Full Text
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Dryden, John: The works of John Dryden (1882-1892)
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VOL. XIII.
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TRANSLATIONS FROM JUVENAL.
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THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.
THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.
(by Dryden, John)
THE ARGUMENT.
The Poet's design, in this divine Satire, is to represent the various
wishes and desires of mankind, and to set out the folly of
them. He runs through all the several heads, of riches,
honours, eloquence, fame for martial achievements, long life,
and beauty; and gives instances in each, how frequently they
have proved the ruin of those that owned them. He concludes,
therefore, that, since we generally choose so ill for ourselves,
we should do better to leave it to the gods to make the choice
for us. All we can safely ask of heaven lies within a very
small compass---it is but health of body and mind; and if we
have these, it is not much matter what we want besides; for
we have already enough to make us happy.
1 Look round the habitable world, how few
2 Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.
3 How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
4 What in the conduct of our life appears
5 So well designed, so luckily begun,
6 But when we have our wish, we wish undone?
7 Whole houses, of their whole desires possest,
8 Are often ruined at their own request.
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9 In wars and peace things hurtful we require,
10 When made obnoxious to our own desire.
11 With laurels some have fatally been crowned;
12 Some, who the depths of eloquence have found,
13 In that unnavigable stream were drowned.
14 The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast,
15 In that presuming confidence was lost; [Footnote: 1Kb] 
16 But more have been by avarice opprest,
17 And heaps of money crowded in the chest:
18 Unwieldy sums of wealth, which higher mount
19 Than files of marshalled figures can account;
20 To which the stores of Croesus, in the scale,
21 Would look like little dolphins, when they sail
22 In the vast shadow of the British whale.
23 For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,
24 When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
25 A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize
26 The rich men's goods, and gut their palaces:
27 The mob, commissioned by the government,
28 Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
29 The fearful passenger, who travels late,
30 Charged with the carriage of a paltry plate,
31 Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush,
32 And sees a red-coat rise from every bush;
33 The beggar sings, even when he sees the place
34 Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
35 Of all the vows, the first and chief request
36 Of each, is---to be richer than the rest:
37 And yet no doubts the poor man's draught control,
38 He dreads no poison in his homely bowl;
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39 Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
40 Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.
41 Will you not now the pair of sages praise,
42 Who the same end pursued by several ways?
43 One pitied, one contemned, the woful times;
44 One laughed at follies, one lamented crimes.
45 Laughter is easy; but the wonder lies,
46 What stores of brine supplied the weeper's eyes.
47 Democritus could feed his spleen, and shake
48 His sides and shoulders, till he felt them ache;
49 Though in his country town no lictors were,
50 Nor rods, nor axe, nor tribune, did appear;
51 Nor all the foppish gravity of show,
52 Which cunning magistrates on crowds bestow.
53 What had he done, had he beheld on high
54 Our prætor seated in mock majesty;
55 His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,
56 While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face,
57 He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
58 With Jove's embroidered coat upon his back!
59 A suit of hangings had not more opprest
60 His shoulders, than that long laborious vest;
61 A heavy gewgaw, called a crown, that spread
62 About his temples, drowned his narrow head,
63 And would have crushed it with the massy freight,
64 But that a sweating slave sustained the weight;
65 A slave, in the same chariot seen to ride,
66 To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
67 Add now the imperial eagle, raised on high,
68 With golden beak, the mark of majesty;
69 Trumpets before, and on the left and right
70 A cavalcade of nobles, all in white;
71 In their own natures false and flattering tribes,
72 But made his friends by places and by bribes.
73 In his own age, Democritus could find
74 Sufficient cause to laugh at humankind:
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75 Learn from so great a wit; a land of bogs,
