PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST SATIRE.
ARGUMENT OF THE PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST SATIRE.
The design of the author was to conceal his name and quality.
He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero, and aims
particularly at him in most of his Satires. For which reason,
though he was a Roman knight, and of a plentiful fortune,
he would appear in this Prologue but a beggarly poet, who
writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the business of
the First Satire; which is chiefly to decry the poetry then in
fashion, and the impudence of those who were endeavouring to
pass their stuff upon the world.
I never did on cleft Parnassus dream,
Nor taste the sacred Heliconian stream;
Nor can remember when my brain, inspired,
Was by the Muses into madness fired.
My share in pale Pyrene
I resign,
And claim no part in all the mighty Nine.
Statues, with winding ivy crowned,
belong
To nobler poets, for a nobler song;
Heedless of verse, and hopeless of the crown,
Scarce half a wit, and more than half a clown,
Before the shrine
I lay my rugged numbers down.
Who taught the parrot human notes to try,
Or with a voice endued the chattering pye?
'Twas witty Want, fierce hunger to appease;
Want taught their masters, and their masters these.
Let gain, that gilded bait, be hung on high,
The hungry witlings have it in their eye;
Pyes, crows, and daws, poetic presents bring;
You say they squeak, but they will swear they sing.
