Satire XIII (Gifford)

Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin,
Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within;
'Tis the first vengeance: Conscience tries the cause,
And vindicates the violated laws;
Though the bribed Prætor at their sentence spurn,
And falsify the verdict of the Urn.
What says the world, not always, friend, unjust,
Of his late injury, this breach of trust?
That thy estate so small a loss can bear,
And that the evil, now no longer rare,
Is one of that inevitable set,
Which man is born to suffer and forget.
Then moderate thy grief: 'tis mean to show
An anguish disproportioned to the blow.
But thou, so new to crosses, as to feel
The slightest portion of the slightest ill,
Art tired with rage, because a friend forswears
The sacred pledge, intrusted to his cares.
What, thou, Calvinus, bear so weak a mind!
Thou, who hast left full three-score years behind!
Heaven, have they taught thee nothing! nothing, friend!
And art thou grown gray-headed to no end!--
Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm,
To vanquish fortune, or at least disarm:
Blest they who walk in her unerring rule!--
Nor those unblest, who, tutored in life's school,
Have learned of old experience to submit,
And lightly bear the yoke they can not quit.
What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,
No secret fraud, no open rapine stains?
What hour, in which no dark assassins prowl,
Nor point the sword for hire, nor drug the bowl?
THE GOOD, ALAS, ARE FEW! "The valued file,"
Less than the gates of Thebes, the mouths of Nile!
For now an age is come, that teems with crimes,
Beyond all precedent of former times;
An age so bad, that Nature can not frame
A metal base enough to give it name!
Yet you, indignant at a paltry cheat,
Call heaven and earth to witness the deceit,
With cries as deafening, as the shout that breaks
From the bribed audience, when Fæsidius speaks.
Dotard in nonage! are you to be told
What loves, what graces, deck another's gold?
Are you to learn, what peals of mirth resound,
At your simplicity, from all around?
When you step forth, and, with a serious air,
Bid them abstain from perjury, and beware
To tempt the altars--for A GOD IS THERE!
Idle old man! there was, indeed, a time,
When the rude natives of this happy clime
Cherished such dreams: 'twas ere the king of heaven,
To change his sceptre for a scythe was driven;
Ere Juno yet the sweets of love had tried,
Or Jove advanced beyond the caves of Ide.
'Twas when no gods indulged in sumptuous feasts,
No Ganymede, no Hebe served the guests;
No Vulcan, with his sooty labors foul,
Limped round, officious, with the nectared bowl;
But each in private dined: 'twas when the throng
Of godlings, now beyond the scope of song,
The courts of heaven, in spacious ease, possess'd,
And with a lighter load poor Atlas press'd!--
Ere Neptune's lot the watery world obtained,
Or Dis and his Sicilian consort reigned;
Ere Tityus and his ravening bird were known,
Ixion's wheel, or Sisyphus's stone:
While yet the shades confessed no tyrant's power,
And all below was one Elysian bower!
Vice was a phœnix in that blissful time,
Believed, but never seen: and 'twas a crime,
Worthy of death, such awe did years engage,
If manhood rose not up to reverend age,
And youth to manhood, though a larger hoard
Of hips and acorns graced the stripling's board.
Then, then was age so venerable thought,
That every day increase of honor brought;
And children, in the springing down, revered
The sacred promise of a hoary beard!
Now, if a friend, miraculously just,
Restore the pledge, with all its gathered rust,
'Tis deemed a portent, worthy to appear
Among the wonders of the Tuscan year;
A prodigy of faith, which threats the state,
And a ewe lamb can scarcely expiate!--
Struck at the view, if now I chance to see
A man of ancient worth and probity,
To pregnant mules the MONSTER I compare,
Or fish upturned beneath the wondering share:
Anxious and trembling for the woe to come,
As if a shower of stones had fallen on Rome;
As if a swarm of bees, together clung,
Down from the Capitol, thick-clustering, hung;
Or Tiber, swollen to madness, burst away,
And roll'd, a milky deluge, to the sea.
And dost thou at a trivial loss repine!
What, if another, by a friend like thine,
Is stripp'd of ten times more! a third, again,
Of what his bursting chest would scarce contain!
For 'tis so common, in this age of ours,
So easy, to contemn the Immortal Powers,
That, can we but elude man's searching eyes.
We laugh to scorn the witness of the skies.
Mark, with how bold a voice, and fixed a brow,
The villain dares his treachery disavow!
"By the all-hallowed orb that flames above,
I HAD IT NOT! By the red bolts of Jove,
By the winged shaft that laid the Centaur low,
By Dian's arrows, by Apollo's bow,
By the strong lance that Mars delights to wield,
By Neptune's trident, by Minerva's shield,
And every weapon that, to vengeance given,
Stores the tremendous magazine of heaven!--
Nay, IF I HAD, I'll slay this son of mine,
And eat his head, soused in Egyptian brine."
