[386] In the original, the couplet “Why, so ... humorise,” follows l. 36. Mr. Gosse pointed out this error (Grosart’s Marston, p. li.); he proposes to put the couplet about the goat lower down.
[387] Anointed with the white of an egg.—Old eds. “glazed.”
SATIRE IV.
Reactio.
Now doth Rhamnusia Adrastian,
Daughter of Night, and of the Ocean,
Provoke my pen. What cold Saturnian
Can hold, and hear such vile detraction?
Ye pines of Ida, shake your fair-grown height,
For Jove at first dash will with thunder fight;
Ye cedars, bend, ’fore lightning you dismay;
Ye lions tremble, for an ass doth bray.
Who cannot rail?—what dog but dare to bark
’Gainst Phœbe’s brightness in the silent dark? 10
What stinking scavenger (if so he will,
Though streets be fair) but may right easily fill
His dungy tumbrel? Sweep, pare, wash, make clean,
Yet from your fairness he some dirt can glean.
The windy-colic striv’d to have some vent,
And now ’tis flown, and now his rage is spent.
So have I seen the fuming waves to fret,
And in the end naught but white foam beget;
So have I seen the sullen clouds to cry,
And weep for anger that the earth was dry, 20
After their spite that all the hail-shot drops
Could never pierce the crystal water tops,
And never yet could work her more disgrace
But only bubble quiet Thetis’ face
Vain envious detractor from the good,
What cynic spirit rageth in thy blood?
Cannot a poor mistaken title ’scape,
But thou must that into thy tumbrel scrape?
Cannot some lewd immodest beastliness
Lurk and lie hid in just forgetfulness, 30
But Grillus’[388] subtile-smelling swinish snout
Must scent and grunt, and needs will find it out?
Come, dance, ye stumbling satyrs by his side,
If he list once the Sion Muse deride;
Ye Granta’s white nymphs, come, and with you bring
Some sillabub, whilst he doth sweetly sing
’Gainst Peter’s tears[389] and Mary’s moving moan,
And like a fierce enragèd boar doth foam
At sacred sonnets. O daring hardiment!
At Bartas’ sweet Semains[390] rail impudent; 40
At Hopkins, Sternhold, and the Scottish King,[391]
At all translators that do strive to bring
That stranger language to our vulgar tongue,
Spit in thy poison their fair acts among;
Ding[392] them all down from fair Jerusalem,
And mew them up in thy deserved Bedlam.
Shall Paynims honour their vile falsèd gods
With sprightly wits, and shall not we by odds
Far, far more strive with wit’s best quintessence
To adore the sacred ever-living essence? 50
Hath not strong reason moved the legists’ mind,
To say the fairest of all nature’s kind
The prince by his prerogative may claim?
Why may not then our souls, without thy blame
(Which is the best thing that our God did frame),
Devote the best part to his sacred name,
And with due reverence and devotion,
Honour his name with our invention?
No, poesy not fit for such an action,
It is defiled with superstition: 60
It honoured Baal, therefore pollute, pollute—
Unfit for such a sacred institute.
So have I heard a heretic maintain
The church unholy, where Jehovah’s name
Is now adored, because he surely knows
Sometimes[393] it was defiled with Popish shows;
The bells profane, and not to be endured,
Because to Popish rites they were inured.
Pure madness! Peace, cease to be insolent,
And be not outward sober, inly impudent. 70
Fie, inconsiderate! it grieveth me
An academic should so senseless be.
Fond censurer! why should those mirrors seem
So vile to thee, which better judgments deem
Exquisite then, and in our polish’d times
May run for senseful tolerable lines?
What, not mediocria firma from thy spite?
But must thy envious hungry fangs needs light
On Magistrates’ Mirror?[394] Must thou needs detract
And strive to work his ancient honour’s wrack? 80
What, shall not Rosamond[395] or Gaveston
Ope their sweet lips without detraction?
But must our modern critic’s envious eye
Seem thus to quote some gross deformity,
Where art, not error, shineth in their style,
But error, and no art, doth thee beguile?
For tell me, critic, is not fiction
The soul of poesy’s invention?
Is’t not the form, the spirit, and the essence,
The life, and the essential difference, 90
Which omni, semper, soli, doth agree
To heavenly descended poesy?
Thy wit God comfort, mad chirurgion.
What, make so dangerous an incision?—
At first dash whip away the instrument
Of poet’s procreation! Fie, ignorant!
When as the soul and vital blood doth rest,
And hath in fiction only interest,
What, Satire, suck the soul from poesy,
And leave him spriteless! O impiety! 100
Would ever any erudite pedant[396]
Seem in his artless lines so insolent?
But thus it is when petty Priscians
Will needs step up to be censorians.
When once they can in true scann’d verses frame
A brave encomium of good Virtue’s name;
Why, thus it is, when mimic apes will strive
With iron wedge the trunks of oaks to rive.
But see, his spirit of detraction
Must nibble at a glorious action. 110
Euge! some gallant spirit, some resolvèd blood,
Will hazard all to work his country’s good,
And to enrich his soul and raise his name,
Will boldly sail unto the rich Guiane:
What then? Must straight some shameless satirist,[397]
With odious and opprobrious terms insist
To blast so high resolv’d intention
With a malignant vile detraction?
So have I seen a cur dog in the street
Piss ’gainst the fairest posts he still could meet; 120
So have I seen the March wind strive to fade
The fairest hue that art or nature made:
So envy still doth bark at clearest shine,
And strives to stain heroic acts divine.
Well, I have cast thy water, and I see
Th’ art fall’n to wit’s extremest poverty,
Sure in consumption of the spritely part.
Go, use some cordial for to cheer thy heart,
Or else I fear that I one day shall see
Thee fall into some dangerous lethargy. 130
But come, fond braggart, crown thy brows with bay,
Intrance thyself in thy sweet ecstasy;
Come, manumit thy plumy pinion,
And scour the sword of elvish champion;
Or else vouchsafe to breathe in wax-bound quill,
And deign our longing ears with music fill;
Or let us see thee some such stanzas frame,
That thou mayst raise thy vile inglorious name.
Summon the Nymphs and Dryades to bring
Some rare invention, whilst thou dost sing 140
So sweet that thou mayst shoulder from above
The eagle from the stairs of friendly Jove,[398]
And lead sad Pluto captive with thy song,
Gracing thyself, that art obscured so long.