Dryden's translations from Lucretius  

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John Dryden's translations from Lucretius

Full text [1]

From the preface[2]

It is true, there is something, and that of some moment, to be objected against my englishing the Nature of Love, from the fourth book of Lucretius ; and I can less easily answer why I translated it, than why I thus translated it. The objection arises from the obscenity of the subject ; which is aggravated by the too lively and alluring delicacy of the verses. In the first place, without the least formality of an excuse, I own it pleased me ; and let my enemies make the worst they can of this confession. I am not yet so secure from that passion, but that I want my author's antidotes against it. He has given the truest and most philosophical account, both of the disease and remedy, which I ever found in any author ; for which reasons I translated him. But it will be asked, why I turned him into this luscious English, for I will not give it a worse word. Instead of an answer, I would ask again of my supercilious adversaries, whether I am not bound, when I translate an author, to do him all the right I can, and to translate him to the best advantage ? If, to mince his meaning, which I am satisfied was honest and instructive, I had either omitted some part of what he said, or taken from the strength of his expression, I certainly had wronged him ; and that freeness of thought and words being thus cashiered in my hands, he had no longer been Lucretius. If nothing of this kind be to be read, physicians must not study nature, anatomies must not be seen, and somewhat I could say of particular passages in books, which, to avoid profaneness, I do not name. But the intention qualifies the act ; and both mine and my author's were to instruct, as well as please. It is most certain, that bare-faced bawdry is the poorest pretence to wit imaginable. If I should say otherwise, I should have two great authorities against me : tli one is the " Essay on Poetry,*' which I publicly valued before I knew the author of it, and with the commendation of which my Lord Roscommon so happily begins his " Essay on Translated Verse ;" the other is no less than our admired Cowley, who says the same thing in other words ; for, in his " Ode Concerning Wit," he writes thus of it :

Much less can that have any place,

At which a virgin hides her face ;

Such dross the fire must purge away ; 'tis just

The author blush, there, where the reader must.

Here indeed Mr Cowley goes farther than the Essay ; for he asserts plainly, that obscenity has no place in wit; the other only says, it is a poor pretence to it, or an ill sort of wit, which has nothing more to support it than bare-faced ribaldry ; which is both unmannerly in itself, and fulsome to the reader. But neither of these will reach my case : for, in the first place, I am only the translator, not the inventor ; so that the heaviest part of the censure falls upon Lucretius, before it reaches me : in the next place, neither he nor I have used the grossest words, but the cleanliest metaphors we could find, to palliate the broadness of the meaning; and, to conclude, have carried the poetical part no farther, than the philosophical exacted. *

There is one mistake of mine, which I will not lay to the printer's charge, who has enough to answer for in false pointings ; it is in the word, viper: I would have the verse run thus :

The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised, **

* I wish our author had attended to his noble friend Roscommon's recommendation :

Immodest words admit of no defence,

For want of decency is want of sense ;

What moderate fop would range the Park, or stews,

Who among troops of faultless Hymphs might chuse ?

**- This error, however, went through the subsequent editions.

There are a sort of blundering, half-witted people, who make a great deal of noise about a verbal slip ; though Horace would instruct them better in true criticism :

non ego paucis

Qffendar maculis, quas out incitriafudit,

Ant humana parum camt natura.

True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, takes a view of the whole together, whether it be good or not ; and where the beauties are more than the faults, concludes for the poet against the little judge. It is a sign that malice is hard driven, when it is forced to lay hold on a word or syllable : to arraign a man is one thing, and to cavil at him is another. In the midst of an ill-natured generation of scribblers, there is always justice enough left in mankind, to protect good writers : and they too are obliged, both by humanity and interest, to espouse each other's cause, against false critics, who are the common enemies. This last consideration puts me in mind of what I owe to the ingenious and learned translator of Lucretius.

THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

.DELIGHT of human kind, and gods above, Parent of Rome, propitious Queen of Love ! Whose vital power, air, earth, and sea supplies, And breeds whatever is born beneath the rolling skies; For every kind, by thy prolific might, Springs, and beholds the regions of the light. Thee, goddess, thee the clouds and tempests fear, And at thy pleasing presence disappear ; For thee the land in fragrant flowers is drest ; For thee the ocean smiles, and smooths her wavy (

breast, And heaven itself with more serene and purer light 1

is blest.

