Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

slip, and come too near;
For no sin else among the saints
Is taught so tenderly against.

What made thee break thy plighted vows?⁠—
That which makes others break a house,
And hang, and scorn ye all, before
Endure the plague of being poor.

Quoth he, I see you have more tricks
Than all your doating politics,
That are grown old, and out of fashion,
Compar’d with your New Reformation;
That we must come to school to you,
To learn your more refin’d and new.

Quoth he, If you will give me leave
To tell you what I now perceive,
You’ll find yourself an arrant chouse,
If y’ were but at a meeting-house.⁠—

’Tis true, quoth he, we ne’er come there,
Because, w’ have let ’em out by th’ year.

Truly, quoth he, you can’t imagine
What wond’rous things they will engage in:
That as your fellow-fiends in hell
Were angels all before they fell,
So are you like to be agen,
Compar’d with th’ angels of us men.

Quoth he, I am resolv’d to be
Thy scholar in this mystery:
And therefore first desire to know
Some principles on which you go.

What makes a knave a child of God,
And one of us?⁠—A livelihood.

What renders beating out of brains,
And murder, godliness?⁠—Great gains.

What’s tender conscience?⁠—’Tis a botch,
That will not bear the gentlest touch;
But breaking out, dispatches more
Than th’ epidemical’st plague-sore.

What makes y’ encroach upon our trade,
And damn all others?⁠—To be paid.

What’s orthodox, and true, believing
Against a conscience?⁠—A good living.

What makes rebelling against Kings
A good old cause?⁠—Administ’rings.

What makes old doctrines plain and clear?⁠—
About two hundred pounds a year.

And that which was prov’d true before,
Prove false again?⁠—Two hundred more.

What makes the breaking of all oaths
A holy duty?⁠—Food and clothes.

What laws and freedom, persecution?⁠—
B’ing out of pow’r, and contribution.

What makes a church a den of thieves?⁠—
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.

Ad what would serve, if those were gone,
To make it orthodox?⁠—Our own.

What makes morality a crime,
The most notorious of the time;
Morality, which both the Saints,
And wicked too, cry out against?⁠—
Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows,
They shall be suffer’d to espouse:
For saints can need no conscience,
That with morality dispense;
As virtue’s impious, when ’tis rooted
In nature only, and not imputed:
But why the wicked should do so,
We neither know, or care to do.

What’s liberty of conscience,
I’ th’ natural and genuine sense?
’Tis to restore, with more security,
Rebellion to its ancient purity;
And Christian liberty reduce
To th’ elder practice of the Jews.
For a large conscience is all one,
And signifies the same with none.

It is enough (quoth he) for once,
And has repriev’d thy forfeit bones:
Nick Machiavel had ne’er a trick,
(Though he gave his name to our Old Nick,)
But was below the least of these,
That pass i’ th’ world for holiness.

This said, the furies and the light
In th’ instant vanish’d out of sight,
And left him in the dark alone,
With stinks of brimstone and his own.

The Queen of Night,159 whose large command
Rules all the sea, and half the land,
And over moist and crazy brains,
In high spring-tides, at midnight reigns,
Was now declining to the west,
To go to bed, and take her rest;
When Hudibras, whose stubborn blows
Deny’d his bones that soft repose,
Lay still expecting worse and more,
Stretch’d out at length upon the floor:
And though he shut his eyes as fast
As if he’d been to sleep his last,
Saw all the shapes that fear or wizards
Do make the devil wear for vizards;
And pricking up his ears, to hark
If he could hear too in the dark,
Was first invaded with a groan
And after, in a feeble tone,
These trembling words: Unhappy wretch!
What hast thou gotten by this fetch,
Of all thy tricks, in this new trade,
Thy holy brotherhood o’ th’ blade?
By saunt’ring still on some adventure,
And growing to thy horse a Centaur?160
To stuff thy skin with swelling knobs
Of cruel and hard-wooded drubs?
For still th’ hast had the worst on’t yet,
As well in conquest as defeat.
Night is the sabbath of mankind,
To rest the body and the mind,
Which now thou art deny’d to keep,
And cure thy labour’d corpse with sleep.

The Knight, who heard the words, explain’d
As meant to him this reprimand,
Because the character did hit
Point-blank upon his case so fit;
Believ’d it was some drolling sprite,
That staid upon the guard that night,
And one of those h’ had seen, and felt
The drubs he had so freely dealt;
When, after a short pause and groan,
The doleful spirit thus went on:

This ’tis t’ engage with dogs and bears
Pell-mell together by the ears,
And, after painful bangs and knocks,
To lie in limbo in the stocks,
And from the pinnacle of glory
Fall headlong into purgatory.
(Thought he, this devil’s full of malice,
That in my late disasters rallies.)
Condemn’d to whipping, but declin’d it,
By being more heroic minded:
And at a riding handled worse,
With treats more slovenly and coarse:
Engag’d with fiends in stubborn wars,
And hot disputes with conjurers;
And when th’ hadst bravely won the day,
Wast fain to steal thyself away.
(I see, thought he, this shameless elf
Wou’d fain steal me too from myself,
That impudently dares to own
What I have suffer’d for and done.)
And now, but vent’ring to betray,
Hast met with vengeance the same way.

Thought he, how does the devil know
What ’twas that I design’d to do?
His office of intelligence,
His oracles, are ceas’d long since;
And he knows nothing of the saints,
But what some treacherous spy acquaints.
This is some pettifogging fiend,
Some under door-keeper’s friend’s friend,
That undertakes to understand,
And juggles at the second-hand;
And now would pass for Spirit Po,
And all men’s dark concerns foreknow.
I think I need not fear him for’t;
These rallying devils do no hurt.
With that he rous’d his drooping heart,
And hastily cry’d out, What art?
A wretch (quoth he) whom want of grace
Has brought to this unhappy place.

I do believe thee, quoth the Knight;
Thus far I’m sure th’ art in the right;
And know what ’tis that troubles thee,
Better than thou hast guess’d of me.
Thou art some paltry, blackguard sprite,
Condemn’d to drudg’ry in the night;
Thou hast no work to do in th’ house,
Nor halfpenny to drop in shoes;
Without the raising of which sum,
You dare not be so troublesome
To pinch the slatterns black and blue,
For leaving you their work to do.
This is your bus’ness, good Pug-Robin;
And your diversion dull dry-bobbing,
T’ entice fanatics in the dirt,
And wash them clean in ditches for’t;
Of which conceit you