The Christian Scholar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“But then revenge more pleasant is than life,
“So say the unwise, whose bosoms fraught with strife
“On every trivial cause with anger burn;
“Whate'er the occasion, it will serve the turn.
“Chrysippus and mild Thales say not so,
“Nor the old man of sweet Hymettus, who
“With his accuser in his chains denied
“The poison'd cup to share of which he died.
“Wisdom first teaches right, and gathering strength
“All errors and much vice weeds out at length.
“For aught of pleasure in revenge to find
“Indicates an infirm and little mind:
“Which hence thou mayst infer—for note aright,
“That women in revenge most take delight.
“But think not he escapes thee, though he flies,
“Whom conscious guilt still holds and terrifies

316

“With lash that sounds not, and the scourge of fear,
“The mind itself its executioner.
“Worse pain than can Cæditius here bestow,
“Or Rhadamanthus in the shades below;—
“By night and day, with ceaseless watch oppress'd,
“To bear his own accuser in his breast.

“A Spartan was once answer'd by the shrine
“That he should suffer for his ill design;—
“For he enquired should he a pledge retain,
“And by a perjured oath the fraud sustain;
“If such the Pythian deity would speed,
“And if Apollo would persuade the deed.—
“And so from fear, not conscience, he restor'd,
“A terrible example to afford,
“Well worthy of the shrine and prophet's word,
“Himself cut off, his kindred, and his home,
“Extinguish'd utterly in fearful doom.

“Such punishment awaits the wish to sin,
“For he who meditates a crime within
“Is guilty of the deed; but if the crime
“Itself he perpetrate, for after time
“Endless anxiety will on him lie,
“Nor at the table cease, his throat is dry,
“He cannot the chew'd morsel swallow down,
“From choicest wines he turns with sickly frown . . .
“At night should care allow him brief repose,
“His limbs at length find rest, his eye-lids close,

317

“He sees, all trembling, the Avenger's rod,—
“The temple, and the altar, and the God,
“And thee thyself. With sacred terrors fraught,
“Greater than human, is thine image brought
“Before him, and in slumber's empty dread
“Constrains him to confess the guilty deed.

“Such men at lightnings tremble and turn pale,
“Half-dead at the first murmuring thunder-gale,
“As if not clouds by chance together driven,
“But vengeance had brought down the fire from Heaven.
“When pass'd, then of the next they are afraid,
“Lest Judgment by this calm be but delayed.
“Should side-felt pains and fever hold awake,
“They feel the offended God; and all things take
“As weapons hurl'd by angry deities.
“They cannot sacrifice; what can appease?
“What hope when guilty men in sickness lie?
“What victim not less worthy far to die?

“Though sin be in its nature mutable,
“Yet once admitted, stedfastness in ill
“Remains: when crime is finish'd, men begin
“To ope their eyes to goodness and to sin;
“Yet nature, once perverted, will recur
“To self-condemning ways, nor from them stir,
“Fix'd and unchangeable: when once let in,
“Who to himself can set the bounds of sin?

318

“When modesty is worn out from the brow
“What ever hath restor'd its virgin glow?
“Whom hast thou seen contented with one crime,
“And then to cease from ill? Wait but the time,
“And this our, now successful, criminal
“Will in the nets of sin his steps enthrall.”