76 With ditches fenced, a heaven fat with fogs,
77 May form a spirit fit to sway the State,
78 And make the neighbouring monarchs fear their fate.
79 He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears;
80 At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears:
81 An equal temper in his mind he found,
82 When fortune flattered him, and when she frowned.
83 'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request
84 Are hurtful things, or useless at the best.
85 Some ask for envied power; which public hate
86 Pursues, and hurries headlong to their fate:
87 Down go the titles; and the statue crowned,
88 Is by base hands in the next river drowned.
89 The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel,
90 The same effects of vulgar fury feel:
91 The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke,
92 While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke.
93 Sejanus, almost first of Roman names, [Footnote: 1Kb]
94 The great Sejanus crackles in the flames:
95 Formed in the forge, the pliant brass is laid
96 On anvils; and of head and limbs are made,
97 Pans, cans, and piss-pots, a whole kitchen trade.
98 Adorn your doors with laurels; and a bull,
99 Milk white, and large, lead to the Capitol;
100 Sejanus with a rope is dragged along,
101 The sport and laughter of the giddy throng;
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102 "Good Lord!" they cry, "what Ethiop lips he has;
103 How foul a snout, and what a hanging face!
104 By heaven, I never could endure his sight!
105 But say, how came his monstrous crimes to light?
106 What is the charge, and who the evidence,
107 (The saviour of the nation and the prince?)"
108 "Nothing of this; but our old Cæsar sent
109 A noisy letter to his parliament."
110 "Nay, sirs, if Cæsar writ, I ask no more;
111 He's guilty, and the question's out of door."
112 How goes the mob? (for that's a mighty thing,)
113 When the king's trump, the mob are for the king;
114 They follow fortune, and the common cry
115 Is still against the rogue condemned to die.
116 But the same very mob, that rascal crowd,
117 Had cried "Sejanus," with a shout as loud,
118 Had his designs (by fortune's favour blest)
119 Succeeded, and the prince's age opprest.
120 But long, long since, the times have changed their face,
121 The people grown degenerate and base;
122 Not suffered now the freedom of their choice
123 To make their magistrates, and sell their voice.
124 Our wise forefathers, great by sea and land,
125 Had once the power and absolute command;
126 All offices of trust themselves disposed;
127 Raised whom they pleased, and whom they pleased deposed:
128 But we, who give our native rights away,
129 And our enslaved posterity betray,
130 Are now reduced to beg an alms, and go
131 On holidays to see a puppet-show.
132 "There was a damned design," cries one, "no doubt,
133 For warrants are already issued out:
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134 I met Brutidius in a mortal fright,
135 He's dipt for certain, and plays least in sight;
136 I fear the rage of our offended prince,
137 Who thinks the senate slack in his defence.
138 Come, let us haste, our loyal zeal to show,
139 And spurn the wretched corpse of Cæsar's foe:
140 But let our slaves be present there; lest they
141 Accuse their masters, and for gain betray."
142 Such were the whispers of those jealous times,
143 About Sejanus' punishment and crimes.
144 Now, tell me truly, wouldst thou change thy fate,
145 To be, like him, first minister of State?
146 To have thy levees crowded with resort,
147 Of a depending, gaping, servile court;
148 Dispose all honours of the sword and gown,
149 Grace with a nod, and ruin with a frown;
150 To hold thy prince in pupilage, and sway
151 That monarch, whom the mastered world obey?
152 While he, intent on secret lusts alone,
153 Lives to himself, abandoning the throne;
154 Cooped in a narrow isle, [Footnote: 1Kb] observing dreams
155 With flattering wizards, and erecting schemes!
156 I well believe thou wouldst be great as he,
157 For every man's a fool to that degree:
158 All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
159 Even they would have the power, who want the will:
160 But wouldst thou have thy wishes understood,
161 To take the bad together with the good?
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162 Wouldst thou not rather choose a small renown,
163 To be the mayor of some poor paltry town;
164 Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak;
165 To pound false weights, and scanty measures break?
166 Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray
167 In every wish, and knew not how to pray;
168 For he, who grasped the world's exhausted store,
169 Yet never had enough, but wished for more,
170 Raised a top-heavy tower, of monstrous height,
171 Which, mouldering, crushed him underneath the weight.
172 What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget,
173 And ruined him, who, greater than the Great, [Footnote: 1Kb]
174 The stubborn pride of Roman nobles broke,
175 And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke:
176 What else but his immoderate lust of power,
177 Prayers made and granted in a luckless hour?
178 For few usurpers to the shades descend
179 By a dry death, or with a quiet end.
180 The boy, who scarce has paid his entrance down
181 To his proud pedant, or declined a noun,
182 (So small an elf, that, when the days are foul,
183 He and his satchel must be borne to school,)
184 Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less,
185 To prove a Tully, or Demosthenes:
186 But both those orators, so much renowned,
187 In their own depths of eloquence were drowned: [Footnote: 1Kb]
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188 The hand and head were never lost of those
