The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Poet gives us first a kind of humorous reason for his writing: that being provoked by hearing so many ill poets rehearse their works, he does himself justice on them, by giving them as bad as they bring. But since no man will rank himself with ill writers, it is easy to conclude, that if such wretches could draw an audience, he thought it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater esteem with the public. Next, he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to satire than any other kind of poetry. And here he discovers that it is not so much his indignation to ill poets as to ill men, which has prompted him to write. He, therefore, gives us a summary and general view of the vices and follies reigning in his time. So that this first satire is the natural groundwork of all the rest. Herein he confines himself to no one subject, but strikes indifferently at all men in his way: in every following satire he has chosen some particular moral which he would inculcate, and lashes some particular vice or folly, (an art with which our lampooners are not much acquainted.) But our poet being desirous to reform his own age, and not daring to attempt it by an overt act of naming living persons, inveighs only against those who were infamous in the times immediately preceding his, whereby he not only gives a fair warning to great men, that their memory lies at the mercy of future poets and historians, but also, with a finer stroke of his pen, brands even the living, and personates them under dead men's names.

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I have avoided, as much as I could possibly, the borrowed learning of marginal notes and illustrations, and for that reason have translated this satire somewhat largely; and freely own, (if it be a fault,) that I have likewise omitted most of the proper names, because I thought they would not much edify the reader. To conclude, if in two or three places I have deserted all the commentators, it is because I thought they first deserted my author, or at least have left him in so much obscurity, that too much room is left for guessing.

Still shall I hear, and never quit the score,
Stunned with hoarse Codrus' Theseid, o'er and o'er?
Shall this man's elegies and t'other's play
Unpunished murder a long summer's day?
Huge Telephus, a formidable page,
Cries vengeance; and Orestes' bulky rage,
Unsatisfied with margins closely writ,
Foams o'er the covers, and not finished yet.
No man can take a more familiar note
Of his own home, than I of Vulcan's grot,
Or Mars his grove, or hollow winds that blow
From Ætna's top, or tortured ghosts below.
I know by rote the famed exploits of Greece,
The Centaurs' fury, and the Golden Fleece;

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Through the thick shades the eternal scribbler bawls,
And shakes the statues on their pedestals.
The best and worst on the same theme employs
His muse, and plagues us with an equal noise.

Provoked by these incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown.
But, since the world with writing is possest,
I'll versify in spite; and do my best,
To make as much waste paper as the rest.

But why I lift aloft the satire's rod,
And tread the path which famed Lucilius trod,
Attend the causes which my muse have led:—
When sapless eunuchs mount the marriage-bed;
When mannish Mævia, that two-handed whore,
Astride on horseback hunts the Tuscan boar;
When all our lords are by his wealth outvied,
Whose razor on my callow beard was tried;
When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile,
Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile,
Pacing in pomp, with cloak of Tyrian dye,
Changed oft a-day for needless luxury;
And finding oft occasion to be fanned,
Ambitious to produce his lady-hand;

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Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight:
Such fulsome objects meeting everywhere,
'Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear.

To view so lewd a town, and to refrain,
What hoops of iron could my spleen contain!
When pleading Matho, borne abroad for air,
With his fat paunch fills his new-fashioned chair,
And after him the wretch in pomp conveyed,
Whose evidence his lord and friend betrayed,
And but the wished occasion does attend
From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend,
Whom even spies dread as their superior fiend,
And bribe with presents; or, when presents fail,
They send their prostituted wives for bail:
When night-performance holds the place of merit,
And brawn and back the next of kin disherit;
(For such good parts are in preferment's way,)
The rich old madam never fails to pay
Her legacies, by nature's standard given,
One gains an ounce, another gains eleven:
A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weighed,
For which their thrice concocted blood is paid.
With looks as wan, as he who in the brake
At unawares has trod upon a snake;
Or played at Lyons a declaiming prize,
For which the vanquished rhetorician dies.

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What indignation boils within my veins,
When perjured guardians, proud with impious gains,
Choke up the streets, too narrow for their trains!
Whose wards, by want betrayed, to crimes are led
Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read!
When he who pilled his province 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause;
His fine begged off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three;
Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain,
Leaves thee, prevailing province, to complain.

Such villainies roused Horace into wrath;
And 'tis more noble to pursue his path,
Than an old tale of Diomede to repeat,
Or labouring after Hercules to sweat,
Or wandering in the winding maze of Crete;
Or with the winged smith aloft to fly,
Or fluttering perish with his foolish boy.

With what impatience must the muse behold
The wife, by her procuring husband sold?
For though the law makes null the adulterer's deed
Of lands to her, the cuckold may succeed,
Who his taught eyes up to the ceiling throws,
And sleeps all over but his wakeful nose.
When he dares hope a colonel's command,
Whose coursers kept, ran out his father's land;

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Who yet a stripling, Nero's chariot drove,
Whirled o'er the streets, while his vain master strove
With boasted art to please his eunuch love.

