak in the plain country guise,Knows no such art; humbly content to serve,And bring the dishes which he can not kerve.220Another lad (for I have two to-day),Clad, like the first, in homespun russet gray,Shall fill our earthen bowls: no Phrygian he,No pampered attribute of luxury,But a rude rustic:—when you want him, speak,225And speak in Latin, for he knows not Greek.Both go alike, with close-cropp'd hair, undress'd,But spruced to-day in honor of my guest;And both were born on my estate, and oneIs my rough shepherd's, one, my neatherd's son.230Poor youth! he mourns, with many an artless tear,His long, long absence from his mother dear;Sighs for his little cottage, and would fainMeet his old playfellows, the goats, again.Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace235Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face;Charming suffusion! that would well becomeThe youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome.—He, Persicus, shall fill us wine which grewWhere first the breath of life the stripling drew,240On Tibur's hills;—dear hills, that many a dayWitnessed the transports of his infant play.But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throngOf Gaditanian girls, with dance and song,To kindle loose desire; girls, that now bound}245Aloft with active grace, now, on the ground,}Quivering, alight, while peals of praise go round.}Lo! wives, beside their husbands placed, behold,What could not in their ear, for shame, be told;Expedients of the rich, the blood to fire,250And wake the dying embers of desire.Behold? O heavens! they view, with keenest gust,These strong provocatives of jaded lust;With every gesture feel their passions rise,And draw in pleasure both at ears and eyes!255Such vicious fancies are too great for me.Let him the wanton dance unblushing see,And hear the immodest terms which, in the stews,The veriest strumpet would disdain to use,Whose drunken spawlings roll, tumultuous, o'er260The proud expansion of a marble floor:For there the world a large allowance make,And spare the folly for the fortune's sake.—Dice, and adultery, with a small estate,Are damning crimes; but venial, with a great;265Venial? nay, graceful: witty, gallant, brave,And such wild tricks "as gentlemen should have!"My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford:Hushed as we sit around the frugal board.Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll,270And mighty Maro elevate the soul;Maro, who, warmed with all the poet's fire,Disputes the palm of victory with his sire:Nor fear my rustic clerks; read as they will,The bard, the bard, shall rise superior still!275Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare,And quit awhile your business and your care;The day is all our own: come, and forgetBonds, interest, all; the credit and the debt;Nay, e'en your wife: though, with the dawning light,280She left your couch, and late returned at night;Though her loose hair in wild disorder flowed,Her eye yet glistened, and her cheek yet glowed,Her rumpled girdle busy hands express'd—Yet, at my threshold, tranquilize your breast;285There leave the thoughts of home, and what the hasteOf heedless slaves may in your absence waste;And, what the generous spirit most offends,O, more than all, leave thereungrateful Friends.But see! the napkin, waved aloft, proclaims290The glad commencement of the Idæan games,And the proud prætor, in triumphal state,Ascends his car, the arbiter of fate!Ere this, all Rome (if 'tis, for once, allowed,To say all Rome, of so immense a crowd)295The Circus throngs, and—Hark! loud shouts arise—From these, I guess theGreenhas won the prize;For had it lost, all joy had been suppress'd,And grief and horror seized the public breast;As when dire Carthage forced our arms to yield,300And poured our noblest blood on Cannæ's field.Thither let youth, whom it befits, repair,And seat themselves beside some favorite fair,Wrangle, and urge the desperate bet aloud;While we, retired from business and the crowd,305Stretch our shrunk limbs by sunny bank or stream,And drink, at every pore, the vernal beam.Haste, then: for we may use our freedom now,And bathe, an hour ere noon, with fearless brow—Indulge for once:—Yet such delights as these,310In five short morns, would lose the power to please;For still, the sweetest pleasures soonest cloy,And its best flavor temperance gives to joy.
Not with such joy, Corvinus, I surveyMy natal hour, as this auspicious day;This day, on which the festive turf demandsThe promised victims, at my willing hands.A snow-white lamb to Juno I decree,5Another to Minerva; and to thee,Tarpeian Jove! a steer, which, from afar,Shakes his long rope, and meditates the war.'Tis a fierce animal, that proudly scornsThe dug, since first he tried his budding horns10Against an oak; free mettled, and, in fine,Fit for the knife, and sacrificial wine.O, were my power but equal to my love,A nobler victim should my rapture prove!A bull high fed, and boasting in his veins,15The luscious juices of Clitumnus' plains,Fatter than fat Hispulla, huge and slow,Should fall, but fall beneath no common blow—Fall for my friend, who now, from danger free,Revolves the recent perils of the sea;20Shrinks at the roaring waves, the howling winds,And scarcely trusts the safety which he finds!For not the gods' inevitable fire,The surging billows that to heaven aspire,Alone, perdition threat; black clouds arise,25And blot out all the splendor of the skies;Loud and more loud the thunder's voice is heard,And sulphurous fires flash dreadful on the yard.—Trembled the crew, and, fixed in wild amaze,Saw the rent sails burst into sudden blaze;30While shipwreck, late so dreadful, now appearedA refuge from the flames, more wished than feared.Horror on horror! earth, and sea, and skies,Convulsed, as whenPOETIC TEMPESTSrise!From the same source another danger view,35With pitying eye—though dire alas! not new;But known too well, as Isis' temples show,By many a pictured scene of votive woe;Isis, by whom the painters now are fed,Since our own gods no longer yield them bread!