189 Who dealt in doggrel, or who punned in prose.
190 "Fortune foretuned the dying notes of Rome,
191 Till I, thy consul sole, consoled thy doom." [Footnote: 1Kb]
192 His fate had crept below the lifted swords,
193 Had all his malice been to murder words.
194 I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes
195 Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
196 Than that Philippic, [Footnote: 1Kb] fatally divine,
197 Which is inscribed the second, should be mine.
198 Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng,
199 Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue,
200 Who shook the theatres, and swayed the State
201 Of Athens, found a more propitious fate.
202 Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope,
203 His sire, the blear-eyed Vulcan of a shop,
204 From Mars his forge, sent to Minerva's schools,
205 To learn the unlucky art of wheedling fools.
206 With itch of honour, and opinion vain,
207 All things beyond their native worth we strain;
208 The spoils of war, brought to Feretrian Jove,
209 An empty coat of armour hung above
210 The conqueror's chariot, and in triumph borne,
211 A streamer from a boarded galley torn,
212 A chapfallen beaver loosely hanging by
213 The cloven helm, an arch of victory;
214 On whose high convex sits a captive foe,
215 And, sighing, casts a mournful look below; [Footnote: 1Kb] ---
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216 Of every nation each illustrious name,
217 Such toys as these have cheated into fame;
218 Exchanging solid quiet, to obtain
219 The windy satisfaction of the brain.
220 So much the thirst of honour fires the blood;
221 So many would be great, so few be good:
222 For who would Virtue for herself regard,
223 Or wed, without the portion of reward?
224 Yet this mad chase of fame, by few pursued,
225 Has drawn destruction on the multitude;
226 This avarice of praise in times to come,
227 Those long inscriptions crowded on the tomb;
228 Should some wild fig-tree take her native bent,
229 And heave below the gaudy monument,
230 Would crack the marble titles, and disperse
231 The characters of all the lying verse.
232 For sepulchres themselves must crumbling fall
233 In time's abyss, the common grave of all.
234 Great Hannibal within the balance lay,
235 And tell how many pounds his ashes weigh;
236 Whom Afric was not able to contain,
237 Whose length runs level with the Atlantic main,
238 And wearies fruitful Nilus, to convey
239 His sun-beat waters by so long a way;
240 Which Ethiopia's double clime divides,
241 And elephants in other mountains hides.
242 Spain first he won, the Pyreneans past,
243 And steepy Alps, the mounds that nature cast;
244 And with corroding juices, as he went,
245 A passage through the living rocks he rent:
246 Then, like a torrent rolling from on high,
247 He pours his headlong rage on Italy,
248 In three victorious battles overrun;
249 Yet, still uneasy, cries,---"There's nothing done,
250 Till level with the ground their gates are laid,
251 And Punic flags on Roman towers displayed."
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252 Ask what a face belonged to this high fame,
253 His picture scarcely would deserve a frame:
254 A sign-post dauber would disdain to paint
255 The one-eyed hero on his elephant.
256 Now, what's his end, O charming Glory! say,
257 What rare fifth act to crown this huffing play?
258 In one deciding battle overcome,
259 He flies, is banished from his native home;
260 Begs refuge in a foreign court, and there
261 Attends, his mean petition to prefer;
262 Repulsed by surly grooms, who wait before
263 The sleeping tyrant's interdicted door.
264 What wondrous sort of death has heaven designed,
265 Distinguished from the herd of humankind,
266 For so untamed, so turbulent a mind?
267 Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
268 Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war;
269 But poison, drawn through a ring's hollow plate,
270 Must finish him---a sucking infant's fate.
271 Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,
272 To please the boys, and be a theme at school.
273 One world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
274 Cooped up, he seemed in earth and seas confined,
275 And, struggling, stretched his restless limbs about
276 The narrow globe, to find a passage out:
277 Yet entered in the brick-built town, [Footnote: 1Kb] he tried
278 The tomb, and found the strait dimensions wide.
279 Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
280 The mighty soul how small a body holds.
281 Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out, [Footnote: 1Kb]
282 Cut from the continent, and sailed about;
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283 Seas hid with navies, chariots passing o'er
284 The channel, on a bridge from shore to shore:
285 Rivers, whose depth no sharp beholder sees,
286 Drunk at an army's dinner to the lees;
287 With a long legend of romantic things,
288 Which in his cups the boozy poet sings.
289 But how did he return, this haughty brave,
290 Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave?
