SATIRE II.
O for an eagle's wings! that I might fly
To the bleak regions of the polar sky,
When from their lips the cant of virtue falls,
Who preach like Curii, live like Bacchanals!
Devoid of knowledge, as of worth, they thrust, 5
In every nook, some philosophic bust;
For he, among them, counts himself most wise,
Who most old sages of the sculptor buys;
Sets most true Zenos, or Cleanthes' heads,
To guard the volumes which he—never reads! 10
Trust not to outward show: in every street
Obscenity, in formal garb, we meet.—
And dost thou, hypocrite, our lusts arraign,
Thou! of Socratic catamites the drain!
Nature thy rough and shaggy limbs designed 15
To mark a stern, inexorable mind;
But all's so smooth below!—"the surgeon smiles,
And scarcely can, for laughter, lance the piles."
Gravely demure, in wisdom's awful chair,
His beetling eyebrows longer than his hair, 20
In solemn state, the affected Stoic sits,
And drops his maxims on the crowd by fits!—
Yon Peribomius, whose emaciate air,
And tottering gait, his foul disease declare,
With patience I can view; he braves disgrace, 25
Not skulks behind a sanctimonious face:
Him may his folly, or his fate excuse—
But whip me those, who Virtue's name abuse,
And, soiled with all the vices of the times,
Thunder damnation on their neighbor's crimes! 30
"Shrink at the pathic Sextus! Can I be,
Whate'er my guilt, more infamous than he?"
Varillus cries: Let those who tread aright,
Deride the halt; the swarthy Moor, the white;
This we might bear; but who his spleen could rein, 35
And hear the Gracchi of the mob complain?
Who would not mingle earth, and sea, and sky,
Should Milo murder, Verres theft, decry,
Clodius adultery? Catiline accuse
Cethegus, Lentulus, of factious views, 40
Or Sylla's pupils, soil'd with deeper guilt,
Arraign their master for the blood he spilt?
Yet have we seen—O shame, for ever fled!—
A barbarous judge start from the incestuous bed,
And, with stern voice, those rigid laws awake, 45
At which the powers of War and Beauty quake,
What time his drugs were speeding to the tomb
The abortive fruit of Julia's teeming womb!—
And must not, now, the most debased and vile,
Hear these false Scauri with a scornful smile; 50
And, while the hypocrites their crimes arraign,
Turn, like the trampled asp, and bite again!
They must; they do:—When late, amid the crowd,
A zealot of the sect exclaimed aloud,
Where sleeps the Julian law? Laronia eyed 55
The scowling Stoicide, and taunting, cried,
"Blest be the age that such a censor gave,
The groaning world to chasten and to save!
Blush, Rome, and from the sink of sin arise—
Lo! a third Cato, sent thee from the skies! 60
But—tell me yet—What shop the balm supplied,
Which, from your brawny neck and bristly hide,
Such potent fragrance breathes? nor let it shame
Your gravity, to show the vender's name.
"If ancient laws must reassume their course, 65
Give the Scantinian first its proper force.
Look, look at home; the ways of men explore—
Our faults, you say, are many; theirs are more:
Yet safe from censure, as from fear, they stand,
A firm, compact, impenetrable band! 70
We know your monstrous leagues; but can you find
One proof in us, of this detested kind?
Pure days and nights with Cluvia, Flora led,
And Tedia chastely shared Catulla's bed;
While Hippo's brutal itch both sexes tried, 75
And proved, by turns, the bridegroom and the bride!
We ne'er, with misspent zeal, explore the laws,
We throng no forum, and we plead no cause:
Some few, perhaps, may wrestle, some be fed,
To aid their breath, with strong athletic bread. 80
Ye fling the shuttle with a female grace,
And spin more subtly than Arachne's race;
Cowered o'er your labor, like the squalid jade,
That plies the distaff, to a block belayed.
"Why Hister's freedman heired his wealth, and why 85
His consort, while he lived, was bribed so high,
I spare to tell; the wife that, swayed by gain,
Can make a third in bed, and near complain,
Must ever thrive: on secrets jewels wait:
Then wed, my girls; be silent, and—be great!" 90
"Yet these are they, who, fierce in Virtue's cause,
Consign our venial frailties to the laws;
And, while with partial aim their censure moves,
Acquit the vultures, and condemn the doves!"
She paused: the unmanly zealots felt the sway 95
Of conscious truth, and slunk, abashed, away.
But how shall vice be shamed, when, loosely drest,
In the light texture of a cobweb vest,
You, Creticus, amid the indignant crowd
At Procla and Pollinea rail aloud?— 100
These, he rejoins, are "daughters of the game."
Strike, then;—yet know, though lost to honest fame,
The wantons would reject a veil so thin,
And blush, while suffering, to display their skin.
"But Sirius glows; I burn." Then, quit your dress; 105
'Twill thus be madness, and the scandal less.
O! could our legions, with fresh laurels crowned,
And smarting still from many a glorious wound,
Our rustic mountaineers (the plow laid by,
For city cares), a judge so drest descry, 110
What thoughts would rise? Lo! robes which misbecome
A witness, deck the awful bench of Rome;
And Creticus, stern champion of the laws,
Gleams through the tissue of pellucid gauze!
Anon from you, as from its fountain-head, 115
Wide and more wide the flagrant pest will spread;
As swine take measles from distempered swine,
And one infected grape pollutes the vine.