—40And such befell our friend: for now a sea,Upsurging, poured tremendous o'er the lee,And filled the hold; while, pressed by wave and wind,To right and left, by turns, the ship inclined:Then, while Catullus viewed, with drooping heart,45The storm prevailing o'er the pilot's art,He wisely hastened to compound the strife,And gave his treasure to preserve his life.The beaver thus to scape his hunter tries,And leaves behind the medicated prize;50Happy to purchase with his dearest blood,A timely refuge in the well-known flood."Away with all that's mine," he cries, "away!"And plunges in the deep, without delay,Purples, which soft Mæcenases might wear,55Crimsons, deep-tinctured in the Bætic air,Where herbs, and springs of secret virtues, stainThe flocks at feed, with Nature's richest grain.With these, neat baskets from the Britons bought,Rare silver chargers by Parthenius wrought,60A huge two-handed goblet, which might strainA Pholus, or a Fuscus' wife, to drain;Followed by numerous services of plate,Plain, and enchased; with cups of ancient date,In which, while at the city's strength he laughed,65The wily chapman of Olynthus quaffed.Yet show me, in this elemental strife,Another, who would barter wealth for life!—FewGAIN TO LIVE, Corvinus, few or none,But, blind with avarice,LIVE TO GAINalone.70Now had the deep devoured their richest store;Nor seems their safety nearer than before:The last resource alone was unexplored—To cut the mast and rigging by the board;Haply the vessel so might steadier ride75O'er the vexed surface of the raging tide.Dire threats the impending blow, when, thus distress'd,We sacrifice a part, to save the rest!Go now, fond man, the faithless ocean brave,Commit your fortune to the wind and wave;80Trust to a plank, and draw precarious breath,At most, seven inches from the jaws of death!Go, but forget not that a storm may rise,And put up hatchets with your sea supplies.But now the winds were hushed; the wearied main85Sunk to repose, a calm, unruffled plain;For fate, superior to the tempest's power,Averted from my friend the mortal hour:A whiter thread the cheerful Sisters spun,And lo, with favoring hands their spindles run!90Mild as the breeze of eve, a rising galeRippled the wave, and filled their only sail;Others the crew supplied, of vests combined,And spread to catch each vagrant breath of wind:By aids like these, slow o'er the deep impelled,95The shattered bark her course for Ostia held;While the glad sun uprose, supremely bright,And hope returned with the returning light.At length the heights, where, from Lavinum moved,Iülus built the city which he loved,100Burst on the view; auspicious heights! whose nameFrom a white sow and thirty sucklings came.And now, the port they gain; the tower, whose rayGuides the poor wanderer o'er the watery way,And the huge mole, whose arms the waves embrace,105And stretching, an immeasurable space,Far into Ocean's bosom, leave the coast,Till, in the distance, Italy is lost!—Less wonderful the bays which Nature forms,And less secure against assailing storms:110Here rides the wave-worn bark, devoid of fear;For Baian skiffs might ply with safety here.The joyful crew, with shaven crowns, relateTheir timely rescue from the jaws of fate;On every ill a pomp of words bestow,115And dwell delighted on the tale of woe.Go then, my boys—but let no boding strainBreak on the sacred silence—dress the faneWith garlands, bind the sod with ribbons gay,And on the knives the salted offering lay:120This done, I'll speed, myself the rites to share,And finish what remains, with pious care.Then, hastening home, where chaplets of sweet flowersBedeck my Lares, dear, domestic Powers!I'll offer incense there, and at the shrine125Of highest Jove, my father's god, and mine;There will I scatter every bud that blows,And every tint the various violet knows.All savors here of joy; luxuriant bay}O'ershades my portal, while the taper's ray}130Anticipates the feast, and chides the tardy day:}Nor think, Corvinus, interest fires my breast:Catullus, for whose sake my house is dress'd,Has three sweet boys, who all such hopes destroy,And nobler views excite my boundless joy.135Yet who besides, on such a barren friend,Would waste a sickly pullet? who would spendSo vast a treasure, where no hopes prevail,Or, for aFATHER, sacrifice a quail?—But should the symptoms of a slight disease140The childless Paccius or Gallita seize,Legions of flatterers to the fanes repair,And hang in rows their votive tablets there.Nay, some with vows of hecatombs will come—For yet no elephants are sold at Rome;145The breed, to Latium and to us unknown,Is only found beneath the burning zone:Thence to our shore, by swarthy Moors conveyed,They roam at large through the Rutulian shade,Kept for the imperial pleasure, envied fate!150And sacred from the subject, and the state.Though their progenitors, in days of yore,Did worthy service, and to battle boreWhole cohorts; taught the general's voice to know,And rush, themselves an army, on the foe.155But what avails their worth! could gold obtainSo rare a creature, worth might plead in vain:Novius, without delay, their blood would shed,To raise his Paccius from affliction's bed;An offering, sacred to the great design,160And worthy of the votary and the shrine!Pacuvius, did our laws the crime allow,The fairest of his numerous slaves would vow;The blooming boy, the love-inspiring maid,With garlands crown, and to the temple lead;165Nay, seize his Iphigene, prepared to wed,And drag her to the altar, from the bed;Though hopeless, like the Grecian sire, to find,In happy hour, the substituted hind.And who shall say my countryman does ill?170A thousand ships are trifles to a Will!For Paccius, should the fates his health restore,May cancel everyitemframed before(Won by his friend's vast merits, and beset,On all sides, by the inextricable net),175And, in one line, convey plate, jewels, gold,Lands, every thing to him, "to have and hold."With victory crowned, Pacuvius struts along,And smiles contemptuous on the baffled throng;Then counts his gains, and deems himself o'erpaid180For the cheap murder of one wretched maid.Health to the man! and may heTHUSget moreThan Nero plundered! pile his shining storeHigh, mountain high; in years a Nestor prove,And, loving none, ne'er know another's love!185
