Another does with all his motions move,
And gapes, and grins, as in the feat of love;
A third is charmed with the new opera notes,
Admires the song, but on the singer dotes.
The country lady in the box appears,
Softly she warbles over all she hears,
And sucks in passion both at eyes and ears.
The rest (when now the long vacation's come,
The noisy hall and theatres grown dumb)
Their memories to refresh, and cheer their hearts,
In borrowed breeches, act the players' parts.
The poor, that scarce have wherewithal to eat,
Will pinch, to make the singing-boy a treat;
The rich, to buy him, will refuse no price,
And stretch his quail-pipe, till they crack his voice.
Tragedians, acting love, for lust are sought,
Though but the parrots of a poet's thought.
The pleading lawyer, though for counsel used,
In chamber-practice often is refused.
Still thou wilt have a wife, and father heirs,
The product of concurring theatres.
Perhaps a fencer did thy brows adorn,
And a young swordsman to thy lands is born.
Thus Hippia loathed her old patrician lord,
And left him for a brother of the sword.
To wondering Pharos* with her love she fled,
To show one monster more than Afric bred;
Forgetting house and husband left behind,
Even children too, she sails before the wind;
False to them all, but constant to her kind.
But, stranger yet, and harder to conceive,
She could the playhouse and the players leave.
*She fled to Egypt, which wondered at the enormity of her crime.
Born of rich parentage, and nicely bred,
She lodged on down, and in a damask bed;
Yet daring now the dangers of the deep,
On a hard mattress is content to sleep.
Ere this, 'tis true, she did her fame expose;
But that great ladies with great ease can lose.
The tender nymph could the rude ocean bear,
So much her lust was stronger than her fear.
But had some honest cause her passage prest,
The smallest hardship had disturbed her breast.
Each inconvenience makes their virtue cold;
But womankind in ills is ever bold.
Were she to follow her own lord to sea,
What doubts and scruples would she raise to stay?
Her stomach sick, and her head giddy grows,
The tar and pitch are nauseous to her nose;
But in love's voyage nothing can offend,
Women are never sea-sick with a friend.
Amidst the crew she walks upon the board,
She eats, she drinks, she handles every cord;
And if she spews, 'tis thinking of her lord.
Now ask, for whom her friends and fame she lost?
What youth, what beauty, could the adulterer boast?
What was the face, for which she could sustain
To be called mistress to so base a man?
The gallant of his days had known the best;
Deep scars were seen indented on his breast,
And all his battered limbs required their needful
A promontory wen, with grisly grace,
Stood high upon the handle of his face:
His blear-eyes ran in gutters to his chin;
His beard was stubble, and his cheeks were thin.
But 'twas his fencing did her fancy move;
'Tis arms, and blood, and cruelty, they love.
But should he quit his trade, and sheath his sword,
Her lover would begin to be her lord.
This was a private crime; but you shall hear
What fruits the sacred brows of monarchs bear:
The good old sluggard but began to snore,
When, from his side, up rose the imperial whore;
She, who preferred the pleasures of the night
To pomps, that are but impotent delight,
Strode from the palace, with an eager pace,
To cope with a more masculine embrace.
Muffled she marched, like Juno in a cloud,
Of all her train but one poor wench allowed;
One whom in secret-service she could trust,
The rival and companion of her lust.
To the known brothel-house she takes her way,
And for a nasty room gives double pay;
That room in which the rankest harlot lay.
Prepared for fight, expectingly she lies,
With heaving breasts, and with desiring eyes.
Still as one drops, another takes his place,
And, baffled, still succeeds to like disgrace.
At length, when friendly darkness is expired,
And every strumpet from her cell retired,
She lags behind and, lingering at the gate,
With a repining sigh submits to fate;
All filth without, and all a fire within,
Tired with the toil, unsated with the sin.
Old Cæsar's bed the modest matron seeks,
The steam of lamps still hanging on her cheeks
In ropy smut; thus foul, and thus bedight,
She brings him back the product of the night.
Now, should I sing what poisons they provide,
With all their trumpery of charms beside,
And all their arts of death,-it would be known,
Lust is the smallest sin the sex can own.
*He tells the famous story of Messalina, wife to the Emperor Claudius.
Cæsinia still, they say, is guiltless found
Of every vice, by her own lord renowned;
And well she may, she brought ten thousand pound.
She brought him wherewithal to be called chaste;
His tongue is tied in golden fetters fast:
He sighs, adores, and courts her every hour;
Who would not do as much for such a dower?
She writes love-letters to the youth in grace,
Nay, tips the wink before the cuckold's face;
And might do more, her portion makes it good;
Wealth has the privilege of widowhood.
These truths with his example you disprove,
Who with his wife is monstrously in love:
But know him better; for I heard him swear,
'Tis not that she's his wife, but that she's fair.
Let her but have three wrinkles in her face,
Let her eyes lessen, and her skin unbrace,
Soon you will hear the saucy steward say,-
Pack up with all your trinkets, and away;
You grow offensive both at bed and board;
Your betters must be had to please my lord.
Meantime she's absolute upon the throne,
And, knowing time is precious, loses none.
She must have flocks of sheep, with wool more fine
Than silk, and vineyards of the noblest wine;
Whole droves of pages for her train she craves,
And sweeps the prisons for attending slaves.
In short, whatever in her eyes can come,
Or others have abroad, she wants at home.
When winter shuts the seas, and fleecy snows
Make houses white, she to the merchant goes;
Rich crystals of the rock she takes up there,
Huge agate vases, and old china ware;
*His meaning is, that a wife, who brings a large dowry, may do what she pleases, and has all the privileges of a widow.
Then Berenice's ring her finger proves,
More precious made by her incestuous loves,
And infamously dear; a brother's bribe,
Even God's anointed, and of Judah's tribe;
Where barefoot they approach the sacred shrine,
And think it only sin to feed on swine.
But is none worthy to be made a wife
In all this town? Suppose her free from strife,
Rich, fair, and fruitful, of unblemished life;
Chaste as the Sabines, whose prevailing charms,
Dismissed their husbands' and their brothers' arms;
Grant her, besides, of noble blood, that ran
In ancient veins, ere heraldry began;
Suppose all these, and take a poet's word,
A black swan is not half so rare a bird.
A wife, so hung with virtues, such a freight,
What mortal shoulders could support the weight!
Some country girl, scarce to a curtsey bred,
Would I much rather than Cornelia † wed;
If supercilious, haughty, proud, and vain,
She brought her father's triumphs in her train.
Away with all your Carthaginian state;
Let vanquished Hannibal without doors wait,
Too burly, and too big, to pass my narrow gate.
O Pæan! cries Amphion, ‡ bend thy bow
Against my wife, and let my children go!-
But sullen Pæan shoots at sons and mothers too.
A ring of great price, which Herod Agrippa gave to his sister Berenice. He was king of the Jews, but tributary to the Romans. + Cornelia was mother to the Gracchi, of the family of the Cornelii, from whence Scipio the African was descended, who triumphed over Hannibal.
He alludes to the known fable of Niobe, in Ovid. Amphion was her husband. Pæan was Apollo; who with his arrows killed her children, because she boasted that she was more fruitful than Latona, Apollo's mother.
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