291 (Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound,
292 And Eurus never such hard usage found
293 In his Æolian prison under ground;)
294 What god so mean, even he who points the way, [Footnote: 1Kb]
295 So merciless a tyrant to obey?
296 But how returned he, let us ask again?
297 In a poor skiff he passed the bloody main,
298 Choked with the slaughtered bodies of his train.
299 For fame he prayed, but let the event declare
300 He had no mighty penn'worth of his prayer:---
301 "Jove, grant me length of life, and years good store
302 Heap on my bending back! I ask no more."
303 Both sick and healthful, old and young, conspire
304 In this one silly mischievous desire.
305 Mistaken blessing, which old age they call!
306 'Tis a long, nasty, darksome hospital:
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307 A ropy chain of rheums; a visage rough,
308 Deformed, unfeatured, and a skin of buff;
309 A stitch-fallen cheek, that hangs below the jaw;
310 Such wrinkles as a skilful hand would draw
311 For an old grandame ape, when, with a grace,
312 She sits at squat, and scrubs her leathern face.
313 In youth, distinctions infinite abound;
314 No shape, or feature, just alike are found;
315 The fair, the black, the feeble, and the strong:
316 But the same foulness does to age belong,
317 The self-same palsy, both in limbs and tongue;
318 The skull and forehead one bald barren plain,
319 And gums unarmed to mumble meat in vain;
320 Besides, the eternal drivel, that supplies
321 The dropping beard, from nostrils, mouth, and eyes.
322 His wife and children loathe him, and, what's worse,
323 Himself does his offensive carrion curse!
324 Flatterers forsake him too; for who would kill
325 Himself, to be remembered in a will?
326 His taste not only palled to wine and meat,
327 But to the relish of a nobler treat.
328 The limber nerve, in vain provoked to rise,
329 Inglorious from the field of battle flies;
330 Poor feeble dotard! how could he advance
331 With his blue head-piece, and his broken lance?
332 Add, that, endeavouring still, without effect,
333 A lust more sordid justly we suspect.
334 Those senses lost, behold a new defeat,
335 The soul dislodging from another seat.
336 What music, or enchanting voice, can cheer
337 A stupid, old, impenetrable ear?
338 No matter in what place, or what degree
339 Of the full theatre he sits to see;
340 Cornets and trumpets cannot reach his ear;
341 Under an actor's nose he's never near.
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342 His boy must bawl, to make him understand
343 The hour o' the day, or such a lord's at hand;
344 The little blood that creeps within his veins,
345 Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.
346 In fine, he wears no limb about him sound,
347 With sores and sicknesses beleaguered round.
348 Ask me their names, I sooner could relate
349 How many drudges on salt Hippia wait;
350 What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
351 Or how, last fall, he raised the weekly bills;
352 What provinces by Basilus were spoiled;
353 What herds of heirs by guardians are beguiled;
354 How many bouts a-day that bitch has tried;
355 How many boys that pedagogue can ride;
356 What lands and lordships for their owner know
357 My quondam barber, but his worship now.
358 This dotard of his broken back complains;
359 One his legs fail, and one his shoulder pains:
360 Another is of both his eyes bereft,
361 And envies who has one for aiming left;
362 A fifth, with trembling lips expecting stands
363 As in his childhood, crammed by others' hands;
364 One, who at sight of supper opened wide
365 His jaws before, and whetted grinders tried,
366 Now only yawns, and waits to be supplied;
367 Like a young swallow, when, with weary wings,
368 Expected food her fasting mother brings.
369 His loss of members is a heavy curse,
370 But all his faculties decayed, a worse.
371 His servants' names he has forgotten quite;
372 Knows not his friend who supped with him last night:
373 Not even the children he begot and bred;
374 Or his will knows them not; for, in their stead,
375 In form of law, a common hackney jade,
376 Sole heir, for secret services, is made:
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377 So lewd, and such a battered brothel whore,