Not with such joy, Corvinus, I surveyMy natal hour, as this auspicious day;This day, on which the festive turf demandsThe promised victims, at my willing hands.A snow-white lamb to Juno I decree,5Another to Minerva; and to thee,Tarpeian Jove! a steer, which, from afar,Shakes his long rope, and meditates the war.'Tis a fierce animal, that proudly scornsThe dug, since first he tried his budding horns10Against an oak; free mettled, and, in fine,Fit for the knife, and sacrificial wine.O, were my power but equal to my love,A nobler victim should my rapture prove!A bull high fed, and boasting in his veins,15The luscious juices of Clitumnus' plains,Fatter than fat Hispulla, huge and slow,Should fall, but fall beneath no common blow—Fall for my friend, who now, from danger free,Revolves the recent perils of the sea;20Shrinks at the roaring waves, the howling winds,And scarcely trusts the safety which he finds!For not the gods' inevitable fire,The surging billows that to heaven aspire,Alone, perdition threat; black clouds arise,25And blot out all the splendor of the skies;Loud and more loud the thunder's voice is heard,And sulphurous fires flash dreadful on the yard.—Trembled the crew, and, fixed in wild amaze,Saw the rent sails burst into sudden blaze;30While shipwreck, late so dreadful, now appearedA refuge from the flames, more wished than feared.Horror on horror! earth, and sea, and skies,Convulsed, as whenPOETIC TEMPESTSrise!From the same source another danger view,35With pitying eye—though dire alas! not new;But known too well, as Isis' temples show,By many a pictured scene of votive woe;Isis, by whom the painters now are fed,Since our own gods no longer yield them bread!—40And such befell our friend: for now a sea,Upsurging, poured tremendous o'er the lee,And filled the hold; while, pressed by wave and wind,To right and left, by turns, the ship inclined:Then, while Catullus viewed, with drooping heart,45The storm prevailing o'er the pilot's art,He wisely hastened to compound the strife,And gave his treasure to preserve his life.The beaver thus to scape his hunter tries,And leaves behind the medicated prize;50Happy to purchase with his dearest blood,A timely refuge in the well-known flood."Away with all that's mine," he cries, "away!"And plunges in the deep, without delay,Purples, which soft Mæcenases might wear,55Crimsons, deep-tinctured in the Bætic air,Where herbs, and springs of secret virtues, stainThe flocks at feed, with Nature's richest grain.With these, neat baskets from the Britons bought,Rare silver chargers by Parthenius wrought,60A huge two-handed goblet, which might strainA Pholus, or a Fuscus' wife, to drain;Followed by numerous services of plate,Plain, and enchased; with cups of ancient date,In which, while at the city's strength he laughed,65The wily chapman of Olynthus quaffed.Yet show me, in this elemental strife,Another, who would barter wealth for life!—FewGAIN TO LIVE, Corvinus, few or none,But, blind with avarice,LIVE TO GAINalone.70Now had the deep devoured their richest store;Nor seems their safety nearer than before:The last resource alone was unexplored—To cut the mast and rigging by the board;Haply the vessel so might steadier ride75O'er the vexed surface of the raging tide.Dire threats the impending blow, when, thus distress'd,We sacrifice a part, to save the rest!Go now, fond man, the faithless ocean brave,Commit your fortune to the wind and wave;80Trust to a plank, and draw precarious breath,At most, seven inches from the jaws of death!Go, but forget not that a storm may rise,And put up hatchets with your sea supplies.But now the winds were hushed; the wearied main85Sunk to repose, a calm, unruffled plain;For fate, superior to the tempest's power,Averted from my friend the mortal hour:A whiter thread the cheerful Sisters spun,And lo, with favoring hands their spindles run!90Mild as the breeze of eve, a rising galeRippled the wave, and filled their only sail;Others the crew supplied, of vests combined,And spread to catch each vagrant breath of wind:By aids like these, slow o'er the deep impelled,95The shattered bark her course for Ostia held;While the glad sun uprose, supremely bright,And hope returned with the returning light.At length the heights, where, from Lavinum moved,Iülus built the city which he loved,100Burst on the view; auspicious heights! whose nameFrom a white sow and thirty sucklings came.And now, the port they gain; the tower, whose rayGuides the poor wanderer o'er the watery way,And the huge mole, whose arms the waves embrace,105And stretching, an immeasurable space,Far into Ocean's bosom, leave the coast,Till, in the distance, Italy is lost!—Less wonderful the bays which Nature forms,And less secure against assailing storms:110Here rides the wave-worn bark, devoid of fear;For Baian skiffs might ply with safety here.The joyful crew, with shaven crowns, relateTheir timely rescue from the jaws of fate;On every ill a pomp of words bestow,115And dwell delighted on the tale of woe.Go then, my boys—but let no boding strainBreak on the sacred silence—dress the faneWith garlands, bind the sod with ribbons gay,And on the knives the salted offering lay:120This done, I'll speed, myself the rites to share,And finish what remains, with pious care.Then, hastening home, where chaplets of sweet flowersBedeck my Lares, dear, domestic Powers!I'll offer incense there, and at the shrine125Of highest Jove, my father's god, and mine;There will I scatter every bud that blows,And every tint the various violet knows.All savors here of joy; luxuriant bay}O'ershades my portal, while the taper's ray}130Anticipates the feast, and chides the tardy day:}Nor think, Corvinus, interest fires my breast:Catullus, for whose sake my house is dress'd,Has three sweet boys, who all such hopes destroy,And nobler views excite my boundless joy.135Yet who besides, on such a barren friend,Would waste a sickly pullet? who would spendSo vast a treasure, where no hopes prevail,Or, for aFATHER, sacrifice a quail?