[361] The name of a dance.
[362] Tullus can talk of nothing but tennis.
[363] A thrust in fencing.
SATIRE II.
Quædam sunt, et non videntur.
I, that even now lisp’d like an amorist,
Am turn’d into a snaphance[364] satirist.
O title, which my judgment doth adore!
But I, dull-sprited fat Bœotian[365] boor,
Do far off honour that censorian seat;
But if I could in milk-white robes entreat
Plebeians’ favour, I would show to be
Tribunus plebis, ’gainst the villany
Of these same Proteans, whose hypocrisy
Doth still abuse our fond credulity. 10
But since myself am not immaculate,
But many spots my mind doth vitiate,
I’ll leave the white robe and the biting rhymes
Unto our modern Satire’s sharpest lines,
Whose hungry fangs snarl at some secret sin,
And in such pitchy clouds enwrappèd been
His Sphinxian riddles, that old Œdipus
Would be amazed, and take it in foul snuffs
That such Cymmerian darkness should involve
A quaint conceit that he could not resolve. 20
O darkness palpable! Egypt’s black night!
My wit is stricken blind, hath lost his sight;
My shins are broke with groping for some sense,
To know to what his words have reference.
Certes, sunt but non videntur that I know;
Reach me some poets’ index that will show.
Imagines Deorum, Book of Epithets,
Natalis Comes,[366] thou I know recites,
And makest anatomy of poesy;
Help me to unmask the satire’s secrecy; 30
Delphic Apollo, aid me to unrip
These intricate deep oracles of wit—
These dark enigmas, and strange riddling sense,
Which pass my dullard brain’s intelligence.
Fie on my senseless pate! Now I can show
Thou writest that which I nor thou dost know.
Who would imagine that such squint-eyed sight
Could strike the world’s deformities so right?
But take heed, Pallas, lest thou aim awry;
Love nor yet Hate had e’er true-judging eye. 40
Who would once dream that that same elegy,
That fair-framed piece of sweetest poesy,
Which Muto put betwixt his mistress’ paps
(When he, quick-witted, call’d her Cruel Chaps,
And told her there he might his dolors read
Which she, O she! upon his heart had spread),
Was penn’d by Roscio the tragedian?
Yet Muto, like a good Vulcanian—
An honest cuckold—calls the bastard, son,
And brags of that which others for him done. 50
Satire, thou liest, for that same elegy
Is Muto’s own, his own dear poesy:
Why, ’tis his own, and dear, for he did pay
Ten crowns for it, as I heard Roscius say.—
Who would imagine yonder sober man,
That same devout meal-mouth’d precisian,
That cries “Good brother,” “Kind sister,” makes a duck
After the antique grace, can always pluck
A sacred book out of his civil hose,
And at th’ op’ning and at our stomach’s close, 60
Says with a turn’d-up eye a solemn grace
Of half an hour; then with silken face
Smiles on the holy crew, and then doth cry,
“O manners! O times of impurity!”
What that depaints[367] a church-reformed state,
The which the female tongues magnificate,
Because that Plato’s odd opinion
Of all things common hath strong motion
In their weak minds;—who thinks that this good man
Is a vile, sober, damned politician? 70
Not I, till with his bait of purity
He bit me sore in deepest usury.
No Jew, no Turk, would use a Christian
So inhumanely as this Puritan.
Diomedes’ jades were not so bestial
As this same seeming saint—vile cannibal!
Take heed, O world! take heed advisedly
Of these same damnèd anthropophagi.
I had rather be within a harpy’s claws
Than trust myself in their devouring jaws, 80
Who all confusion to the world would bring
Under the form of their new discipline.
O I could say, Briareus’ hundred hands
Were not so ready to bring Jove in bands,
As these to set endless contentious strife
Betwixt Jehovah and his sacred wife!
But see—who’s yonder? True Humility,
The perfect image of fair Courtesy;
See, he doth deign to be in servitude
Where he hath no promotion’s livelihood! 90
Mark, he doth courtesy, and salutes a block,
Will seem to wonder at a weathercock;
Trenchmore[368] with apes, play music to an owl,
Bless his sweet honour’s running brasil[369] bowl;
Cries “Bravely broke!” when that his lordship miss’d,
And is of all the throngèd[370] scaffold hiss’d;
O is not this a courteous-minded man?
No fool, no; a damn’d Machiavelian;
Holds candle to the devil for a while,
That he the better may the world beguile, 100
That’s fed with shows. He hopes, though some repine,
When sun is set the lesser stars will shine;
He is within a haughty malcontent,
Though he do use such humble blandishment.
But, bold-faced Satire, strain not over-high,
But laugh and chuck at meaner gullery.
In faith, yon is a well-faced gentleman;
See how he paceth like a Cyprian!
Fair amber tresses of the fairest hair
That ere were wavèd by our London air; 110
Rich lacèd suit, all spruce, all neat, in truth.
Ho, Lynceus! what’s yonder brisk neat youth
’Bout whom yon troop of gallants flocken so,
And now together to Brown’s Common go?
Thou know’st, I am sure; for thou canst cast thine eye
Through nine mud walls, or else old poets lie.
“’Tis loose-legg’d Lais, that same common drab
For whom good Tubrio took the mortal stab.”[371]
Ha, ha! Nay, then, I’ll never rail at those
That wear a codpis,[372] thereby to disclose 120