Him she promotes; she favours him alone,
And makes provision for him, as her own.
The craving wife, the force of magic tries,
And philtres for th' unable husband buys:
The portion works not on the part design'd:
But turns his brains, and stupifies his mind.
The sotted moon-calf gapes, and staring on,
Sees his own business by another done;
A long oblivion, a benumming frost,
Constrains his head; and yesterday is lost:
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave,
Like that Cæsonia to her Caius gave:
Who, plucking from the forehead of the fole
His mother's love, infus'd it in the bowl:
The boiling blood ran hissing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The Thunderer was not half so much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his desire.
What woman will not use the poisoning trade,
When Cæsar's wife the precedent has made;
Let Agrippina's mushroom be forgot,
Giv'n to a slavering, old, unuseful sot;
That only clos'd the drivelling dotard's eyes,
And sent his godhead downward to the skies,
But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword;
Nor spares the common, when it strikes the lord.
So many mischiefs were in one combin'd;
So much one single prisoner cost mankind.
If stepdames seek their sons-in-law to kill,
'Tis venial trespass; let them have their will:
But let the child, entrusted to the care
Of his own mother, of her bread beware:
Beware the food she reaches with her hand;
The morsel is intended for thy land,
Thy tutor be thy taster, ere thou eat;
There's poison in thy drink, and in thy meat.
You think this feign'd; the satire in a rage
Struts in the buskins of the tragic stage,
Forgets his business is to laugh and bite ;
And will of deaths and dire revenges write.
Would it were all a fable, that you reed;
But Drymon's wife pleads guilty to the dead.
I (she confesses) in the fact was caught,
Two sons dispatching at one deadly draught.
What two! Two sons, thou viper, in one day!
Yes, seven, she cries, if seven were in my way.
Medea's legend is no more a lye;
One age adds credit to antiquity.
Great ills, we grant, in former times did reign,
And murders then were done: but not for gain.
Less admiration to great crimes is due,
Which they thro' wrath, or thro' revenge, pursue.
For, weak of reason, impotent of will,
The sex is hurry'd headlong into ill:
And, like a cliff from its foundation torn,
By raging earthquakes, into seas, is borne.
But those are fiends, who crimes from thought be
And, cool in mischief, meditate the sin.
They read th' example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet, if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would save their lapdog sooner than their lord.
Where'er you walk, the Belides you meet;
And Clytemnestras grow in every street:
But here's the difference; Agamemnon's wife
3 Was a gross butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employ'd alone:
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts:
In such a case, reserv'd for such a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.
THE Poet's design, in this divine satire, is to represent the vi rious wishes and desires of mankind; and to set out the folly of them. He runs through all the several heads of riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial atchievements, long life, and beauty; and gives instances, in each, how frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned them. He con cludes, therefore, that since we generally chuse so ill for our selves, we should do better to leave it to the gods, to make the choice for us. All we can safely ask of heaven, lies within a very small compass. It is but health of body and mind. And if we have these, it is not much matter what we want besides; for we have already enough to make us happy.
Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue.
How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well design'd, so luckily begun,
But, when we have our wish, we wish undone?
Whole houses, of their whole desires possest, Are often ruin'd, at their own request.
In wars, and peace, things hurtful we require, When made obnoxious to our own desire.
With laurels some have fatally been crown'd; Some, who the depths of eloquence have found, In that unnavigable stream were drown'd.
The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast; In that presuming confidence was lost: But more have been of avarice opprest, And heaps of money crowded in the chest: Unwieldy sums of wealth, which higher mount Than files of martial'd figures can account. To which the stores of Cræsus, in the scale, Would look like little dolphins, when they sail In the vast shadow of the British whale.
For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,
When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize
The rich mens' goods, and gut their palaces:
The mob, commission'd by the government,
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The fearful passenger, who travels late,
Charg'd with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush;
And sees a red-coat rise from every bush :
The beggar sings, ev'n when he sees the place
Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the first and chief request Of each, is to be richer than the rest;
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