—But should the symptoms of a slight disease140The childless Paccius or Gallita seize,Legions of flatterers to the fanes repair,And hang in rows their votive tablets there.Nay, some with vows of hecatombs will come—For yet no elephants are sold at Rome;145The breed, to Latium and to us unknown,Is only found beneath the burning zone:Thence to our shore, by swarthy Moors conveyed,They roam at large through the Rutulian shade,Kept for the imperial pleasure, envied fate!150And sacred from the subject, and the state.Though their progenitors, in days of yore,Did worthy service, and to battle boreWhole cohorts; taught the general's voice to know,And rush, themselves an army, on the foe.155But what avails their worth! could gold obtainSo rare a creature, worth might plead in vain:Novius, without delay, their blood would shed,To raise his Paccius from affliction's bed;An offering, sacred to the great design,160And worthy of the votary and the shrine!Pacuvius, did our laws the crime allow,The fairest of his numerous slaves would vow;The blooming boy, the love-inspiring maid,With garlands crown, and to the temple lead;165Nay, seize his Iphigene, prepared to wed,And drag her to the altar, from the bed;Though hopeless, like the Grecian sire, to find,In happy hour, the substituted hind.And who shall say my countryman does ill?170A thousand ships are trifles to a Will!For Paccius, should the fates his health restore,May cancel everyitemframed before(Won by his friend's vast merits, and beset,On all sides, by the inextricable net),175And, in one line, convey plate, jewels, gold,Lands, every thing to him, "to have and hold."With victory crowned, Pacuvius struts along,And smiles contemptuous on the baffled throng;Then counts his gains, and deems himself o'erpaid180For the cheap murder of one wretched maid.Health to the man! and may heTHUSget moreThan Nero plundered! pile his shining storeHigh, mountain high; in years a Nestor prove,And, loving none, ne'er know another's love!185
Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin,Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within;'Tis the first vengeance: Conscience tries the cause,And vindicates the violated laws;Though the bribed Prætor at their sentence spurn,5And falsify the verdict of the Urn.What says the world, not always, friend, unjust,Of his late injury, this breach of trust?That thy estate so small a loss can bear,And that the evil, now no longer rare,10Is one of that inevitable set,Which man is born to suffer and forget.Then moderate thy grief: 'tis mean to showAn anguish disproportioned to the blow.But thou, so new to crosses, as to feel15The slightest portion of the slightest ill,Art tired with rage, because a friend forswearsThe sacred pledge, intrusted to his cares.What, thou, Calvinus, bear so weak a mind!Thou, who hast left full three-score years behind!20Heaven, have they taught thee nothing! nothing, friend!And art thou grown gray-headed to no end!—Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm,To vanquish fortune, or at least disarm:Blest they who walk in her unerring rule!—25Nor those unblest, who, tutored in life's school,Have learned of old experience to submit,And lightly bear the yoke they can not quit.What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,No secret fraud, no open rapine stains?30What hour, in which no dark assassins prowl,Nor point the sword for hire, nor drug the bowl?The good, alas, are few!"The valued file,"Less than the gates of Thebes, the mouths of Nile!For now an age is come, that teems with crimes,35Beyond all precedent of former times;An age so bad, that Nature can not frameA metal base enough to give it name!Yet you, indignant at a paltry cheat,Call heaven and earth to witness the deceit,40With cries as deafening, as the shout that breaksFrom the bribed audience, when Fæsidius speaks.Dotard in nonage! are you to be toldWhat loves, what graces, deck another's gold?Are you to learn, what peals of mirth resound,45At your simplicity, from all around?When you step forth, and, with a serious air,}Bid them abstain from perjury, and beware}To tempt the altars—fora God is there!}Idle old man! there was, indeed, a time,50When the rude natives of this happy climeCherished such dreams: 'twas ere the king of heaven,To change his sceptre for a scythe was driven;Ere Juno yet the sweets of love had tried,Or Jove advanced beyond the caves of Ide.55'Twas when no gods indulged in sumptuous feasts,No Ganymede, no Hebe served the guests;No Vulcan, with his sooty labors foul,Limped round, officious, with the nectared bowl;But each in private dined: 'twas when the throng60Of godlings, now beyond the scope of song,The courts of heaven, in spacious ease, possess'd,And with a lighter load poor Atlas press'd!—Ere Neptune's lot the watery world obtained,Or Dis and his Sicilian consort reigned;65Ere Tityus and his ravening bird were known,Ixion's wheel, or Sisyphus's stone:While yet the shades confessed no tyrant's power,And all below was one Elysian bower!Vice was a phœnix in that blissful time,70Believed, but never seen: and 'twas a crime,Worthy of death, such awe did years engage,If manhood rose not up to reverend age,And youth to manhood, though a larger hoardOf hips and acorns graced the stripling's board.75Then, then was age so venerable thought,That every day increase of honor brought;And children, in the springing down, reveredThe sacred promise of a hoary beard!Now, if a friend, miraculously just,80Restore the pledge, with all its gathered rust,'Tis deemed a portent, worthy to appearAmong the wonders of the Tuscan year;A prodigy of faith, which threats the state,And a ewe lamb can scarcely expiate!—85Struck at the view, if now I chance to seeA man of ancient worth and probity,To pregnant mules theMONSTERI compare,Or fish upturned beneath the wondering share:Anxious and trembling for the woe to come,90As if a shower of stones had fallen on Rome;As if a swarm of bees, together clung,Down from the Capitol, thick-clustering, hung;Or Tiber, swollen to madness, burst away,And roll'd, a milky deluge, to the sea.95And dost thou at a trivial loss repine!What, if another, by a friend like thine,Is stripp'd of ten times more! a third, again,Of what his bursting chest would scarce contain!For 'tis so common, in this age of ours,100So easy, to contemn the Immortal Powers,That, can we but elude man's searching eyes.We laugh to scorn the witness of the skies.Mark, with how bold a voice, and fixed a brow,The villain dares his treachery disavow!105"By the all-hallowed orb that flames above,I had it not! By the red bolts of Jove,By the winged shaft that laid the Centaur low,By Dian's arrows, by Apollo's bow,By the strong lance that Mars delights to wield,110By Neptune's trident, by Minerva's shield,And every weapon that, to vengeance given,Stores the tremendous magazine of heaven!