Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

Quoth she, If love have these effects,
Why is it not forbid our sex?
Why is’t not damn’d and interdicted,
For diabolical and wicked?
And sung, as out of tune, against,
As Turk and pope are by the saints?
I find I’ve greater reason for it,
Than I believ’d before, t’ abhor it.

Quoth Hudibras, These sad effects
Spring from your heathenish neglects
Of Love’s great pow’r, which he returns
Upon yourselves with equal scorns;
And those who worthy lovers slight,
Plagues with prepost’rous appetite.
This made the beauteous queen of Crete
To take a town-bull for her sweet,89
And from her greatness stoop so low,
To be the rival of a cow:
Others to prostitute their great hearts,
To be baboons’ and monkeys’ sweethearts;
Some with the Dev’l himself in league grow,
By’s representative a Negro.
’Twas this made vestal maids love-sick,
And venture to be bury’d quick:
Some by their fathers, and their brothers,
To be made mistresses and mothers.
’Tis this that proudest dames enamours
On lacqueys and valets des chambres;
Their haughty stomachs overcomes,
And makes ’em stoop to dirty grooms;
To slight the world, and to disparage
Claps, issue, infamy, and marriage.

Quoth she, These judgments are severe,
Yet such as I should rather bear
Than trust men with their oaths, or prove
Their faith and secresy in love.

Says he, There is as weighty reason
For secresy in love as treason.
Love is a burglarer, a felon,
That at the windore-eye does steal in
To rob the heart, and with his prey
Steals out again a closer way,
Which whosoever can discover,
He’s sure (as he deserves) to suffer.
Love is a fire, that burns and sparkles
In men as nat’rally as in charcoals,
Which sooty chemists stop in holes,
When out of wood they extract coals:
So lovers should their passions choke,
That, tho’ they burn, they may not smoke.
’Tis like that sturdy thief that stole
And dragg’d beasts backwards into’s hole:
So Love does lovers, and us men
Draws by the tails into his den,
That no impression may discover,
And trace t’ his cave, the wary lover.
But if you doubt I should reveal
What you entrust me under seal,
I’ll prove myself as close and virtuous
As your own secretary Albertus.90

Quoth she, I grant you may be close
In hiding what your aims propose.
Love-passions are like parables,
By which men still mean something else.
Though love be all the world’s pretence,
Money’s the mythologic sense;
The real substance of the shadow,
Which all address and courtship’s made to.

Thought he, I understand your play,
And how to quit you your own way:
He that will win his dame must do
As Love does when he bends his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home.
I grant, quoth he, wealth is a great
Provocative to am’rous heat.
It is all philtres, and high diet,
That makes love rampant, and to fly out:
’Tis beauty always in the flower,
That buds and blossoms at fourscore:
’Tis that by which the sun and moon
At their own weapons are outdone:
That makes knights-errant fall in trances,
And lay about ’em in romances:
’Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all
That men divine and sacred call:
For what is worth in any thing,
But so much money as ’twill bring?
Or what, but riches is there known,
Which man can solely call his own;
In which no creature goes his half,
Unless it be to squint and laugh?91
I do confess, with goods and land,
I’d have a wife at second-hand;
And such you are. Nor is’t your person
My stomach’s set so sharp and fierce on;
But ’tis (your better part) your riches,
That my enamour’d heart bewitches.
Let me your fortune but possess,
And settle your person how you please:
Or make it o’er in trust to th’ devil;
You’ll find me reasonable and civil.

Quoth she, I like this plainness better
Than false mock-passion, speech, or letter,
Or any feat of qualm or sowning,
But hanging of yourself, or drowning.
Your only way with me to break
Your mind, is breaking of your neck;
For as when merchants break, o’erthrown,
Like nine-pins they strike others down,
So that would break my heart, which done,
My tempting fortune is your own.
These are but trifles: ev’ry lover
Will damn himself over and over,
And greater matters undertake
For a less worthy mistress’ sake:
Yet th’ are the only ways to prove
Th’ unfeign’d realities of love:
For he that hangs, or beats out’s brains,
The devil’s in him if he feigns.

Quoth Hudibras, This way’s too rough
For mere experiment and proof:
It is no jesting trivial matter,
To swing i’ th’ air, or douce in water,
And, like a water-witch, try love;
That’s to destroy, and not to prove:
As if a man should be dissected
To find what part is disaffected.
Your better way is to make over,
In trust, your fortune to your lover.
Trust is a trial; if it break,
’Tis not so desp’rate as a neck.
Beside, th’ experiment’s more certain;
Men venture necks to gain a fortune:
The soldier does it ev’ry day
(Eight to the week) for sixpence pay:
Your pettifoggers damn their souls,
To share with knaves in cheating fools:
And merchants, vent’ring through the main,
Slight pirates, rocks, and horns, for gain.
This is the way I advise you to:
Trust me, and see what I will do.

Quoth she, I should be loth to run
Myself all th’ hazard, and you none;
Which must be done, unless some deed
Of yours aforesaid do precede.
Give but yourself one gentle swing,
For trial, and I’ll cut the string:
Or give that rev’rend head a maul,
Or two, or three, against a wall,
To show you are a man of mettle,
And I’ll engage myself to settle.

Quoth he, My head’s not made of brass,
As Friar Bacon’s noddle was,92
Nor (like the Indian’s skull) so tough,93
That authors say, ’twas musket-proof;
As it had need to be, to enter,
As yet, on any new adventure:
You see what bangs it has endur’d,
That would, before new feats, be cur’d.
But if that’s all you stand upon,
Here, strike me luck, it shall be done.

Quoth she, The matter’s not so far gone
As you suppose: two words t’ a bargain:
That may be done, and time enough,
When you have given downright proof:
And yet ’tis no fantastic pique
I have to love, nor coy dislike:
’Tis no implicit, nice aversion
T’ your conversation, mien, or person,
But a just fear, lest you should prove
False and perfidious in love:
For if I thought you could be true,
I could love twice as much as you.

Quoth he, My faith as adamanatine,
As chains of