Would it not make a modest author dare
To draw his table-book within the square,
And fill with notes, when, lolling at his ease,
Mæcenas-like, the happy rogue he sees
Borne by six wearied slaves in open view,
Who cancelled an old will, and forged a new;
Made wealthy at the small expense of signing
With a wet seal, and a fresh interlining?
The lady, next, requires a lashing line,
Who squeezed a toad into her husband's wine:
So well the fashionable medicine thrives,
That now 'tis practised even by country wives;
Poisoning, without regard of fame or fear,
And spotted corpse are frequent on the bier.
Wouldst thou to honours and preferments climb?
Be bold in mischief, dare some mighty crime,
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves;
For virtue is but drily praised, and starves.
Great men to great crimes owe their plate embost,
Fair palaces, and furniture of cost,
And high commands; a sneaking sin is lost.
Who can behold that rank old lecher keep
His son's corrupted wife, and hope to sleep?
Or that male-harlot, or that unfledged boy,
Eager to sin, before he can enjoy?

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If nature could not, anger would indite
Such woful stuff as I or Sh---ll write.

Count from the time, since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float,
And, scarcely mooring on the cliff, implored
An oracle how man might be restored;
When softened stones and vital breath ensued,
And virgins naked were by lovers viewed;
What ever since that golden age was done,
What humankind desires, and what they shun;
Rage, passions, pleasures, impotence of will,
Shall this satirical collection fill.

What age so large a crop of vices bore,
Or when was avarice extended more?
When were the dice with more profusion thrown?
The well-filled fob not emptied now alone,
But gamesters for whole patrimonies play;
The steward brings the deeds which must convey
The lost estate: what more than madness reigns,
When one short sitting many hundreds drains,
And not enough is left him to supply
Board-wages, or a footman's livery?

What age so many summer-seats did see?
Or which of our forefathers fared so well,
As on seven dishes at a private meal?
Clients of old were feasted; now, a poor
Divided dole is dealt at the outward door;
Which by the hungry rout is soon dispatched:
The paltry largess, too, severely watched,

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Ere given; and every face observed with care,
That no intruding guest usurp a share.
Known, you receive; the crier calls aloud
Our old nobility of Trojan blood,
Who gape among the crowd for their precarious food.
The prætor's and the tribune's voice is heard;
The freedman jostles, and will be preferred;
“First come, first served,” he cries; “and I, in spite
Of your great lordships, will maintain my right;
Though born a slave, though my torn ears are bored,
'Tis not the birth, 'tis money makes the lord.
The rents of five fair houses I receive;
What greater honours can the purple give?
The poor patrician is reduced to keep,
In melancholy walks, a grazier's sheep:
Not Pallas nor Licinius had my treasure;
Then let the sacred tribunes wait my leisure.
Once a poor rogue, 'tis true, I trod the street,
And trudged to Rome upon my naked feet:
Gold is the greatest God; though yet we see
No temples raised to money's majesty;
No altars fuming to her power divine,
Such as to valour, peace, and virtue shine,
And faith, and concord; where the stork on high
Seems to salute her infant progeny,
Presaging pious love with her auspicious cry.”

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But since our knights and senators account,
To what their sordid begging vails amount,
Judge what a wretched share the poor attends,
Whose whole subsistence on those alms depends!
Their household fire, their raiment, and their food,
Prevented by those harpies; when a wood
Of litters thick besiege the donor's gate,
And begging lords and teeming ladies wait
The promised dole; nay, some have learned the trick
To beg for absent persons; feign them sick,
Close mewed in their sedans, for fear of air;
And for their wives produce an empty chair.
“This is my spouse; dispatch her with her share;
'Tis Galla.”—“Let her ladyship but peep.”—
“No, sir, 'tis pity to disturb her sleep.”

Such fine employments our whole days divide:
The salutations of the morning tide
Call up the sun; those ended, to the hall
We wait the patron, hear the lawyers bawl;
Then to the statues; where amidst the race
Of conquering Rome, some Arab shows his face,
Inscribed with titles, and profanes the place;

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Fit to be pissed against, and somewhat more.
The great man, home conducted, shuts his door.
Old clients, wearied out with fruitless care,
Dismiss their hopes of eating, and despair;
Though much against the grain, forced to retire,
Buy roots for supper, and provide a fire.

Meantime his lordship lolls within at ease,
Pampering his paunch with foreign rarities;
Both sea and land are ransacked for the feast,
And his own gut the sole invited guest.
Such plate, such tables, dishes dressed so well,
That whole estates are swallowed at a meal.
Even parasites are banished from his board;
(At once a sordid and luxurious lord;)
Prodigious throat, for which whole boars are drest:
(A creature formed to furnish out a feast.)
But present punishment pursues his maw,
When, surfeited and swelled, the peacock raw
He bears into the bath; whence want of breath,
Repletions, apoplex, intestate death.
His fate makes table-talk, divulged with scorn,
And he, a jest, into his grave is borne.