—Nay,if I had, I'll slay this son of mine,And eat his head, soused in Egyptian brine."115There are, who think that chance is all in all,That no First Cause directs the eternal ball;But that brute Nature, in her blind career,Varies the seasons, and brings round the year:These rush to every shrine, with equal ease,120And, owning none, swear by what Power you please.Others believe, and but believe, a god,And think that punishmentMAYfollow fraud;Yet they forswear, and, reasoning on the deed,Thus reconcile their actions with their creed:125"Let Isis storm, if to revenge inclined,And with her angry sistrum strike me blind,So, with my eyes, she ravish not my ore,But let me keep the pledge which I forswore.Are putrid sores, catarrhs that seldom kill,130And crippled limbs, forsooth, so great an ill!Ladas, if not stark mad, would change, no doubt,His flying feet for riches and the gout;For what do those procure him? mere renown,And the starved honor of an olive crown."135"But grant the wrath of heaven be great; 'tis slow,And days, and months, and years precede the blow.If, then, to punishALL, the gods decree,When, in their vengeance, will they come to me?But I, perhaps, their anger may appease—140For they are wont to pardon faults like these:At worst, there's hope; since every age and climeSee different fates attend the self-same crime;Some made by villainy, and some undone,And this ascend a scaffold, that a throne."145These sophistries, to fix a while sufficeThe mind, yet shuddering at the thought of vice;And, thus confirmed, at the first call they come,Nay, rush before you to the sacred dome:Chide your slow pace, drag you, amazed, along,150And play the raving Phasma, to the throng.(For impudence the vulgar suffrage draws,And seems the assurance of a righteous cause.)While you, poor wretch, suspected by the crowd,With Stentor's lungs, or Mars', exclaim aloud:155"Jove! Jove! will naught thy indignation rouse?Canst thou, in silence, hear these faithless vows?When all thy fury, on the slaves accurst,From lips of marble or of brass should burst!—Or else, why burn we incense at thy shrine,160And heap thy altars with the fat of swine,When we might crave redress, for aught I see,As wisely of Bathyllus as of thee!"Rash man!—but hear, in turn, what I propose,To mitigate, if not to heal, your woes;165I, who no knowledge of the schools possess,Cynic, or Stoic, differing but in dress,Or thine, calm Epicurus, whose pure mindTo one small garden every wish confined.In desperate cases, able doctors fee;170But trust your pulse to Philip's boy—or me.If no example of so foul a deedOn earth be found, I urge no more: proceed,And beat your breast, and rend your hoary hair;'Tis just:-for thus our losses we declare;175And money is bewailed with deeper sighs,Than friends or kindred, and with louder cries.There none dissemble, none, with scenic art,Affect a sorrow, foreign from the heart;Content in squalid garments to appear,180And vex their lids for one hard-gotten tear:No, genuine drops fall copious from their eyes,And their breasts labor with unbidden sighs.But when you see each court of justice throngedWith crowds, like you, by faithless friendship wronged,185See men abjure their bonds, though duly framed,And oft revised, by all the parties named,While their own hand and seal, in every eye,Flash broad conviction, and evince the lie;Shall you alone on Fortune's smiles presume,190And claim exemption from the common doom?—From a white hen, forsooth, 'twas yours to spring,Ours, to be hatched beneath some luckless wing!Pause from your grief, and, with impartial eyes,Survey the daring crimes which round you rise;195Your injuries, then, will scarce deserve a name,And your false friend be half absolved from blame!What's he, poor knave! to those who stab for hire,Who kindle, and then spread, the midnight fire?Say, what to those, who, from the hoary shrine,200Tear the huge vessels age hath stamped divine,Offerings of price, by grateful nations given,And crowns inscribed, by pious kings, to heaven?What to the minor thieves, who, missing these,Abrade the gilded thighs of Hercules,205Strip Neptune of his silvery beard, and peelCastor's leaf gold, where spread from head to heel?Or what to those, who, with pernicious craft,Mingle and set to sale the deadly draught;Or those, who in a raw ox-hide are bound,210And, with an ill-starred ape, poor sufferer! drowned?Yet these—how small a portion of the crimes,That stain the records of those dreadful times,And Gallicus, the city præfect, hears,From light's first dawning, till it disappears!215The state of morals would you learn at Rome?No farther seek than his judicial dome:Give one short morning to the horrors there,And then complain, then murmur, if you dare!Say, whom do goitres on the Alps surprise?220In Meroë, whom the breast's enormous size?Whom locks, in Germany, of golden hue,And spiral curls, and eyes of sapphire blue?None; for the prodigy, among them shared,Becomes mere nature, and escapes regard.225When clouds of Thracian birds obscure the sky,To arms! to arms! the desperate Pigmies cry:But soon, defeated in the unequal fray,Disordered flee; while, pouncing on their prey,The victor cranes descend, and, clamoring, bear230The wriggling manikins aloft in air.Here, could our climes to such a scene give birth,We all should burst with agonies of mirth;There, unsurprised, they view the frequent fight,Nor smile at heroes scarce a foot in height.235"Shall then no ill the perjured head attend,No punishment o'ertake this faithless friend?"Suppose him seized, abandoned to your will,What more would rage? to torture or to kill;Yet still your loss, your injury would remain,240And draw no retribution from his pain."True,; but methinks the smallest drop of blood,Squeezed from his mangled limbs, would do me good:Revenge,THEY SAY, and I believe their words,A pleasure sweeter far than life affords."245Who say?the fools, whose passions, prone to ire,At slightest causes, or at none take fire;Whose boiling breasts, at every turn, o'erflowWith rancorous gall: Chrysippussaidnot so;Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still;250Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,And dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.Divine philosophy! by whose pure lightWe first distinguish, then pursue the right,255Thy power the breast from every error frees,And weeds out all its vices by degrees:—Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find,}The abject pleasure of an abject mind,}And hence so dear to poor, weak, womankind.