A Satire Anthology

FROM “LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST”

THIS fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons pease,And utters it again when God doth please.He is wit’s pedler, and retails his waresAt wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,Have not the grace to grace it with such show.This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.He can carve, too, and lisp; why, this is heThat kiss’d his hand away in courtesy;This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,That, when he plays at table, chides the diceIn honourable terms; nay, he can singA mean most meanly; and in ushering,Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet;The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.This is the flower that smiles on every one,To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone;And consciences that will not die in debtPay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.…See where it comes! – Behaviour, what wert thouTill this man show’d thee? and what art thou now?Shakespeare.

FROM “AS YOU LIKE IT”

ALL the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players:They have their exits, and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms:Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,And shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school: And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woful balladMade to his mistress’ eyebrow: Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon’s mouth: And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part: The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.Shakespeare.

HORACE CONCOCTING AN ODE

TO thee, whose forehead swells with roses,Whose most haunted bowerGives life and scent to every flower,Whose most adoréd name enclosesThings abstruse, deep, and divine;Whose yellow tresses shineBright as Eoan fire:Oh, me thy priest inspire!For I to thee and thine immortal name,In – in – in golden tunes,For I to thee and thine immortal name —In – sacred raptures flowing, flowing, swimming, swimming:In sacred raptures swimming,Immortal name, game, dame, tame, lame, lame, lame,(Foh) hath, shame, proclaim, oh —In sacred raptures flowing, will proclaim. (No!)Oh, me thy priest inspire!For I to thee and thine immortal name,In flowing numbers filled with spright and flame,(Good! good!)In flowing numbers filled with spright and flame.Thomas Dekker.

ON DON SURLY

DON SURLY, to aspire the glorious nameOf a great man, and to be thought the same,Makes serious use of all great trade he knows.He speaks to men with a rhinocerote’s nose,Which he thinks great; and so reads verses too;And that is done as he saw great men do.He has tympanies of business in his face,And can forget men’s names with a great grace.He will both argue and discourse in oaths,Both which are great, and laugh at ill-made clothes;That’s greater yet, to cry his own up neat.He doth, at meals, alone his pheasant eat,Which is main greatness; and at his still boardHe drinks to no man: that’s, too, like a lord.He keeps another’s wife, which is a spiceOf solemn greatness; and he dares, at dice,Blaspheme God greatly; or some poor hind beat,That breathes in his dog’s way: and this is great.Nay, more, for greatness’ sake he will be oneMay hear my epigrams, but like of none.Surly, use other arts; these only canStyle thee a most great fool, but no great man.Ben Jonson.

THE SCHOLAR AND HIS DOG

I WAS a scholar: seven useful springsDid I deflower in quotationsOf cross’d opinions ’bout the soul of man;The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.Delight my spaniel slept, whilst I baus’d leaves,Toss’d o’er the dunces, pored on the old printOf titled words: and still my spaniel slept.Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,Shrunk up my veins: and still my spaniel slept.And still I held converse with Zabarell,Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty sawOf antick Donate: still my spaniel slept.Still on went I; first, an sit anima;Then, an it were mortal. Oh, hold, hold! at thatThey’re at brain buffets, fell by the ears amainPell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.Then, whether ’t were corporeal, local, fixt,Ex traduce, but whether ’t had free willOr no, hot philosphersStood banding factions, all so strongly propt,I stagger’d, knew not which was firmer part,But thought, quoted, read, observ’d, and pryed,Stufft noting-books: and still my spaniel slept.At length he wak’d, and yawned; and by yon sky,For aught I know he knew as much as I.John Marston.