No age can go beyond us; future times
Can add no further to the present crimes.
Our sons but the same things can wish and do;
Vice is at stand, and at the highest flow.
Then, Satire, spread thy sails, take all the winds can blow!
Some may, perhaps, demand what muse can yield
Sufficient strength for such a spacious field?
From whence can be derived so large a vein,
Bold truths to speak, and spoken to maintain,

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When godlike freedom is so far bereft
The noble mind, that scarce the name is left?
Ere scandalum magnatum was begot,
No matter if the great forgave or not;
But if that honest licence now you take,
If into rogues omnipotent you rake,
Death is your doom, impaled upon a stake;
Smeared o'er with wax, and set on fire, to light
The streets, and make a dreadful blaze by night.

Shall they, who drenched three uncles in a draught
Of poisonous juice, be then in triumph brought,
Make lanes among the people where they go,
And, mounted high on downy chariots, throw
Disdainful glances on the crowd below?
Be silent, and beware, if such you see;
'Tis defamation but to say, That's he!
Against bold Turnus the great Trojan arm,
Amidst their strokes the poet gets no harm:
Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain:
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry,
Not if he drown himself for company;
But when Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold sweat stands in drops on every part,
And rage succeeds to tears, revenge to smart.
Muse, be advised; 'tis past considering time,
When entered once the dangerous lists of rhyme;
Since none the living villains dare implead,
Arraign them in the persons of the dead.

Codrus, or it may be Cordus, a bad poet, who wrote the life and actions of Theseus.

The name of a tragedy.

Another tragedy.

Some commentators take this grove to be a place where poets were used to repeat their works to the people; but more probably, both this and Vulcan's grot, or cave, and the rest of the places and names here mentioned, are only meant for the common places of Homer in his Iliads and Odysseys.

That is, the best and the worst poets.

This was one of the themes given in the schools of rhetoricians, in the deliberative kind; whether Sylla should lay down the supreme power of dictatorship, or still keep it?

Lucilius, the first satirist of the Romans, who wrote long before Horace.

Mævia, a name put for any impudent or mannish woman.

Juvenal's barber, now grown wealthy.

Crispinus, an Egyptian slave; now, by his riches, transformed into a nobleman.

The Romans were grown so effeminate in Juvenal's time, that they wore light rings in the summer and heavier in the winter.

Matho, a famous lawyer, mentioned in other places by Juvenal and Martial.

Lyons, a city in France, where annual sacrifices and games were made in honour of Augustus Cæsar.

Here the poet complains that the governors of provinces, being accused for their unjust exactions, though they were condemned at their trials, yet got off by bribery.

Horace, who wrote satires; it is more noble, says our author, to imitate him in that way, than to write the labours of Hercules, the sufferings of Diomedes and his followers, or the flight of Dædalus, who made the Labyrinth, and the death of his son Icarus.

Nero married Sporus, an eunuch; though it may be, the poet meant Nero's mistress in man's apparel.

Mæcenas is often taxed by Seneca and others for his effeminacy.

The meaning is, that the very consideration of such a crime will hinder a virtuous man from taking his repose.

Deucalion and Pyrrha, when the world was drowned, escaped to the top of Mount Parnassus, and were commanded to restore mankind, by throwing stones over their heads; the stones he threw became men, and those she threw became women.

The ears of all slaves were bored, as a mark of their servitude; which custom is still usual in the East Indies, and in other parts, even for whole nations, who bore prodigious holes in their ears, and wear vast weights at them.

Pallas, a slave freed by Claudius Cæsar, and raised by his favour to great riches. Licinius was another wealthy freedman belonging to Augustus.

Perhaps the storks were used to build on the top of the temple dedicated to Concord.

He calls the Roman knights, etc., harpies, or devourers. In those days the rich made doles intended for the poor; but the great were either so covetous, or so needy, that they came in their litters to demand their shares of the largess, and thereby prevented, and consequently starved, the poor.

The meaning is, that noblemen would cause empty litters to be carried to the giver's door, pretending their wives were within them. “'Tis Galla,” that is, “my wife;” the next words, “Let her ladyship but peep,” are of the servant who distributes the dole; “Let me see her, that I may be sure she is within the litter.” The husband answers, “She is asleep, and to open the litter would disturb her rest.”

The poet here tells you how the idle passed their time, in going first to the levees of the great, then to the hall, that is, to the temple of Apollo, to hear the lawyers plead, then to the market-place of Augustus, where the statues of the famous Romans were set in ranks on pedestals, amongst which statues were seen those of foreigners, such as Arabs, etc., who, for no desert, but only on account of their wealth or favour, were placed amongst the noblest.

A poet may safely write an heroic poem, such as that of Virgil, who describes the duel of Turnus and Æneas; or of Homer, who writes of Achilles and Hector; or the death of Hylas, the catamite of Hercules, who, stooping for water, dropt his pitcher, and fell into the well after it: but it is dangerous to write satire, like Lucilius.