Yes, Rome shall see you, lewdlier clad, erewhile,
(For none become, at once, completely vile,) 120
In some opprobrious den of shame, combined
With that vile herd, the horror of their kind,
Who twine gay fillets round the forehead; deck
With strings of orient pearl the breast and neck;
Soothe the Good Goddess with large bowls of wine, 125
And the soft belly of a pregnant swine.—
No female, foul perversion! dares appear,
For males, and males alone, officiate here;
"Far hence," they cry, "unholy sex, retire,
Our purer rites no lowing horn require!" 130
—At Athens thus, involved in thickest gloom,
Cotytto's priests her secret torch illume;
And to such orgies give the lustful night,
That e'en Cotytto sickens at the sight.
With tiring-pins, these spread the sooty dye, 135
Arch the full brow, and tinge the trembling eye;
Those bind their flowing locks in cawls of gold,
Swill from huge glasses of immodest mould,
Light, filmy robes of azure net-work wear;
And, by their Juno, hark! the attendants swear! 140
This grasps a mirror—pathic Otho's boast
(Auruncan Actor's spoil), where, while his host,
With shouts, the signal of the fight required,
He viewed his mailed form; viewed, and admired!
Lo, a new subject for the historic page, 145
A MIRROR, midst the arms of civil rage!—
To murder Galba, was—a general's part!
A stern republican's—to dress with art!
The empire of the world in arms to seek,
And spread—a softening poultice o'er the cheek! 150
Preposterous vanity! and never seen,
Or in the Assyrian or Egyptian queen,
Though one in arms near old Euphrates stood,
And one the doubtful fight at Actium viewed.
Nor reverence for the table here is found; 155
But brutal mirth and jests obscene go round:
They lisp, they squeal, and the rank language use
Of Cybele's lewd votaries, or the stews:
Some wild enthusiast, silvered o'er with age,
Yet fired by lust's ungovernable rage, 160
Of most insatiate throat, is named the priest,
And sits fit umpire of th' unhallowed feast;
Why pause they here? Phrygians long since in heart,
Whence this delay to lop a useless part?
Gracchus admired a cornet or a fife, 165
And, with an ample dower, became his wife.
The contract signed, the wonted bliss implored,
A costly supper decks the nuptial board;
And the new bride, amid the wondering room,
Lies in the bosom of the accursed groom!— 170
Say now, ye nobles, claims this monstrous deed,
The Aruspex or the Censor? Can we need
More expiations?—sacrifices?—vows?
For calving women, or for lambing cows?
The lusty priest, whose limbs dissolved with heat, 175
What time he danced beneath the Ancilia's weight,
Now flings the ensigns of his god aside,
And takes the stole and flammea of a bride!
Father of Rome! from what pernicious clime,
Did Latian swains derive so foul a crime? 180
Tell where the poisonous nettle first arose,
Whose baneful juice through all thy offspring flows.
Behold! a man for rank and power renowned,
Marries a man!—and yet, with thundering sound,
Thy brazen helmet shakes not! earth yet stands, 185
Fixed on its base, nor feels thy wrathful hands!
Is thy arm shortened? Raise to Jove thy prayer—
But Rome no longer knows thy guardian care;
Quit, then, the charge to some severer Power,
Of strength to punish in the obnoxious hour. 190
"To-morrow, with the dawn, I must attend
In yonder valley!" Why so soon? "A friend
Takes HIM a husband there, and bids a few"—
Few, yet: but wait awhile; and we shall view
Such contracts formed without or shame or fear, 195
And entered on THE RECORDS OF THE YEAR!
Meanwhile, one pang these passive monsters find,
One ceaseless pang, that preys upon the mind;
They can not shift their sex, and pregnant prove
With the dear pledges of a husband's love: 200
Wisely confined by Nature's steady plan,
Which counteracts the wild desires of man.
For them, no drugs prolific powers retain,
And the Luperci strike their palms in vain.
And yet these prodigies of vice appear, 205
Less monstrous, Gracchus, than the net and spear,
With which equipped, you urged the unequal fight,
And fled, dishonored, in a nation's sight;
Though nobler far than each illustrious name
That thronged the pit (spectators of your shame), 210
Nay, than the Prætor, who the Show supplied,
At which your base dexterity was tried.
That angry Justice formed a dreadful hell,
That ghosts in subterraneous regions dwell,
That hateful Styx his sable current rolls, 215
And Charon ferries o'er unbodied souls,
Are now as tales or idle fables prized;
By children questioned, and by men despised:
Yet these, do thou believe. What thoughts, declare,
Ye Scipios, once the thunderbolts of war! 220
Fabricius, Curius, great Camillus' ghost!
Ye valiant Fabii, in yourselves an host!
Ye dauntless youths at fatal Cannæ slain!
Spirits of many a brave and bloody plain!
What thoughts are yours, whene'er, with feet unblest, 225
An UNBELIEVING SHADE invades your rest?
—Ye fly, to expiate the blasting view;}
Fling on the pine-tree torch the sulphur blue,}
And from the dripping bay, dash round the lustral dew.}
And yet—to these abodes we all must come, 230
Believe, or not, these are our final home;
Though now Iërne tremble at our sway,
And Britain, boastful of her length of day;
Though the blue Orcades receive our chain,
And isles that slumber in the frozen main. 235
But why of conquest boast? the conquered climes
Are free, O Rome, from thy detested crimes.
No;—one Armenian all our youth outgoes,
And, with cursed fires, for a base tribune glows.
True: such thy power, Example! He was brought 240
An hostage hither, and the infection caught.—
O, bid the striplings flee! for sensual art
Here lurks to snare the unsuspecting heart;
Then farewell, simple nature!—Pleased no more,
With knives, whips, bridles (all they prized of yore), 245
Thus taught, and thus debauched, they hasten home,
To spread the morals of Imperial Rome!