THE MANLY HEART

SHALL I, wasting in despair,Die because a woman’s fair?Or my cheeks make pale with care’Cause another’s rosy are?Be she fairer than the day,Or the flowery meads in May,If she be not so to me,What care I how fair she be?Shall my foolish heart be pined’Cause I see a woman kind;Or a well-disposéd natureJoinéd with a lovely feature?Be she meeker, kinder, thanTurtle-dove or pelican,If she be not so to me,What care I how kind she be?Shall a woman’s virtues moveMe to perish for her love?Or her merit’s value knownMake me quite forget my own?Be she with that goodness blestWhich may gain her name of Best,If she seem not such to me,What care I how good she be?’Cause her fortune seems too high,Shall I play the fool and die?Those that bear a noble mindWhere they want of riches find,Think what with them they would doWho without them dare to woo;And unless that mind I see,What care I though great she be?Great or good, or kind or fair,I will ne’er the more despair;If she loves me, this believe,I will die ere she shall grieve;If she slight me when I woo,I can scorn and let her go;For if she be not for me,What care I for whom she be?George Wither.

THE CONSTANT LOVER

OUT upon it! I have lovedThree whole days together,And am like to love three more,If it prove fair weather.Time shall moult away his wingsEre he shall discoverIn the whole wide world againSuch a constant lover.But the spite on ’t is, no praiseIs due at all to me:Love with me had made no stays,Had it any been but she.Had it any been but she,And that very face,There had been at least ere thisA dozen dozen in her place.Sir John Suckling.

THE REMONSTRANCE

WHY so pale and wan, fond lover?Prithee, why so pale?Will, when looking well can’t move her,Looking ill prevail?Prithee, why so pale?Why so dull and mute, young sinner?Prithee, why so mute?Will, when speaking well can’t win her,Saying nothing do’t?Prithee, why so mute?Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,This cannot take her;If of herself she will not love,Nothing can make her:The devil take her!Sir John Suckling.

SAINTSHIP VERSUS CONSCIENCE

“WHY didst thou choose that cursed sin,Hypocrisy, to set up in?”“Because it is the thriving’st calling,The only saints’ bell that rings all in;In which all churches are concern’d,And is the easiest to be learn’d.”…Quoth he, “I am resolv’d to beThy scholar in this mystery;And therefore first desire to knowSome 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,And murder, godliness?” “Great gains.”“What’s tender conscience?” “’Tis a botchThat will not bear the gentlest touch;But, breaking out, despatches moreThan th’ epidemical’st plague-sore.”“What makes y’ encroach upon our trade,And damn all others?” “To be paid.”“What’s orthodox and true believing,Against a conscience?” “A good living.”“What makes rebelling against kingsA good old cause?” “Administ’rings.”“What makes all doctrines plain and clear?”“About two hundred pounds a year.”“And that which was prov’d true before,Prov’d false again?” “Two hundred more.”“What makes the breaking of all oathsA holy duty?” “Food and clothes.”“What, laws and freedom, persecution?”“Being out of power and contribution.”“What makes a church a den of thieves?”“A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.”“And what would serve, if these were gone,To make it orthodox?” “Our own.”“What makes morality a crime,The most notorious of the time;Morality, which both the saintsAnd wicked, too, cry out against?”“’Cause grace and virtue are withinProhibited degrees of kin;And therefore no true saint allowsThey shall be suffered to espouse.”Samuel Butler.

DESCRIPTION OF HOLLAND

A COUNTRY that draws fifty foot of water,In which men live as in the hold of Nature,And when the sea does in upon them break,And drowns a province, does but spring a leak;That always ply the pump, and never thinkThey can be safe but at the rate they stink;They live as if they had been run aground,And, when they die, are cast away and drowned;That dwell in ships, like swarms of rats, and preyUpon the goods all nations’ fleets convey;And when their merchants are blown up and crackt,Whole towns are cast away in storms, and wreckt;That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,And serve their cousin-germans up in dishes:A land that rides at anchor, and is moored,In which they do not live, but go aboard.Samuel Butler.