}260But why are those, Calvinus, thought to scapeUnpunished, whom, in every fearful shape,Guilt still alarms, and conscience, ne'er asleep,Wounds with incessant strokes, "not loud but deep,"While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, plies265A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes!Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,Can match the fierce, the unutterable painHe feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,Carries his own accuser in his breast.270A Spartan once the Oracle besoughtTo solve a scruple which perplexed his thought,And plainly tell him, if he might forswearA purse, of old confided to his care.Incensed, the priestess answered—"Waverer, no!275Nor shalt thou, for the doubt, unpunished go."With that, he hastened to restore the trust;But fear alone, not virtue, made him just:Hence, he soon proved the Oracle divine,And all the answer worthy of the shrine;280For plagues pursued his race without delay,And swept them from the earth, like dust, away.By such dire sufferings did the wretch atoneThe crime of meditated fraud alone!For,IN THE EYE OF HEAVEN, a wicked deed285Devised, is done: What, then, if we proceed?—Perpetual fears the offender's peace destroy,And rob the social hour of all its joy:Feverish, and parched, he chews, with many a pause,The tasteless food, that swells beneath his jaws:290Spits out the produce of the Albanian hill,Mellowed by age;—you bring him mellower still,And lo, such wrinkles on his brow appear,As if you brought Falernian vinegar!At night, should sleep his harassed limbs compose,295And steal him one short moment from his woes,Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyesThe violated fane and altar rise;And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,In more than mortal majesty arrayed,300Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest,And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast.These, these are they, who tremble and turn paleAt the first mutterings of the hollow gale!305Who sink with terror at the transient glareOf meteors, glancing through the turbid air!Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry; this hideous crashIs not the war of winds; nor this dread flashThe encounter of dark clouds; but blasting fire,Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire!310That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away;Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay,As if the short reprieve were only sentTo add new horrors to their punishment.Yet more; when the first symptoms of disease,315When feverish heats, their restless members seize,They think the plague by wrath divine bestowed,And feel, in every pang, the avenging God.Racked at the thought, in hopeless grief they lie,And dare not tempt the mercy of the sky:320For what can such expect! what victim slay,That is not worthier far to live than they!With what a rapid change of fancy rollThe varying passions of the guilty soul!—Bold to offend, they scarce commit the offense,325Ere the mind labors with an innate senseOf right and wrong;—not long, for nature still,Incapable of change, and fixed in ill,Recurs to her old habits:—never yetCould sinner to his sin a period set.330When did the flush of modest blood inflameThe cheek, once hardened to the sense of shame?Or when the offender, since the birth of time,Retire, contented with a single crime?And this false friend of ours shall still pursue335His dangerous course, till vengeance, doubly due,O'ertake his guilt; then shalt thou see him castIn chains, 'mid tortures to expire his last;Or hurried off, to join the wretched trainOf exiled great ones in the Ægean main.340This, thou shalt see; and, while thy voice applaudsThe dreadful justice of the offended gods,Reform thy creed, and, with an humble mind,Confess that Heaven isNEITHER DEAF NOR BLIND!
Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin,Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within;'Tis the first vengeance: Conscience tries the cause,And vindicates the violated laws;Though the bribed Prætor at their sentence spurn,5And falsify the verdict of the Urn.What says the world, not always, friend, unjust,Of his late injury, this breach of trust?That thy estate so small a loss can bear,And that the evil, now no longer rare,10Is one of that inevitable set,Which man is born to suffer and forget.Then moderate thy grief: 'tis mean to showAn anguish disproportioned to the blow.But thou, so new to crosses, as to feel15The slightest portion of the slightest ill,Art tired with rage, because a friend forswearsThe sacred pledge, intrusted to his cares.What, thou, Calvinus, bear so weak a mind!Thou, who hast left full three-score years behind!20Heaven, have they taught thee nothing! nothing, friend!And art thou grown gray-headed to no end!—Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm,To vanquish fortune, or at least disarm:Blest they who walk in her unerring rule!—25Nor those unblest, who, tutored in life's school,Have learned of old experience to submit,And lightly bear the yoke they can not quit.What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,No secret fraud, no open rapine stains?30What hour, in which no dark assassins prowl,Nor point the sword for hire, nor drug the bowl?The good, alas, are few!"The valued file,"Less than the gates of Thebes, the mouths of Nile!For now an age is come, that teems with crimes,35Beyond all precedent of former times;An age so bad, that Nature can not frameA metal base enough to give it name!Yet you, indignant at a paltry cheat,Call heaven and earth to witness the deceit,40With cries as deafening, as the shout that breaksFrom the bribed audience, when Fæsidius speaks.Dotard in nonage! are you to be toldWhat loves, what graces, deck another's gold?Are you to learn, what peals of mirth resound,45At your simplicity, from all around?When you step forth, and, with a serious air,}Bid them abstain from perjury, and beware}To tempt the altars—fora God is there!}Idle old man! there was, indeed, a time,50When the rude natives of this happy climeCherished such dreams: 'twas ere the king of heaven,To change his sceptre for a scythe was driven;Ere Juno yet the sweets of love had tried,Or Jove advanced beyond the caves of Ide.55'Twas when no gods indulged in sumptuous feasts,No Ganymede, no Hebe served the guests;No Vulcan, with his sooty labors foul,Limped round, officious, with the nectared bowl;But each in private dined: 'twas when the throng60Of godlings, now beyond the scope of song,The courts of heaven, in spacious ease, possess'd,And with a lighter load poor Atlas press'd!