Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

cur’d of their capriches.
Some always thrive in their amours,
By pulling plaisters off their sores:
As cripples do to get an alms,
Just so do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in despite
O’ geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before, come after.
But those that write in rhyme, still make
The one verse for the other’s sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think’s sufficient at one time.

But we forget in what sad plight
We whilom left the captiv’d Knight
And pensive Squire, both bruis’d in body,
And conjur’d into safe custody.
Tir’d with dispute and speaking Latin,
As well as basting and bear-baiting,
And desperate of any course,
To free himself by wit or force,
His only solace was, that now
His dog-bolt fortune was so low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend;
In which he found th’ event, no less
Than other times, beside his guess.

There is a tall long-sided dame
(But wondrous light,) ycleped Fame
That, like a thin cameleon, boards
Herself on air, and eats her words;
Upon her shoulders wings she wears
Like hanging-sleeves lin’d through with ears,
And eyes, and tongues, as poets list,
Made good by deep mythologist:
With these she through the welkin flies,
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies;
With letters hung, like eastern pigeons,
And mercuries of farthest regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation
Of lying, to inform the nation;
And by their public use to bring down
The rate of whetstones in the kingdom.
About her neck a pacquet-male,
Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale,
Of men that walk’d when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hail-stones big as pullets’ eggs,
And puppies whelp’d with twice two legs;
A blazing star seen in the west,
By six or seven men at least.
Two trumpets she does sound at once,
But both of clean contrary tones;
But whether both in the same wind,
Or one before, and one behind,
We know not; only this can tell,
The one sounds vilely, th’ other well;
And therefore vulgar authors name
Th’ one Good, th’ other Evil, Fame.

This tattling gossip knew too well
What mischief Hudibras befell.
And straight the spiteful tidings bears
Of all to th’ unkind widow’s ears.
Democritus ne’er laugh’d so loud
To see bawds carted through the crowd,
Or funerals with stately pomp
March slowly on in solemn dump,
As she laugh’d out, until her back,
As well as sides, was like to crack.
She vow’d she would go see the sight,
And visit the distressed Knight;
To do the office of a neighbour,
And be a gossip at his labour;
And from his wooden jail, the stocks,
To set at large his fetter-locks;
And by exchange, parole, or ransom,
To free him from th’ enchanted mansion.
This b’ing resolv’d, she call’d for hood
And usher, implements abroad
Which ladies wear, beside a slender
Young waiting-damsel to attend her;
All which appearing, on she went,
To find the Knight in limbo pent:
And ’twas not long before she found
Him, and the stout Squire, in the pound;
Both coupled in enchanted tether,
By further leg behind together.
For as he sat upon his rump,
His head, like one in doleful dump,
Between his knees, his hands apply’d
Unto his ears on either side,
And by him, in another hole,
Afflicted Ralpho, cheek by jowl;
She came upon him in his wooden
Magician’s circle, on the sudden,
As spirits do t’ a conjurer,
When in their dreadful shapes th’ appear.

No sooner did the Knight perceive her,
But straight he fell into a fever,
Inflam’d all over with disgrace,
To be seen by her in such a place;
Which made him hang his head, and scowl,
And wink and goggle like an owl.
He felt his brains begin to swim,
When thus the dame accosted him:

This place (quoth she) they say’s enchanted,
And with delinquent spirits haunted,
That here are ty’d in chains, and scourg’d,
Until their guilty crimes be purg’d:
Look, there are two of them appear,
Like persons I have seen somewhere.
Some have mistaken blocks and posts
For spectres, apparitions, ghosts,
With saucer eyes, and horns; and some
Have heard the devil beat a drum;
But if our eyes are not false glasses,
That give a wrong account of faces,
That beard and I should be acquainted,
Before ’twas conjur’d or enchanted;
For though it be disfigur’d somewhat,
As if ’t had lately been in combat,
It did belong to a worthy knight,
Howe’er this goblin has come by’t.

When Hudibras the lady heard
Discoursing thus upon his beard,
And speak with such respect and honour
Both of the beard and the beard’s owner,
He thought it best to set as good
A face upon it as he could,
And thus he spoke: Lady, your bright
And radiant eyes are in the right:
The beard’s th’ identic beard you knew,
The same numerically true;
Nor is it worn by fiend or elf,
But its proprietor himself.

O, heavens! quoth she, can that be true?
I do begin to fear ’tis you:
Not by your individual whiskers,
But by your dialect and discourse,
That never spoke to man or beast
In notions vulgarly exprest.
But what malignant star, alas!
Has brought you both to this sad pass?

Quoth he, The fortune of the war,
Which I am less afflicted for,
Than to be seen with beard and face,
By you in such a homely case.

Quoth she, Those need not he asham’d
For being honorably maim’d;
If he that is in battle conquer’d,
Have any title to his own beard,
Though yours be sorely lugg’d and torn,
It does your visage more adorn
Than if ’twere prun’d, and starch’d, and lander’d,
And cut square by the Russian standard.
A torn beard’s like a tatter’d ensign,
That’s bravest which there are most rents in.
That petticoat about your shoulders
Does not so well become a soldier’s;
And I’m afraid they are worse handled,
Although i’ th’ rear; your beard the van led;
And those uneasy bruises make
My heart for company to ake,
To see so worshipful a friend
I’ th’ pillory set, at the wrong end.

Quoth Hudibras, This thing call’d pain
Is (as the learned Stoics maintain)
Not bad simpliciter, nor good,
But merely as ’tis understood.
Sense is deceitful, and may feign
As well in counterfeiting pain
As other gross phenomenas,
In which it oft mistakes the case.
But since th’ immortal intellect
(That’s free from error and defect,
Whose objects still persist the same)
Is free from outward bruise and maim,
Which nought external can expose
To gross material bangs or blows,
It follows we can ne’er be sure,
Whether we pain or not endure;
And just so far are sore and griev’d,
As by the fancy is believ’d.
Some have been wounded with conceit,
And died of mere opinion straight;
Others, tho’ wounded sore in reason,
Felt