THE RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS

FOR his religion it was fitTo match his learning and his wit:Twas Presbyterian true blue;For he was of that stubborn crewOf errant saints, whom all men grantTo be the true Church militant;Such as do build their faith uponThe holy text of pike and gun;Decide all controversies byInfallible artillery,And prove their doctrine orthodox,By apostolic blows and knocks;Call fire, and sword, and desolation,A godly, thorough reformation.Which always must be carried on,And still be doing, never done;As if religion were intendedFor nothing else but to be mended;A sect whose chief devotion liesIn odd perverse antipathies;In falling out with that or this,And finding somewhat still amiss;More peevish, cross, and splenetic,Than dog distract or monkey sick;That with more care keep holy-dayThe wrong, than others the right way;Compound for sins they are inclin’d to,By damning those they have no mind to;Still so perverse and opposite,As if they worshipped God for spite;The self-same thing they will abhorOne way, and long another for;Free-will they one way disavow,Another, nothing else allow;All piety consists thereinIn them, in other men all sin;Rather than fail, they will defyThat which they love most tenderly;Quarrel with minc’d pies, and disparageTheir best and dearest friend, plum porridge;Fat pig and goose itself oppose,And blaspheme custard through the nose.Samuel Butler.

SATIRE ON THE SCOTS

A LAND where one may pray with cursed intent,Oh, may they never suffer banishment!Had Cain been Scot, God would have chang’d his doom —Not forc’d him wander, but confin’d him home.Like Jews they spread and as infection fly,As if the devil had ubiquity;Hence ’tis they live as rovers, and defyThis or that place, rags of geography;They’re citizens o’ th’ world, they’re all in all;Scotland’s a nation epidemical.And yet they ramble not to learn the modeHow to be drest, or how to lisp abroad…No, the Scots errant fight, and fight to eat;Their ostrich-stomachs make their swords their meat;Nature with Scots as tooth-drawers hath dealt,Who use to string their teeth upon their belt…Lord! what a godly thing is want of shirts!How a Scotch stomach and no meat converts!They wanted food and raiment; so they tookReligion for their seamstress and their cook.Unmask them well, their honours and estate,As well as conscience, are sophisticate.Shrive but their title and their moneys poize,A laird and twenty pence pronounc’d with noise,When constru’d but for a plain yeoman go,And a good sober twopence, and well so.Hence, then, you proud impostors! get you gone,You Picts in gentry and devotion,You scandal to the stock of verse – a raceAble to bring the gibbet in disgrace!Hyperbolus by suffering did traduceThe ostracism, and sham’d it out of use.The Indian that heaven did forswear,Because he heard some Spaniards were there,Had he but known what Scots in hell had been,He would, Erasmus-like, have hung between.My muse hath done. A voyder for the nonce,I wrong the devil should I pick their bones;That dish is his; for when the Scots decease,Hell, like their nation, feeds on barnacles.A Scot when from the gallow-tree got loose,Drops into Styx, and turns a Soland goose.John Cleiveland.

SONG

WHY should you swear I am forsworn,Since thine I vowed to be?Lady, it is already morn,And ’twas last night I swore to theeThat fond impossibility.Have I not loved thee much and long,A tedious twelve hours’ space?I must all other beauties wrong,And rob thee of a new embrace,Could I still dote upon thy face.Not but all joy in thy brown hairBy others may be found;But I must search the black and fair,Like skilful mineralists that soundFor treasure in unploughed-up ground.Then, if when I have loved my round,Thou prov’st the pleasant she;With spoils of meaner beauties crowned,I laden will return to thee,Even sated with variety.Richard Lovelace.

THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND

HOLLAND, that scarce deserves the name of land,As but the off-scouring of the British sand,And so much earth as was contributedBy English pilots when they heaved the lead;Or what by th’ ocean’s slow alluvion fell,Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell;This indigested vomit of the seaFell to the Dutch by just propriety.Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore;And dived as desperately for each pieceOf earth as if ’t had been of ambergreese;Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,Less than what building-swallows bear away;Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll,Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,Thorough the centre their new-catched miles;And to the stake a struggling country bound,Where barking waves still bait the forcéd ground;Building their watery Babel far more highTo reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid,And oft at leap-frog o’er their steeples played;As if on purpose it on land had comeTo shew them what’s their mare liberum.A daily deluge over them does boil;The earth and water play at level-coil.The fish ofttimes the burgher dispossessed,And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest;And oft the Tritons and the sea-nymphs sawWhole shoals of Dutch served up for cabillau;Or, as they over the new lever ranged,For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed.Nature, it seemed, ashamed of her mistake,Would throw their land away at duck and drake,Therefore necessity, that first make kings,Something like government among them brings;For, as with pigmies, who best kills the crane,Among the hungry he that treasures grain,Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns,So rules among the drowned he that drains.Not who first see the rising sun commands,But who could first discern the rising lands.Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,Him they their Lord and Country’s Father speak.To make a bank was a great plot of state;Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.Hence some small dike-grave unperceived invadesThe power, and grows, as ’twere, a king of spades;But, for less envy, some joined states endures,Who look like a commission of the sewers:For these Half-anders, half wet, and half dry,Nor bear strict service, nor pure liberty.’Tis probable religion, after this,Came next in order, which they could not miss.How could the Dutch but be converted, whenThe apostles were so many fishermen?Besides, the waters of themselves did rise,And, as their land, so them did rebaptize.Andrew Marvell.

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

SOME of their chiefs were princes of the land:In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,A man so various that he seemed to beNot one, but all mankind’s epitome:Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,Was everything by starts, and nothing long;But, in the course of one revolving moon,Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.Blest madman, who could every hour employWith something new to wish or to enjoy!Railing and praising were his usual themes,And both, to shew his judgment, in extremes;So over-violent, or over-civil,That every man with him was god or devil.In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;Nothing went unrewarded but desert:Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late,He had his jest, and they had his estate;He laughed himself from court, then sought reliefBy forming parties, but could ne’er be chief;For, spite of him, the weight of business fellOn Absalom and wise Achitophel.Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,He left not faction, but of that was left.John Dryden.

ON SHADWELL

ALL human things are subject to decay,And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, youngWas called to empire, and had governed long.In prose and verse was owned, without dispute,Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute.This aged prince, now flourishing in peace,And blest with issue of a large increase,Worn out with business, did at length debateTo settle the succession of the state;And pondering which of all his sons was fitTo reign, and wage immortal war with Wit,Cried: “’Tis resolved; for Nature pleads that heShould only rule who most resembles me.Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,Mature in dulness from his tender years;Shadwell alone of all my sons is heWho stands confirmed in full stupidity.The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,But Shadwell never deviates into sense.Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,Strike through, and make a lucid interval,But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray;His rising fogs prevail upon the day.Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye,And seems designed for thoughtless majesty —Thoughtless as monarch oaks that shade the plain,And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,Thou last great prophet of tautology!Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,Was sent before but to prepare thy way.”John Dryden.

SATIRE ON EDWARD HOWARD

THEY lie, dear Ned, who say thy brain is barren,When deep conceits, like maggots, breed in carrion.Thy stumbling foundered jade can trot as highAs any other Pegasus can fly.So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mudThan all the swift-finned racers of the flood.As skilful divers to the bottom fallSooner than those who cannot swim at all,So in this way of writing, without thinking,Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset.

ST. ANTHONY’S SERMON TO THE FISHES

SAINT ANTHONY at churchWas left in the lurch,So he went to the ditchesAnd preached to the fishes.They wriggled their tails,In the sun glanced their scales.The carps, with their spawn,Are all thither drawn;Have opened their jaws,Eager for each clause.No sermon besideHad the carps so edified.Sharp-snouted pikes,Who keep fighting like tikes,Now swam up harmoniousTo hear Saint Antonius.No sermon besideHad the pikes so edified.And that very odd fish,Who loves fast-days, the cod-fish —The stock-fish, I mean —At the sermon was seen.No sermon besideHad the cods so edified.Good eels and sturgeon,Which aldermen gorge on,Went out of their wayTo hear preaching that day.No sermon besideHad the eels so edified.Crabs and turtles also,Who always move low,Made haste from the bottomAs if the devil had got ’em.No sermon besideThe crabs so edified.Fish great and fish small,Lords, lackeys, and all,Each looked at the preacherLike a reasonable creature.At God’s word,They Anthony heard.The sermon now ended,Each turned and descended;The pikes went on stealing,The eels went on eeling.Much delighted were they,But preferred the old way.The crabs are backsliders,The stock-fish thick-siders,The carps are sharp-set —All the sermon forget.Much delighted were they,But preferred the old way.Abraham á Sancta-Clara.