There are, who think that chance is all in all,
That no First Cause directs the eternal ball;
But that brute Nature, in her blind career,
Varies the seasons, and brings round the year:
These rush to every shrine, with equal ease,
And, owning none, swear by what Power you please.
Others believe, and but believe, a god,
And think that punishment MAY follow fraud;
Yet they forswear, and, reasoning on the deed,
Thus reconcile their actions with their creed:
"Let Isis storm, if to revenge inclined,
And with her angry sistrum strike me blind,
So, with my eyes, she ravish not my ore,
But let me keep the pledge which I forswore.
Are putrid sores, catarrhs that seldom kill,
And crippled limbs, forsooth, so great an ill!
Ladas, if not stark mad, would change, no doubt,
His flying feet for riches and the gout;
For what do those procure him? mere renown,
And the starved honor of an olive crown."
"But grant the wrath of heaven be great; 'tis slow,
And days, and months, and years precede the blow.
If, then, to punish ALL, the gods decree,
When, in their vengeance, will they come to me?
But I, perhaps, their anger may appease--
For they are wont to pardon faults like these:
At worst, there's hope; since every age and clime
See different fates attend the self-same crime;
Some made by villainy, and some undone,
And this ascend a scaffold, that a throne."
These sophistries, to fix a while suffice
The mind, yet shuddering at the thought of vice;
And, thus confirmed, at the first call they come,
Nay, rush before you to the sacred dome:
Chide your slow pace, drag you, amazed, along,
And play the raving Phasma, to the throng.
(For impudence the vulgar suffrage draws,
And seems the assurance of a righteous cause.)
While you, poor wretch, suspected by the crowd,
With Stentor's lungs, or Mars', exclaim aloud:
"Jove! Jove! will naught thy indignation rouse?
Canst thou, in silence, hear these faithless vows?
When all thy fury, on the slaves accurst,
From lips of marble or of brass should burst!--
Or else, why burn we incense at thy shrine,
And heap thy altars with the fat of swine,
When we might crave redress, for aught I see,
As wisely of Bathyllus as of thee!"
Rash man!--but hear, in turn, what I propose,
To mitigate, if not to heal, your woes;
I, who no knowledge of the schools possess,
Cynic, or Stoic, differing but in dress,
Or thine, calm Epicurus, whose pure mind
To one small garden every wish confined.
In desperate cases, able doctors fee;
But trust your pulse to Philip's boy--or me.
If no example of so foul a deed
On earth be found, I urge no more: proceed,
And beat your breast, and rend your hoary hair;
'Tis just:-for thus our losses we declare;
And money is bewailed with deeper sighs,
Than friends or kindred, and with louder cries.
There none dissemble, none, with scenic art,
Affect a sorrow, foreign from the heart;
Content in squalid garments to appear,
And vex their lids for one hard-gotten tear:
No, genuine drops fall copious from their eyes,
And their breasts labor with unbidden sighs.
But when you see each court of justice thronged
With crowds, like you, by faithless friendship wronged,
See men abjure their bonds, though duly framed,
And oft revised, by all the parties named,
While their own hand and seal, in every eye,
Flash broad conviction, and evince the lie;
Shall you alone on Fortune's smiles presume,
And claim exemption from the common doom?
--From a white hen, forsooth, 'twas yours to spring,
Ours, to be hatched beneath some luckless wing!
Pause from your grief, and, with impartial eyes,
Survey the daring crimes which round you rise;
Your injuries, then, will scarce deserve a name,
And your false friend be half absolved from blame!
What's he, poor knave! to those who stab for hire,
Who kindle, and then spread, the midnight fire?
Say, what to those, who, from the hoary shrine,
Tear the huge vessels age hath stamped divine,
Offerings of price, by grateful nations given,
And crowns inscribed, by pious kings, to heaven?
What to the minor thieves, who, missing these,
Abrade the gilded thighs of Hercules,
Strip Neptune of his silvery beard, and peel
Castor's leaf gold, where spread from head to heel?
Or what to those, who, with pernicious craft,
Mingle and set to sale the deadly draught;
Or those, who in a raw ox-hide are bound,
And, with an ill-starred ape, poor sufferer! drowned?
Yet these--how small a portion of the crimes,
That stain the records of those dreadful times,
And Gallicus, the city præfect, hears,
From light's first dawning, till it disappears!
The state of morals would you learn at Rome?
No farther seek than his judicial dome:
Give one short morning to the horrors there,
And then complain, then murmur, if you dare!
Say, whom do goitres on the Alps surprise?