378 That she defies all comers at her door.
379 Well, yet suppose his senses are his own,
380 He lives to be chief mourner for his son:
381 Before his face, his wife and brother burns;
382 He numbers all his kindred in their urns.
383 These are the fines he pays for living long,
384 And dragging tedious age in his own wrong;
385 Griefs always green, a household still in tears,
386 Sad pomps, a threshold thronged with daily biers,
387 And liveries of black for length of years.
388 Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king [Footnote: 1Kb]
389 Was longest lived of any two-legged thing.
390 Blest, to defraud the grave so long, to mount
391 His numbered years, and on his right hand count! [Footnote: 1Kb]
392 Three hundred seasons, guzzling must of wine!---
393 But hold a while, and hear himself repine
394 At fate's unequal laws, and at the clew
395 Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister drew. [Footnote: 1Kb]
396 When his brave son upon the funeral pyre
397 He saw extended, and his beard on fire,
398 He turned, and, weeping, asked his friends, what crime
399 Had cursed his age to this unhappy time?
400 Thus mourned old Peleus for Achilles slain,
401 And thus Ulysses' father did complain.
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402 How fortunate an end had Priam made,
403 Among his ancestors a mighty shade,
404 While Troy yet stood; when Hector, with the race
405 Of royal bastards, might his funeral grace;
406 Amidst the tears of Trojan dames inurned,
407 And by his loyal daughters truly mourned!
408 Had heaven so blest him, he had died before
409 The fatal fleet to Sparta Paris bore:
410 But mark what age produced,---he lived to see
411 His town in flames, his falling monarchy.
412 In fine, the feeble sire, reduced by fate
413 To change his sceptre for a sword, too late,
414 His last effort before Jove's altar tries,
415 A soldier half, and half a sacrifice:
416 Falls like an ox that waits the coming blow,
417 Old and unprofitable to the plough. [Footnote: 1Kb]
418 At least he died a man: his queen survived,
419 To howl, and in a barking body lived. [Footnote: 1Kb]
420 I hasten to our own; nor will relate
421 Great Mithridates, [Footnote: 1Kb] and rich Croesus' fate; [Footnote: 1Kb]
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422 Whom Solon wisely counselled to attend
423 The name of happy, till he knew his end.
424 That Marius was an exile, that he fled,
425 Was ta'en, in ruined Carthage begged his bread;
426 All these were owing to a life too long:
427 For whom had Rome beheld so happy, young?
428 High in his chariot, and with laurel crowned,
429 When he had led the Cimbrian captives round
430 The Roman streets, descending from his state,
431 In that blest hour he should have begged his fate;
432 Then, then, he might have died of all admired,
433 And his triumphant soul with shouts expired.
434 Campania, Fortune's malice to prevent,
435 To Pompey an indulgent fever sent;
436 But public prayers imposed on heaven to give
437 Their much loved leader an unkind reprieve;
438 The city's fate and his conspired to save
439 The head reserved for an Egyptian slave. [Footnote: 1Kb]
440 Cethegus, though a traitor to the State,
441 And tortured, 'scaped this ignominious fate; [Footnote: 1Kb]
442 And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely tried,
443 All of a piece, and undiminished, died. [Footnote: 1Kb]
444 To Venus, the fond mother makes a prayer,
445 That all her sons and daughters may be fair:
446 True, for the boys a mumbling vow she sends,
447 But for the girls the vaulted temple rends:
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448 They must be finished pieces; 'tis allowed
449 Diana's beauty made Latona proud,
450 And pleased to see the wondering people pray
451 To the new-rising sister of the day.
452 And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow;
453 And fair Virginia [Footnote: 1Kb] would her fate bestow
454 On Rutila, and change her faultless make
455 For the foul rumple of her camel back.
456 But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what frights
457 His parents have by day, what anxious nights!
458 Form joined with virtue is a sight too rare;
459 Chaste is no epithet to suit with fair.
460 Suppose the same traditionary strain
461 Of rigid manners in the house remain;
462 Inveterate truth, an old plain Sabine's heart;
463 Suppose that nature too has done her part,
464 Infused into his soul a sober grace,
465 And blushed a modest blood into his face,
466 (For nature is a better guardian far
467 Than saucy pedants, or dull tutors are;)
468 Yet still the youth must ne'er arrive at man,
469 (So much almighty bribes and presents can;)
