Lines 910–1098

JUST LOGIC.
And a vulgar buffoon!

UNJUST LOGIC.
What! Lilies from you?

JUST LOGIC.
And a parricide too!

UNJUST LOGIC.
’Tis in gold (you don’t know it) you sprinkle my head.

JUST LOGIC.
O gold is it now? but it used to be lead!

UNJUST LOGIC.
But now it’s a grace and a glory instead.

JUST LOGIC.
You’re a little too bold.

UNJUST LOGIC.
You’re a good deal too old.

JUST LOGIC.
’Tis through you I well know not a stripling will go
To attend to the rules which are taught in the Schools;
But Athens one day shall be up to the fools.

UNJUST LOGIC.
How squalid your dress!

JUST LOGIC.
Yours is fine, I confess.
Yet of old, I declare, but a pauper you were;
And passed yourself off, our compassion to draw
As a Telephus, (Euripidéan)
Well pleased from a beggarly wallet to gnaw
At inanities Pandeletéan.
O me! for the wisdom you’ve mentioned in jest!
O me! for the folly of you, and the rest
Who you to destroy their children employ!

UNJUST LOGIC.
Him you never shall teach: you are quite out of date.

JUST LOGIC.
If not, he’ll be lost, as he’ll find to his cost:
Taught nothing by you but to chatter and prate.

UNJUST LOGIC.
He raves, as you see: let him be, let him be.

JUST LOGIC.
Touch him if you dare! I bid you beware.

CHORUS.
Forbear, forbear to wrangle and scold!
Each of you show
You what you taught their fathers of old,
You let us know
Your system untried, that hearing each side
From the lips of the Rivals the youth may decide
To which of your schools he will go.

JUST LOGIC.
This then will I do.

UNJUST LOGIC.
And so will I too.

CHORUS.
And who will put in his claim to begin?

UNJUST LOGIC.
If he wishes, he may: I kindly give way:
And out of his argument quickly will I
Draw facts and devices to fledge the reply
Wherewith I will shoot him and smite and refute him.
And at last if a word from his mouth shall be heard
My sayings like fierce savage hornets shall pierce
His forehead and eyes,
Till in fear and distraction he yields and he—dies!

CHORUS.
With thoughts and words and maxims pondered well
Now then in confidence let both begin:
Try which his rival can in speech excel:
Try which this perilous wordy war can win,
Which all my votaries’ hopes are fondly centred in.
O Thou who wert born our sires to adorn
with characters blameless and fair,
Say on what you please, say on and to these
your glorious Nature declare,

JUST LOGIC.
To hear then prepare of the Discipline rare
which flourished in Athens of yore
When Honour and Truth were in fashion with youth
and Sobriety bloomed on our shore;
First of all the old rule was preserved in our school
that “boys should be seen and not heard:”
And then to the home of the Harpist would come
decorous in action and word
All the lads of one town, though the snow peppered down,
in spite of all wind and all weather:
And they sang an old song as they paced it along,
not shambling with thighs glued together:
“O the dread shout of War how it peals from afar,”
or “Pallas the Stormer adore,”
To some manly old air all simple and bare
which their fathers had chanted before.
And should anyone dare the tune to impair
and with intricate twistings to fill,
Such as Phrynis is fain, and his long-winded train,
perversely to quaver and trill,
Many stripes would he feel in return for his zeal,
as to genuine Music a foe.
And every one’s thigh was forward and high
as they sat to be drilled in a row,
So that nothing the while indecent or vile
the eye of a stranger might meet;
And then with their hand they would smooth down the sand
whenever they rose from their seat,
To leave not a trace of themselves in the place
for a vigilant lover to view.
They never would soil their persons with oil
but were inartificial and true.
Nor tempered their throat to a soft mincing note
and sighs to their lovers addressed:
Nor laid themselves out, as they strutted about,
) to the wanton desires of the rest:
Nor would anyone dare such stimulant fare
as the head of the radish to wish:
Nor to make over bold with the food of the old,
the anise, and parsley, and fish:
Nor dainties to quaff, nor giggle and laugh,
nor foot within foot to enfold.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Faugh! this smells very strong of some musty old song,
and Chirrupers mounted in gold;
And Slaughter of beasts, and old-fashioned feasts.

JUST LOGIC.
Yet these are the precepts which taught
The heroes of old to be hardy and bold,
and the Men who at Marathon fought!
But now must the lad from his boyhood be clad
in a Man’s all-enveloping cloak:
So that, oft as the Panathenaea returns,
I feel myself ready to choke
When the dancers go by with their shields to their thigh, not caring for Pallas a jot.
You therefore, young man, choose me while you can;
east in with my Method your lot;
And then you shall learn the forum to spurn,
and from dissolute baths to abstain,
And fashions impure and shameful abjure,
and scorners repel with disdain:
And rise from your chair if an elder be there,
and respectfully give him your place,
And with love and with fear your parents revere,
and shrink from the brand of Disgrace,
And deep in your breast be the Image impressed
of Modesty, simple and true,
Nor resort any more to a dancing-girl’s door,
nor glance at the harlotry crew,
Lest at length by the blow of the Apple they throw
from the hopes of your Manhood you fall.
Nor dare to reply when your Father is nigh,
nor “musty old Japhet” to call
In your malice and rage that Sacred Old Age
which lovingly cherished your youth.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Yes, yes, my young friend, if to him you attend,
by Bacchus I swear of a truth
You will scarce with the sty of Hippocrates vie,
as a mammy-suck known even there!