In Meroë, whom the breast's enormous size?
Whom locks, in Germany, of golden hue,
And spiral curls, and eyes of sapphire blue?
None; for the prodigy, among them shared,
Becomes mere nature, and escapes regard.
When clouds of Thracian birds obscure the sky,
To arms! to arms! the desperate Pigmies cry:
But soon, defeated in the unequal fray,
Disordered flee; while, pouncing on their prey,
The victor cranes descend, and, clamoring, bear
The wriggling manikins aloft in air.
Here, could our climes to such a scene give birth,
We all should burst with agonies of mirth;
There, unsurprised, they view the frequent fight,
Nor smile at heroes scarce a foot in height.
"Shall then no ill the perjured head attend,
No punishment o'ertake this faithless friend?"
Suppose him seized, abandoned to your will,
What more would rage? to torture or to kill;
Yet still your loss, your injury would remain,
And draw no retribution from his pain.
"True,; but methinks the smallest drop of blood,
Squeezed from his mangled limbs, would do me good:
Revenge, THEY SAY, and I believe their words,
A pleasure sweeter far than life affords."
WHO SAY? the fools, whose passions, prone to ire,
At slightest causes, or at none take fire;
Whose boiling breasts, at every turn, o'erflow
With rancorous gall: Chrysippus SAID not so;
Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still;
Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,
Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,
And dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.
Divine philosophy! by whose pure light
We first distinguish, then pursue the right,
Thy power the breast from every error frees,
And weeds out all its vices by degrees:--
Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find,
The abject pleasure of an abject mind,
And hence so dear to poor, weak, womankind.
But why are those, Calvinus, thought to scape
Unpunished, whom, in every fearful shape,
Guilt still alarms, and conscience, ne'er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, "not loud but deep,"
While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, plies
A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes!
Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,
Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain
He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.
A Spartan once the Oracle besought
To solve a scruple which perplexed his thought,
And plainly tell him, if he might forswear
A purse, of old confided to his care.
Incensed, the priestess answered--"Waverer, no!
Nor shalt thou, for the doubt, unpunished go."
With that, he hastened to restore the trust;
But fear alone, not virtue, made him just:
Hence, he soon proved the Oracle divine,
And all the answer worthy of the shrine;
For plagues pursued his race without delay,
And swept them from the earth, like dust, away.
By such dire sufferings did the wretch atone
The crime of meditated fraud alone!
For, IN THE EYE OF HEAVEN, a wicked deed
Devised, is done: What, then, if we proceed?--
Perpetual fears the offender's peace destroy,
And rob the social hour of all its joy:
Feverish, and parched, he chews, with many a pause,
The tasteless food, that swells beneath his jaws:
Spits out the produce of the Albanian hill,
Mellowed by age;--you bring him mellower still,
And lo, such wrinkles on his brow appear,
As if you brought Falernian vinegar!
At night, should sleep his harassed limbs compose,
And steal him one short moment from his woes,
Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyes
The violated fane and altar rise;
And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,
In more than mortal majesty arrayed,
Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest,
And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast.
These, these are they, who tremble and turn pale
At the first mutterings of the hollow gale!
Who sink with terror at the transient glare
Of meteors, glancing through the turbid air!
Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry; this hideous crash
Is not the war of winds; nor this dread flash
The encounter of dark clouds; but blasting fire,
Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire!
That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away;
Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay,
As if the short reprieve were only sent
To add new horrors to their punishment.
Yet more; when the first symptoms of disease,
When feverish heats, their restless members seize,
They think the plague by wrath divine bestowed,
And feel, in every pang, the avenging God.
Racked at the thought, in hopeless grief they lie,
And dare not tempt the mercy of the sky:
For what can such expect! what victim slay,
That is not worthier far to live than they!
With what a rapid change of fancy roll
The varying passions of the guilty soul!--
Bold to offend, they scarce commit the offense,
Ere the mind labors with an innate sense
Of right and wrong;--not long, for nature still,
Incapable of change, and fixed in ill,
Recurs to her old habits:--never yet
Could sinner to his sin a period set.
When did the flush of modest blood inflame
The cheek, once hardened to the sense of shame?
Or when the offender, since the birth of time,
Retire, contented with a single crime?
And this false friend of ours shall still pursue
His dangerous course, till vengeance, doubly due,
O'ertake his guilt; then shalt thou see him cast
In chains, 'mid tortures to expire his last;
Or hurried off, to join the wretched train
Of exiled great ones in the Ægean main.
THIS, THOU SHALT SEE; and, while thy voice applauds
The dreadful justice of the offended gods,
Reform thy creed, and, with an humble mind,
Confess that Heaven is NEITHER DEAF NOR BLIND!