Samuel Butler

“ Thither arriv'd, th' advent'rous Knight
And bold Squire from their steeds alight
At th' outward wall, near which there stands 1150
A bastile, built to imprison hands;
By strange enchantment made to fetter
The lesser parts and free the greater;
For though the body may creep through,
The hands in grate are fast enough: 1155
And when a circle 'bout the wrist
Is made by beadle exorcist,
The body feels the spur and switch,
As if 'twere ridden post by witch
At twenty miles an hour pace, 1160
And yet ne'er stirs out of the place. ”

“ One law of nature to suspend;
And but to offer to repeal
The smallest clause, is to rebel.
This, if men rightly understood
Their privilege, they wou'd make good; 300
And not, like sots, permit their wives
T' encroach on their prerogatives;
For which sin they deserve to be
Kept, as they are, in slavery:
And this some precious Gifted Teachers, 305
Unrev'rently reputed leachers,
And disobey'd in making love,
Have vow'd to all the world to prove,
And make ye suffer, as you ought,
For that uncharitable fau't. 310
But I forget myself, and rove
Beyond th' instructions of my love. ”

“ Quoth RALPHO, Nothing but th' abuse
Of human learning you produce;
Learning, that cobweb of the brain,
Profane, erroneous, and vain; 1340
A trade of knowledge, as replete
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t'incumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit;
Makes Light unactive, dull, and troubled, 1345
Like little DAVID in SAUL's doublet;
A cheat that scholars put upon
Other mens' reason and their own ”

“ Our green men do it worse, when th' hap
To fail in labour of a clap
Both lay the child to one another:
But who's the father, who the mother,
'Tis hard to say in multitudes, 715
Or who imported the French goods.
But health and sickness b'ing all one,
Which both engag'd before to own,
And are not with their bodies bound
To worship, only when they're sound, 720
Both give and take their equal shares
Of all they suffer by false wares:
A fate no lover can divert
With all his caution, wit, and art. ”

“ Which HUDIBRAS, as if th' had been
Bestow'd as freely on his skin,
Expounding, by his inward light,
Or rather more prophetick fright, 1060
To be the Wizard, come to search,
And take him napping in the lurch
Turn'd pale as ashes or a clout;
But why or wherefore is a doubt
For men will tremble, and turn paler, 1065
With too much or too little valour.
His heart laid on, as if it try'd
To force a passage through his side,
Impatient (as he vow'd) to wait 'em,
But in a fury to fly at 'em ”

“ Quoth HUDIBRAS, 'tis a caprich 305
Beyond th' infliction of a witch;
So cheats to play with those still aim
That do not understand the game.
Love in your heart as icily burns
As fire in antique Roman urns, 310
To warm the dead, and vainly light
Those only that see nothing by't.
Have you not power to entertain,
And render love for love again;
As no man can draw in his breath 315
At once, and force out air beneath? ”

“ To say it needs or fears a crutch. 1065
Great conquerors greater glory gain
By foes in triumph led, than slain:
The laurels that adorn their brows
Are pull'd from living not dead boughs,
And living foes: the greatest fame 1070
Of cripple slain can be but lame.
One half of him's already slain,
The other is not worth your pain;
Th' honour can but on one side light,
As worship did, when y' were dubb'd Knight. ”

“ Th' inevitable death of vermine,
And never dealt its furious blows,
But cut the throats of pigs and cows, 10
By TRULLA was, in single fight,
Disarm'd and wrested from its knight;
Your heels degraded of your spurs,
And in the stocks close prisoners;
Where still they'd lain, in base restraint, 15
If I, in pity of your complaint,
Had not on honourable conditions,
Releast 'em from the worst of prisons
And what return that favour met
You cannot (though you wou'd) forget; 20
When, being free, you strove t' evade
The oaths you had in prison made ”

“ The sun and moon by her bright eyes
Eclips'd, and darken'd in the skies, 610
Are but black patches, that she wears,
Cut into suns, and moons, and stars:
By which astrologers as well,
As those in Heav'n above, can tell
What strange events they do foreshow 615
Unto her under-world below.
Her voice, the music of the spheres,
So loud, it deafens mortals ears;
As wise philosophers have thought;
And that's the cause we hear it not. 620
This has been done by some, who those
Th' ador'd in rhime, would kick in prose ”

“ Quoth HUDIBRAS thou still giv'st sentence
Impertinently, and against sense.
Tis not the least disparagement 715
To be defeated by th' event,
Nor to be beaten by main force;
That does not make a man the worse,
Although his shoulders with battoon
Be claw'd and cudgel'd to some tune. 720
A taylor's 'prentice has no hard
Measure that's bang'd with a true yard:
But to turn tail, or run away,
And without blows give up the day,
Or to surrender ere th' assault, 725
That's no man's fortune, but his fault,
And renders men of honour less
Than all th' adversity of success ”