JUST LOGIC.
But then you’ll excel in the games you love well,
all blooming, athletic and fair:
Not learning to prate as your idlers debate
with marvellous prickly dispute,
Nor dragged into Court day by day to make sport
in some small disagreeable suit:
But you will below to the Academe go,
and under the olives contend
With your chaplet of reed, in a contest of speed
with some excellent rival and friend:
All fragrant with woodbine and peaceful content,
and the leaf which the lime blossoms fling,
When the plane whispers love to the elm in the grove
in the beautiful season of Spring.
If then you’ll obey and do what I say,
And follow with me the more excellent way,
Your chest shall be white, your skin shall be bright,
Your arms shall be tight, your tongue shall be slight,
And everything else shall be proper and right.
But if you pursue what men nowadays do,
You will have, to begin, a cold pallid skin,
Arms small and chest weak, tongue practised to speak,
Special laws very long, and the symptoms all strong
Which show that your life is licentious and wrong.
And your mind he’ll prepare so that foul to be fair
And fair to be foul you shall always declare;
And you’ll find yourself soon, if you listen to him,
With the filth of Antimachus filled to the brim!

CHORUS.
O glorious Sage! with loveliest Wisdom teeming!
Sweet on thy words does ancient Virtue rest!
Thrice happy they who watched thy Youth’s bright beaming!
Thou of the vaunted genius, do thy best;
This man has gained applause: His Wisdom stands confessed.
And you with clever words and thoughts must needs your case adorn
Else he will surely win the day, and you retreat with scorn.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Aye, say you so? why I have been
half-burst; I do so long
To overthrow his arguments
with arguments more strong.
I am the Lesser Logic? True:
these Schoolmen call me so,
Simply because I was the first
of all mankind to show
How old established rules and laws
might contradicted be:
And this, as you may guess, is worth
a thousand pounds to me,
To take the feebler cause, and yet
to win the disputation.
And mark me now, how I’ll confute
his boasted Education!
You said that always from warm baths
the stripling must abstain:
Why must he? on what grounds do you
of these warm baths complain?

JUST LOGIC.
Why, it’s the worst thing possible,
it quite unstrings a man.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Hold there: I’ve got you round the waist:
escape me if you can.
And first: of all the sons of Zeus
which think you was the best?
Which was the manliest? which endured
more toils than all the rest?

JUST LOGIC.
Well, I suppose that Heracles
was bravest and most bold.

UNJUST LOGIC.
And are the baths of Heracles
so wonderfully cold?
Aha! you blame warm baths, I think.
This, this is what they say:
This is the stuff our precious youths
are chattering all the day!
This is what makes them haunt the baths,
and shun the manlier Games!
Well then, we’ll take the Forum next:
I praise it, and he blames.
But if it was so bad, do you think
old Homer would have made
Nestor and all his worthies ply
a real forensic trade?
Well: then he says a stripling’s tongue
should always idle be;
I say it should be used of course:
so there we disagree.
And next he says you must be chaste,
A most preposterous plan!
Come, tell me did you ever know
one single blessed man
Gain the least good by chastity?
come, prove I’m wrong: make haste.

JUST LOGIC.
Yes, many, many! Peleus gained
a sword by being chaste.

UNJUST LOGIC.
A sword indeed! a wondrous meed
the unlucky fool obtained.
Hyperbolus the Lamp-maker
hath many a talent gained
By knavish tricks which I have taught:
but not a sword, no, no!

JUST LOGIC.
Then Peleus did to his chaste life
the bed of Thetis owe.

UNJUST LOGIC.
And then she cut and ran away!
for nothing so engages
A woman’s heart as forward warmth,
old shred of those dark Ages!
For take this chastity, young man:
sift it inside and out:
Count all the pleasures, all the joys,
it bids you live without:
No kind of dames, no kind of games,
no laughing, feasting, drinking,—
Why, life itself is little worth
without these joys, I’m thinking.
Well, I must notice now the wants
by Nature’s self implanted;
You love, seduce, you can’t help that,
you’re caught, convicted. Granted.
You’re done for; you can’t say one word:
while if you follow me
Indulge your genius, laugh and quaf,
hold nothing base to be.
Why if you’re in adultery caught,
your pleas will still be ample:
You’ve done no wrong, you’ll say, and then
bring Zeus as your example.
He fell before the wondrous powers
by Love and Beauty wielded:
And how can you, the Mortal, stand,
where He, the Immortal, yielded?

JUST LOGIC.
Aye, but suppose in spite of all,
he must be wedged and sanded.
Won’t he be probed, or else can you
prevent it? now be candid.

UNJUST LOGIC.
And what’s the damage if it should be so?

JUST LOGIC.
What greater damage can the young man know?

UNJUST LOGIC.
What will you do, if this dispute I win?

JUST LOGIC.
I’ll be for ever silent.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Good, begin.
The Counsellor: from whence comes he?

JUST LOGIC.
From probed adulterers.

UNJUST LOGIC.
I agree.
The Tragic Poets: whence are they?

JUST LOGIC.
From probed adulterers.

UNJUST LOGIC.
So I say.
The Orators: what class of men?

JUST LOGIC.
All probed adulterers.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Right again.
You feel your error, I’ll engage,
But look once more around the stage,
Survey the audience, which they be,
Probed or not Probed.

JUST LOGIC.
I see, I see.

UNJUST LOGIC.
Well, give your verdict.