—Ere Neptune's lot the watery world obtained,Or Dis and his Sicilian consort reigned;65Ere Tityus and his ravening bird were known,Ixion's wheel, or Sisyphus's stone:While yet the shades confessed no tyrant's power,And all below was one Elysian bower!Vice was a phœnix in that blissful time,70Believed, but never seen: and 'twas a crime,Worthy of death, such awe did years engage,If manhood rose not up to reverend age,And youth to manhood, though a larger hoardOf hips and acorns graced the stripling's board.75Then, then was age so venerable thought,That every day increase of honor brought;And children, in the springing down, reveredThe sacred promise of a hoary beard!Now, if a friend, miraculously just,80Restore the pledge, with all its gathered rust,'Tis deemed a portent, worthy to appearAmong the wonders of the Tuscan year;A prodigy of faith, which threats the state,And a ewe lamb can scarcely expiate!—85Struck at the view, if now I chance to seeA man of ancient worth and probity,To pregnant mules theMONSTERI compare,Or fish upturned beneath the wondering share:Anxious and trembling for the woe to come,90As if a shower of stones had fallen on Rome;As if a swarm of bees, together clung,Down from the Capitol, thick-clustering, hung;Or Tiber, swollen to madness, burst away,And roll'd, a milky deluge, to the sea.95And dost thou at a trivial loss repine!What, if another, by a friend like thine,Is stripp'd of ten times more! a third, again,Of what his bursting chest would scarce contain!For 'tis so common, in this age of ours,100So easy, to contemn the Immortal Powers,That, can we but elude man's searching eyes.We laugh to scorn the witness of the skies.Mark, with how bold a voice, and fixed a brow,The villain dares his treachery disavow!105"By the all-hallowed orb that flames above,I had it not! By the red bolts of Jove,By the winged shaft that laid the Centaur low,By Dian's arrows, by Apollo's bow,By the strong lance that Mars delights to wield,110By Neptune's trident, by Minerva's shield,And every weapon that, to vengeance given,Stores the tremendous magazine of heaven!—Nay,if I had, I'll slay this son of mine,And eat his head, soused in Egyptian brine."115There are, who think that chance is all in all,That no First Cause directs the eternal ball;But that brute Nature, in her blind career,Varies the seasons, and brings round the year:These rush to every shrine, with equal ease,120And, owning none, swear by what Power you please.Others believe, and but believe, a god,And think that punishmentMAYfollow fraud;Yet they forswear, and, reasoning on the deed,Thus reconcile their actions with their creed:125"Let Isis storm, if to revenge inclined,And with her angry sistrum strike me blind,So, with my eyes, she ravish not my ore,But let me keep the pledge which I forswore.Are putrid sores, catarrhs that seldom kill,130And crippled limbs, forsooth, so great an ill!Ladas, if not stark mad, would change, no doubt,His flying feet for riches and the gout;For what do those procure him? mere renown,And the starved honor of an olive crown."135"But grant the wrath of heaven be great; 'tis slow,And days, and months, and years precede the blow.If, then, to punishALL, the gods decree,When, in their vengeance, will they come to me?But I, perhaps, their anger may appease—140For they are wont to pardon faults like these:At worst, there's hope; since every age and climeSee different fates attend the self-same crime;Some made by villainy, and some undone,And this ascend a scaffold, that a throne."145These sophistries, to fix a while sufficeThe mind, yet shuddering at the thought of vice;And, thus confirmed, at the first call they come,Nay, rush before you to the sacred dome:Chide your slow pace, drag you, amazed, along,150And play the raving Phasma, to the throng.(For impudence the vulgar suffrage draws,And seems the assurance of a righteous cause.)While you, poor wretch, suspected by the crowd,With Stentor's lungs, or Mars', exclaim aloud:155"Jove! Jove! will naught thy indignation rouse?Canst thou, in silence, hear these faithless vows?When all thy fury, on the slaves accurst,From lips of marble or of brass should burst!—Or else, why burn we incense at thy shrine,160And heap thy altars with the fat of swine,When we might crave redress, for aught I see,As wisely of Bathyllus as of thee!"Rash man!—but hear, in turn, what I propose,To mitigate, if not to heal, your woes;165I, who no knowledge of the schools possess,Cynic, or Stoic, differing but in dress,Or thine, calm Epicurus, whose pure mindTo one small garden every wish confined.In desperate cases, able doctors fee;170But trust your pulse to Philip's boy—or me.If no example of so foul a deedOn earth be found, I urge no more: proceed,And beat your breast, and rend your hoary hair;'Tis just:-for thus our losses we declare;175And money is bewailed with deeper sighs,Than friends or kindred, and with louder cries.There none dissemble, none, with scenic art,Affect a sorrow, foreign from the heart;Content in squalid garments to appear,180And vex their lids for one hard-gotten tear:No, genuine drops fall copious from their eyes,And their breasts labor with unbidden sighs.But when you see each court of justice throngedWith crowds, like you, by faithless friendship wronged,185See men abjure their bonds, though duly framed,And oft revised, by all the parties named,While their own hand and seal, in every eye,Flash broad conviction, and evince the lie;Shall you alone on Fortune's smiles presume,190And claim exemption from the common doom?