Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) 📗

are so proud,
At ev’ry jest you laugh aloud,
As now you would have done by me,
But that I barr’d your raillery.

Sir (quoth the voice,) y’are no such Sophi161
As you would have the world judge of ye.
If you design to weigh our talents
I’ th’ standard of your own false balance,
Or think it possible to know
Us ghosts as well as we do you;
We, who have been the everlasting
Companions of your drubs and basting,
And never left you in contest,
With male or female, man or beast,
But prov’d as true t’ ye, and entire,
In all adventures, as your Squire.

Quoth he, That may be said as true
By th’ idlest pug of all your crew:
For none could have betray’d us worse
Than those allies of ours and yours.
But I have sent him for a token
To your low-country Hogen-Mogen,
To whose infernal shores I hope
He’ll swing like skippers in a rope.
And, if y’ have been more just to me
(As I am apt to think) than he,
I am afraid it is as true,
What th’ ill-affected say of you:
Y’ have spous’d the Covenant and Cause,
By holding up your cloven paws.

Sir, (quoth the voice,) ’tis true, I grant,
We made and took the Covenant;
But that no more concerns the Cause
Than other perj’ries do the laws,
Which, when they’re prov’d in open court,
Wear wooden peccadillos for’t:162
And that’s the reason Cov’nanters
Hold up their hands, like rogues at bars.

I see, quoth Hudibras, from whence
These scandals of the saints commence,
That are but natural effects
Of Satan’s malice, and his sects,
Those spider-saints, that hang by threads,
Spun out o’ th’ entrails of their heads.

Sir, (quoth the voice,) that may as true
And properly be said of you,
Whose talents may compare with either,
Or both the other put together:
For all the Independents do
Is only what you forc’d ’em to;
You, who are not content alone
With tricks to put the devil down,
But must have armies rais’d to back
The gospel work you undertake;
As if artillery, and edge-tools,
Were th’ only engines to save souls:
While he, poor devil, has no pow’r
By force to run down and devour;
Has ne’er a Classis; cannot sentence
To stools, or poundage of repentance;
Is ty’d up only to design,
T’ entice, and tempt, and undermine;
In which you all his arts outdo,
And prove yourselves his betters too.
Hence ’tis possessions do less evil163
Than mere temptations of the devil,
Which all the horrid’st actions done
Are charg’d in courts of law upon
Because unless they help the elf,
He can do little of himself;
And therefore where he’s best possess’d,
Acts most against his interest;
Surprizes none, but those wh’ have priests
To turn him out, and exorcists,
Supply’d with spiritual provision,
And magazines of ammunition;
With crosses, relics, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes;
The tools of working our salvation
By mere mechanic operation;
With holy water, like a sluice,
To overflow all avenues:
But those wh’ are utterly unarm’d
T’ oppose his entrance, if he storm’d,
He never offers to surprise,
Although his falsest enemies;
But is content to be their drudge,
And on their errands glad to trudge:
For where are all your forfeitures
Entrusted in safe hands, but ours?
Who are but jailers of the holes
And dungeons where you clap up souls;
Like under-keepers, turn the keys,
T’ your mittimus anathemas;
And never boggle to restore
The members you deliver o’re
Upon demand, with fairer justice
Than all your covenanting Trustees;
Unless, to punish them the worse,
You put them in the secular pow’rs,
And pass their souls, as some demise
The same estate in mortgage twice;
When to a legal Utlegation164
You turn your excommunication,
And for a groat unpaid, that’s due,
Distrain on soul and body too.165

Thought he, ’tis no mean part of civil
State prudence to cajole the devil;
And not to handle him too rough,
When h’ has us in his cloven hoof.

’Tis true, quoth he, that intercourse
Has pass’d between your friends and ours;
That as you trust us, in our way,
To raise your members, and to lay,
We send you others of our own,
Denounc’d to hang themselves or drown,
Or, frighted with our oratory,
To leap down headlong many a story;
Have us’d all means to propagate
Your mighty interests of state;
Laid out our spiritual gifts to further
Your great designs of rage and murther.
For if the saints are nam’d from blood,
We only have made that title good;
And if it were but in our power,
We should not scruple to do more,
And not be half a soul behind
Of all dissenters of mankind.

Right, quoth the voice, and as I scorn
To be ungrateful, in return
Of all those kind good offices,
I’ll free you out of this distress,
And set you down in safety, where
It is no time to tell you here.
The cock crows, and the morn grows on,
When ’tis decreed I must be gone;
And if I leave you here till day,
You’ll find it hard to get away.

With that the spirit grop’d about,
To find th’ enchanted hero out,
And try’d with haste to lift him up;
But found his forlorn hope, his crup,
Unserviceable with kicks and blows,
Receiv’d from harden’d-hearted foes.
He thought to drag him by the heels,
Like Gresham carts, with legs for wheels;
But fear, that soonest cures those sores
In danger of relapse to worse,
Came in t’ assist him with its aid
And up his sinking vessel weigh’d.
No sooner was he fit to trudge,
But both made ready to dislodge;
The spirit hors’d him like a sack
Upon the vehicle his back;
And bore him headlong into th’ hall,
With some few rubs against the wall;
Where finding out the postern lock’d,
And th’ avenues as strongly block’d,
H’ attack’d the window, storm’d the glass,
And in a moment gain’d the pass;
Thro’ which he dragg’d the worsted soldier’s
Fore-quarters out by the head and shoulders;
And cautiously began to scout,
To find their fellow-cattle out.
Nor was it half a minute’s quest,
Ere he retriev’d the champion’s beast,
Ty’d to a pale, instead of rack;
But ne’er a saddle on his back,
Nor pistols at the saddle-bow,
Convey’d away the Lord knows how,
He thought it was no time to stay,
And let the night too steal away;
But in a trice advanc’d the Knight
Upon the bare ridge, bolt upright,
And groping out for Ralpho’s jade,
He found the saddle too was stray’d,
And in the place a lump of soap,
On which he speedily leap’d up;
And turning to the gate the rein,
He kick’d and cudgell’d on amain;
While Hudibras, with equal haste,
On both sides laid about as fast,
And spurr’d as jockies use,