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN

SPEAK, satire; for there’s none can tell like theeWhether ’tis folly, pride, or knaveryThat makes this discontented land appearLess happy now in times of peace than war?Why civil feuds disturb the nation moreThan all our bloody wars have done before?Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place,And men are always honest in disgrace;The court preferments make men knaves in course,But they which would be in them would be worse.’Tis not at foreigners that we repine,Would foreigners their perquisites resign;The grand contention’s plainly to be seen,To get some men put out, and some put in.For this our senators make long harangues,And florid members whet their polished tongues.Statesmen are always sick of one disease,And a good pension gives them present ease;That’s the specific makes them all contentWith any king and any government.Good patriots at court abuses rail,And all the nation’s grievances bewail;But when the sovereign’s balsam’s once applied,The zealot never fails to change his side;And when he must the golden key resign,The railing spirit comes about again.Who shall this bubbled nation disabuse,While they their own felicities refuse,Who the wars have made such mighty pother,And now are falling out with one another:With needless fears the jealous nation fill,And always have been saved against their will:Who fifty millions sterling have disbursed,To be with peace and too much plenty cursed:Who their old monarch eagerly undo,And yet uneasily obey the new?Search, satire, search; a deep incision make;The poison’s strong, the antidote’s too weak.’Tis pointed truth must manage this dispute,And downright English, Englishmen confute.Whet thy just anger at the nation’s pride,And with keen phrase repel the vicious tide;To Englishmen their own beginnings show,And ask them why they slight their neighbours so.Go back to elder times and ages past,And nations into long oblivion cast;To old Britannia’s youthful days retire,And there for true-born Englishmen inquire.Britannia freely will disown the name,And hardly knows herself from whence they came;Wonders that they of all men should pretendTo birth and blood, and for a name contend.Go back to causes where our follies dwell,And fetch the dark original from hell.Speak, satire, for there’s none like thee can tell.Daniel Defoe.

AN EPITAPH

INTERRED beneath this marble stoneLie sauntering Jack and idle Joan.While rolling threescore years and oneDid round this globe their courses run.If human things went ill or well,If changing empires rose or fell,The morning past, the evening came,And found this couple just the same.They walked and ate, good folks. What then?Why, then they walked and ate again;They soundly slept the night away;They did just nothing all the day,Nor sister either had, nor brother;They seemed just tallied for each other.Their moral and economyMost perfectly they made agree;Each virtue kept its proper bound,Nor trespassed on the other’s ground.Nor fame nor censure they regarded;They neither punished nor rewarded.He cared not what the footman did;Her maids she neither praised nor chid;So every servant took his course,And, bad at first, they all grew worse;Slothful disorder filled his stable,And sluttish plenty decked her table.Their beer was strong, their wine was port;Their meal was large, their grace was short.They gave the poor the remnant meat,Just when it grew not fit to eat.They paid the church and parish rate,And took, but read not, the receipt;For which they claimed their Sunday’s dueOf slumbering in an upper pew.No man’s defects sought they to know,So never made themselves a foe.No man’s good deeds did they commend,So never raised themselves a friend.Nor cherished they relations poor,That might decrease their present store;Nor barn nor house did they repair,That might oblige their future heir.They neither added nor confounded;They neither wanted nor abounded.Nor tear nor smile did they employAt news of grief or public joy.When bells were rung and bonfires made,If asked, they ne’er denied their aid;Their jug was to the ringers carried,Whoever either died or married.Their billet at the fire was found,Whoever was deposed or crowned.Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise;They would not learn, nor could advise;Without love, hatred, joy, or fear,They led – a kind of – as it were;Nor wished, nor cared, nor laughed, nor cried.And so they lived, and so they died.Matthew Prior.

Предыдущая 1 2 3 4 Следующая

Авторизация