Hudibras - Samuel Butler (story reading txt) š
- Author: Samuel Butler
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Are now drawn upā āin greater shoals,
To roastā āand broil us on the coals,
And all the grandeesā āof our members
Are carbonadingā āon the embers;
Knights, citizens, and burgessesā ā
Held forth by rumpsā āof pigs and geese,
That serve for charactersā āand badges
To represent their personages:
Each bonfire is a funeral pile,
In which they roast, and scorch, and broil,
And evāry representative
Have vowād to roast and broil alive:
And ātis a miracle, we are not
Already sacrificād incarnate:
For while we wrangle here, and jar
Wā are grillyād all at Temple-Bar:
Some on the sign-post of an ale-house,
Hang in effigy, on the gallows;
Made up of rags, to personate
Respective officers of state;
That henceforth they may stand reputed,
Proscribād in law, and executed;
And while the work is carrying on
Be ready listed under Dun,194
That worthy patriot, once the bellows,
And tinder-box, of all his fellows;
The activāst member of the five,
As well as the most primitive;
Who, for his faithful service then,
Is chosen for a fifth agen
(For since the state has made a Quint
Of Generals, heās listed ināt.)
This worthy, as the world will say,
Is paid in specie, his own way;
For, moulded to the life in clouts,
Thā have pickād from dunghills hereabouts,
Heās mounted on a hazel bavin,
A croppād malignant baker gave āem;
And to the largest bone-fire riding,
Theyāve roasted Cook already and Pride in;195
On whom, in equipage and state,
His scarecrow fellow-members wait,
And march in order, two and two,
As at thanksgivings thā usād to do;
Each in a tatterād talisman,
Like vermin in effigy slain.
But (whatās more dreadful than the rest)
Those rumps are but the tail oā thā beast,
Set up by Popish engineers,
As by the crackers plainly appears;
For none but Jesuits have a mission
To preach the faith with ammunition,
And propagate the church with powder:
Their founder was a blown-up soldier.196
These spiritual pioneers oā thā whoreās,
That have the charge of all her stores,
Since first they failād in their designs,
To take in heaven by springing mines,
And with unanswerable barrels
Of gunpowder dispute their quarrels,
Now take a course more practicable,
By laying trains to fire the rabble,
And blow us up in thā open streets,
Disguisād in rumps, like Sambenites;
More like to ruin, and confound,
Than all the doctrines under ground.
Nor have they chosen rumps amiss
For symbols of state mysteries;
Though some suppose ātwas but to shew
How much they scornād the saints, the few;
Who, ācause theyāre wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by rumps.
But Jesuits have deeper reaches
In all their politic far-fetches,
And from the Coptic priest, Kircherus,197
Found out this mystic way to jeer us.
For, as thā Egyptians usād by bees198
Tā express their antique Ptolomies,
And by their stings, the swords they wore,
Held forth authority and power;
Because these subtle animals
Bear all their intārests in their tails;
And when theyāre once impairād in that,
Are banishād their well-orderād state;
They thought all governments were best
By hieroglyphic rumps exprest.
For, as in bodies natural,
The rumpās the fundament of all,
So, in a commonwealth, or realm,
The government is callād the helm;
With which, like vessels under sail,
Theyāre turnād and winded by the tail;
The tail, which birds and fishes steer
Their courses with through sea and air;
To whom the rudder of the rump is
The same thing with the stern and compass.
This shews how perfectly the rump
And commonwealth in nature jump.
For as a fly, that goes to bed,
Rests with his tail above his head,
So in this mongrel state of ours,
The rabble are the supreme powers;
That horsād us on their backs, to show us
A jadish trick at last, and throw us.
The learned rabbins of the Jews
Write thereās a bone, which they call leuz,
Iā thā rump of man, of such a virtue,
No force in nature can do hurt to:
And therefore at the last great day,
All thā other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed
All sorts of vegetals proceed;
From whence the learned sons of art
Os sacrum justly stile that part:
Then what can better represent
Than this rump bone, the Parliament;
That, alter several rude ejections,
And as prodigious resurrections,
With new reversions of nine lives,
Starts up, and like a cat revives?
But now, alas! theyāre all expirād,
And thā House, as well as members, firād;
Consumād in kennels by the rout,
With which they other fires put out:
Condemnād tā ungoverning distress,
And paltry private wretchedness;
Worse than the devil, to privation,
Beyond all hopes of restoration;
And parted, like the body and soul,
From all dominion and control.
We, who could lately with a look
Enact, establish, or revoke;
Whose arbitrary nods gave law,
And frowns kept multitudes in awe;
Before the bluster of whose huff,
All hats, as in a storm, flew off;
Adorād and bowed to by the great,
Down to the footman and valet;
Had more bent knees than chapel-mats,
And prayers than the crowns of hats;
Shall now be scornād as wretchedly,
For ruinās just as low as high;
Which might be sufferād, were it all
The horror that attends our fall:
For some of us have scores more large
Than heads and quarters can discharge;
And others, who, by restless scraping,
With public frauds, and private rapine,
Have mighty heaps of wealth amassād,
Would gladly lay down all at last;
And to be but undone, entail
Their vessels on perpetual jail;
And bless the devāl to let them farms
Of forfeit souls on no worse terms.
This said, a near and louder shout
Put all thā assembly to the rout,
Who now begun tā out-run their fear,
As horses do from whom they bear;
But crowded on with so much haste,
Until thā had blockād the passage fast,
And barricadoād it with haunches
Of outward men, and bulks, and paunches,
That with their shoulders strove to squeeze,
And rather save a cripplād piece
Of all their crushād and broken members,
Than have them grilled on the embers;
Still pressing on with heavy packs
Of one another on their backs:
The vanguard could no longer bear
The charges of the forlorn rear,
But, born down headlong by the rout,
Were trampled sorely under foot:
Yet nothing provād so formidable
As the horrid cookery of the rabble;
And fear, that keeps all feeling out,
As lesser pains are by the gout,
Relievād āem with a fresh supply
Of rallied force enough to fly,
And beat a Tuscan running-horse,
Whose jockey-rider is all spurs.
The Knight and Squireās prodigious flight
To quit thā enchanted bowār by night.
He plods to turn his amorous suit
Tā a plea in law, and prosecute:
Repairs to counsel, to advise
āBout managing the enterprise;
But first resolves
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