470 Even with a parent, where persuasions fail,
471 Money is impudent, and will prevail.
472 We never read of such a tyrant king,
473 Who gelt a boy deformed, to hear him sing;
474 Nor Nero, in his more luxurious rage,
475 E'er made a mistress of an ugly page:
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476 Sporus, his spouse, nor crooked was, nor lame,
477 With mountain back, and belly, from the game
478 Cross-barred; but both his sexes well became.
479 Go, boast your springald, by his beauty curst
480 To ills, nor think I have declared the worst;
481 His form procures him journey-work; a strife
482 Betwixt town-madams, and the merchant's wife:
483 Guess, when he undertakes this public war,
484 What furious beasts offended cuckolds are.
485 Adulterers are with dangers round beset;
486 Born under Mars, they cannot 'scape the net;
487 And, from revengeful husbands, oft have tried
488 Worse handling than severest laws provide:
489 One stabs, one slashes, one, with cruel art,
490 Makes colon suffer for the peccant part.
491 But your Endymion, your smooth smock-faced boy,
492 Unrivalled, shall a beauteous dame enjoy.
493 Not so: one more salacious, rich, and old,
494 Outbids, and buys her pleasure for her gold:
495 Now, he must moil, and drudge, for one he loathes;
496 She keeps him high in equipage and clothes;
497 She pawns her jewels, and her rich attire,
498 And thinks the workman worthy of his hire.
499 In all things else immoral, stingy, mean,
500 But, in her lusts, a conscionable quean.
501 "She may be handsome, yet be chaste," you say;---
502 Good observator, not so fast away;
503 Did it not cost the modest youth his life,
504 Who shunned the embraces of his father's wife? [Footnote: 1Kb]
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505 And was not t'other stripling forced to fly,
506 Who coldly did his patron's queen deny,
507 And pleaded laws of hospitality? [Footnote: 1Kb]
508 The ladies charged them home, and turned the tale;
509 With shame they reddened, and with spite grew pale.
510 'Tis dangerous to deny the longing dame;
511 She loses pity, who has lost her shame.
512 Now Silius wants thy counsel, give advice;
513 Wed Cæsar's wife, or die---the choice is nice. [Footnote: 1Kb]
514 Her comet-eyes she darts on every grace,
515 And takes a fatal liking to his face.
516 Adorned with bridal pomp, she sits in state;
517 The public notaries and aruspex wait;
518 The genial bed is in the garden dressed,
519 The portion paid, and every rite expressed,
520 Which in a Roman marriage is professed.
521 'Tis no stolen wedding this; rejecting awe,
522 She scorns to marry, but in form of law:
523 In this moot case, your judgment to refuse
524 Is present death, besides the night you lose:
525 If you consent, 'tis hardly worth your pain,
526 A day or two of anxious life you gain;
527 Till loud reports through all the town have past,
528 And reach the prince---for cuckolds hear the last.
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529 Indulge thy pleasure, youth, and take thy swing,
530 For not to take is but the self-same thing;
531 Inevitable death before thee lies,
532 But looks more kindly through a lady's eyes.
533 What then remains? are we deprived of will?
534 Must we not wish, for fear of wishing ill?
535 Receive my counsel, and securely move;---
536 Intrust thy fortune to the powers above;
537 Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant
538 What their unerring wisdom sees thee want:
539 In goodness, as in greatness, they excel;
540 Ah, that we loved ourselves but half so well!
541 We, blindly by our headstrong passions led,
542 Are hot for action, and desire to wed;
543 Then wish for heirs; but to the gods alone
544 Our future offspring, and our wives, are known;
545 The audacious strumpet, and ungracious son.
546 Yet, not to rob the priests of pious gain,
547 That altars be not wholly built in vain,
548 Forgive the gods the rest, and stand confined
549 To health of body, and content of mind;
550 A soul, that can securely death defy,
551 And count it nature's privilege to die;
552 Serene and manly, hardened to sustain
553 The load of life, and exercised in pain;
554 Guiltless of hate, and proof against desire,
555 That all things weighs, and nothing can admire;
556 That dares prefer the toils of Hercules,
557 To dalliance, banquet, and ignoble ease.
558 The path to peace is virtue: what I show,
559 Thyself may freely on thyself bestow;
560 Fortune was never worshipped by the wise,
561 But, set aloft by fools, usurps the skies.
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