“ And found far off, 'twas HUDIBRAS.
WHACHUM, (quoth he) , look yonder, some
To try or use our art are come 490
The one's the learned Knight: seek out,
And pump 'em what they come about.
WHACHUM advanc'd, with all submissness,
T' accost em, but much more their bus'ness.
He held a stirrup, while the Knight 495
From leathern bare-bones did alight
And taking from his hand the bridle,
Approach'd the dark Squire to unriddle.
He gave him first the time o' th' day,
And welcom'd him, as he might say: 500
He ask'd him whence he came, and whither
Their bus'ness lay? Quoth RALPHO, Hither. ”

“ Compar'd with th' angels of us men.
Quoth he, I am resolv'd to be
Thy scholar in this mystery; 1260
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, 1265
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. 1270
What makes y' encroach upon our trade,
And damn all others? — To be paid. ”

“ To be th' yoke-fellow of your wit;
Nor take one of so mean deserts,
To be the partner of your parts;
A grace which, if I cou'd believe, 675
I've not the conscience to receive.
That conscience, quoth HUDIBRAS,
Is mis-inform'd: I'll state the case
A man may be a legal donor,
Of any thing whereof he's owner, 680
And may confer it where he lists,
I' th' judgment of all casuists,
Then wit, and parts, and valour, may
Be ali'nated, and made away,
By those that are proprietors, 685
As I may give or sell my horse. ”

“ Engage to th' inevitable peril
Of both their ruins; th' only scope
And consolation of our hope;
Who though we do not play the game,
Assist as much by giving aim: 920
Can introduce our ancient arts,
For heads of factions t' act their parts;
Know what a leading voice is worth,
A seconding, a third, or fourth
How much a casting voice comes to, 925
That turns up trump, of ay, or no;
And, by adjusting all at th' end,
Share ev'ry one his dividend
An art that so much study cost,
And now's in danger to be lost, 930
Unless our ancient virtuosos,
That found it out, get into th' Houses. ”

“ Stand to it boldly, and take quarter, 605
To let them see I am no starter.
In all the trade of war, no feat
Is nobler than a brave retreat:
For those that run away, and fly,
Take place at least of th' enemy. 610
This said, the Squire, with active speed
Dismounted from his bonny steed,
To seize the arms, which, by mischance,
Fell from the bold Knight in a trance.
These being found out, and restor'd 615
To HUDIBRAS their natural lord,
As a man may say, with might and main,
He hasted to get up again. ”

“ Houses cry down all philosophy, 810
And will not know upon what ground
In nature we our doctrine found,
Altho' with pregnant evidence
We can demonstrate it to sense,
As I just now have done to you, 815
Foretelling what you came to know.
Were the stars only made to light
Robbers and burglarers by night?
To wait on drunkards, thieves, gold-finders,
And lovers solacing behind doors, 820
Or giving one another pledges
Of matrimony under hedges?
Or witches simpling, and on gibbets
Cutting from malefactors snippets?
Or from the pillory tips of ears 825
Of Rebel-Saints and perjurers? ”

“ Into th' abstrusest learning pry?
Know more of any trade b' a hint;
Than those that have been bred up in't;
And yet have no art, true or false, 75
To help your own bad naturals;
But still, the more you strive t' appear,
Are found to be the wretcheder
For fools are known by looking wise,
As men find woodcocks by their eyes. ”

“ 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 philters, and high diet, 455
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 out-done: 460
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, 465
But so much money as 'twill bring? ”

“ Blown up with philters of love-powder?
And after letting blood, and purging,
Condemn'd to voluntary scourging; 150
Alarm'd with many a horrid fright,
And claw'd by goblins in the night;
Insulted on, revil'd, and jeer'd,
With rude invasion of his beard;
And when your sex was foully scandal'd, 155
As foully by the rabble handled;
Attack'd by despicable foes,
And drub'd with mean and vulgar blows;
And, after all, to be debarr'd
So much as standing on his guard; 160
When horses, being spurr'd and prick'd,
Have leave to kick for being kick'd? ”

“ To be an under-conjurer,
A journeyman astrologer.
His business was to pump and wheedle, 335
And men with their own keys unriddle;
And make them to themselves give answers,
For which they pay the necromancers;
To fetch and carry intelligence,
Of whom, and what, and where, and whence, 340
And all discoveries disperse
Among th' whole pack of conjurers
What cut-purses have left with them
For the right owners to redeem;
And what they dare not vent find out, 345
To gain themselves and th' art repute ”