—From a white hen, forsooth, 'twas yours to spring,Ours, to be hatched beneath some luckless wing!Pause from your grief, and, with impartial eyes,Survey the daring crimes which round you rise;195Your injuries, then, will scarce deserve a name,And your false friend be half absolved from blame!What's he, poor knave! to those who stab for hire,Who kindle, and then spread, the midnight fire?Say, what to those, who, from the hoary shrine,200Tear the huge vessels age hath stamped divine,Offerings of price, by grateful nations given,And crowns inscribed, by pious kings, to heaven?What to the minor thieves, who, missing these,Abrade the gilded thighs of Hercules,205Strip Neptune of his silvery beard, and peelCastor's leaf gold, where spread from head to heel?Or what to those, who, with pernicious craft,Mingle and set to sale the deadly draught;Or those, who in a raw ox-hide are bound,210And, with an ill-starred ape, poor sufferer! drowned?Yet these—how small a portion of the crimes,That stain the records of those dreadful times,And Gallicus, the city præfect, hears,From light's first dawning, till it disappears!215The state of morals would you learn at Rome?No farther seek than his judicial dome:Give one short morning to the horrors there,And then complain, then murmur, if you dare!Say, whom do goitres on the Alps surprise?220In Meroë, whom the breast's enormous size?Whom locks, in Germany, of golden hue,And spiral curls, and eyes of sapphire blue?None; for the prodigy, among them shared,Becomes mere nature, and escapes regard.225When clouds of Thracian birds obscure the sky,To arms! to arms! the desperate Pigmies cry:But soon, defeated in the unequal fray,Disordered flee; while, pouncing on their prey,The victor cranes descend, and, clamoring, bear230The wriggling manikins aloft in air.Here, could our climes to such a scene give birth,We all should burst with agonies of mirth;There, unsurprised, they view the frequent fight,Nor smile at heroes scarce a foot in height.235"Shall then no ill the perjured head attend,No punishment o'ertake this faithless friend?"Suppose him seized, abandoned to your will,What more would rage? to torture or to kill;Yet still your loss, your injury would remain,240And draw no retribution from his pain."True,; but methinks the smallest drop of blood,Squeezed from his mangled limbs, would do me good:Revenge,THEY SAY, and I believe their words,A pleasure sweeter far than life affords."245Who say?the fools, whose passions, prone to ire,At slightest causes, or at none take fire;Whose boiling breasts, at every turn, o'erflowWith rancorous gall: Chrysippussaidnot so;Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still;250Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,And dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.Divine philosophy! by whose pure lightWe first distinguish, then pursue the right,255Thy power the breast from every error frees,And weeds out all its vices by degrees:—Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find,}The abject pleasure of an abject mind,}And hence so dear to poor, weak, womankind.}260But why are those, Calvinus, thought to scapeUnpunished, whom, in every fearful shape,Guilt still alarms, and conscience, ne'er asleep,Wounds with incessant strokes, "not loud but deep,"While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, plies265A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes!Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,Can match the fierce, the unutterable painHe feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,Carries his own accuser in his breast.270A Spartan once the Oracle besoughtTo solve a scruple which perplexed his thought,And plainly tell him, if he might forswearA purse, of old confided to his care.Incensed, the priestess answered—"Waverer, no!275Nor shalt thou, for the doubt, unpunished go."With that, he hastened to restore the trust;But fear alone, not virtue, made him just:Hence, he soon proved the Oracle divine,And all the answer worthy of the shrine;280For plagues pursued his race without delay,And swept them from the earth, like dust, away.By such dire sufferings did the wretch atoneThe crime of meditated fraud alone!For,IN THE EYE OF HEAVEN, a wicked deed285Devised, is done: What, then, if we proceed?—Perpetual fears the offender's peace destroy,And rob the social hour of all its joy:Feverish, and parched, he chews, with many a pause,The tasteless food, that swells beneath his jaws:290Spits out the produce of the Albanian hill,Mellowed by age;—you bring him mellower still,And lo, such wrinkles on his brow appear,As if you brought Falernian vinegar!At night, should sleep his harassed limbs compose,295And steal him one short moment from his woes,Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyesThe violated fane and altar rise;And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,In more than mortal majesty arrayed,300Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest,And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast.These, these are they, who tremble and turn paleAt the first mutterings of the hollow gale!305Who sink with terror at the transient glareOf meteors, glancing through the turbid air!Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry; this hideous crashIs not the war of winds; nor this dread flashThe encounter of dark clouds; but blasting fire,Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire!310That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away;Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay,As if the short reprieve were only sentTo add new horrors to their punishment.Yet more; when the first symptoms of disease,315When feverish heats, their restless members seize,They think the plague by wrath divine bestowed,And feel, in every pang, the avenging God.Racked at the thought, in hopeless grief they lie,And dare not tempt the mercy of the sky:320For what can such expect! what victim slay,That is not worthier far to live than they!With what a rapid change of fancy rollThe varying passions of the guilty soul!—Bold to offend, they scarce commit the offense,325Ere the mind labors with an innate senseOf right and wrong;—not long, for nature still,Incapable of change, and fixed in ill,Recurs to her old habits:—never yetCould sinner to his sin a period set.330When did the flush of modest blood inflameThe cheek, once hardened to the sense of shame?Or when the offender, since the birth of time,Retire, contented with a single crime?And this false friend of ours shall still pursue335His dangerous course, till vengeance, doubly due,O'ertake his guilt; then shalt thou see him castIn chains, 'mid tortures to expire his last;Or hurried off, to join the wretched trainOf exiled great ones in the Ægean main.340This, thou shalt see; and, while thy voice applaudsThe dreadful justice of the offended gods,Reform thy creed, and, with an humble mind,Confess that Heaven isNEITHER DEAF NOR BLIND!