For, when the rising spring adorns the mead, And a new scene of nature stands displayed,

312 THE FIRST BOOK OF

When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear, And western gales unlock the lazy year ; The joyous birds thy welcome first express, Whose native songs thy genial fire confess ; Then savage beasts bound o'er their slighted food, Struck with thy darts, and tempt the raging flood. All nature is thy gift ; earth, air, and sea ; Of all that breathes, the various progeny, Stung w r ith delight, is goaded on by thee. O'er barren mountains, o'er the flowery plain, The leafy forest, and the liquid main, Extends thy uncontrouled and boundless reign; Through all the living regions dost thou move, And scatterest, where thou goest, the kindly seeds

of love.

Since, then, the race of every living thing Obeys thy power ; since nothing new can spring Without thy warmth, without thy influence bear, Or beautiful, pr lovesome can appear ; Be thou my aid, my tuneful song inspire, And kindle with thy own productive fire; While all thy province, Nature, I survey, And sing to Memmius an immortal lay Of heaven and earth, and every where thy won- drous power display : To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born, Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces dost adorn. The rather then assist my Muse and me, Infusing verses worthy him and thee. Mean time on land and sea let barbarous discord

cease,

And lull the listning world in universal peace. To thee mankind their soft repose must owe, For thou alone that blessing canst bestow ; Because the brutal business of the war Is managed by thy dreadful servant's care ;

LUCRETIUS. 313

Who oft retires from fighting fields, to prove The pleasing pains of thy eternal love ; And, panting on thy breast, supinely lies, While with thy heavenly form he feeds his famished

eyes;

Sucks in with open lips thy balmy breath, By turns restored to life, and plunged in pleasing

death.

There while thy curling limbs about him move, Involved and fettered in the links of love, When, wishing all, he nothing can deny, Thy charms in that auspicious moment try; With winning eloquence our peace implore, And quiet to the weary world restore.

THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND BOOK OF LUCRETIUS,

pleasant, safely to behold from shore The rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar ; Not that another's pain is our delight, But pains unfelt produce the pleasing sight. Tis pleasant also to behold from far The moving legions mingled in the war ; But much more sweet thy labouring steps to guide ^ To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supplied, C And all the magazines of learning fortified ; J

From thence to look below on human kind, Bewildered in the maze of life, and blind ; To see vain fools ambitiously contend For wit and power ; their last endeavours bend To outshine each other, waste their time and health In search of honour, and pursuit of wealth. O wretched man ! in what a mist of life, Inclosed with dangers and with noisy strife,

THE SECOND BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. 315

He spends his little span ; and overfeeds

His crammed desires, with more than nature needs !

For nature wisely stints our appetite,

And craves no more than undisturbed delight ;

Which minds, unmixed with cares and fears, obtain ;

A soul serene, a body void of pain.

So little this corporeal frame requires,

So bounded are our natural desires,

That wanting all, and setting pain aside,

With bare privation sense is satisfied.

If golden sconces hang not on the walls,

To light the costly suppers and the balls;

If the proud palace shines not with the state

Of burnished bowls, and of reflected plate ;

If well-tuned harps, nor the more pleasing sound

Of voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound ;

Yet on the grass, beneath a poplar shade,

By the cool stream, our careless limbs are laid ;

With cheaper pleasures innocently blest,

When the warm spring with gaudy flowers is drest.

Nor will the raging fever's fire abate,

With golden canopies and beds of state ;

But the poor patient will as soon be sound

On the hard mattress, or the mother ground.

Then since our bodies are not eased the more

By birth, or power, or fortune's wealthy store,

'Tis plain, these useless toys of every kind

As little can relieve the labouring mind ;

Unless we could suppose the dreadful sight

Of marshalled legions moving to the fight,

Could, with their sound and terrible array,

Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death away.

But, since the supposition vain appears,

Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears,

Are not with sounds to be affrighted thence,

But in the midst of pomp pursue the prince,

316 THE SECOND BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

Not awed by arms, but in the presence bold, Without respect to purple, or to gold ; Why should not we these pageantries despise, Whose worth but in our want of reason lies ? For life is all in wandering errors led ; And just as children are surprised with dread, And tremble in the dark, so riper years, Even in broad day-light, are possessed with fears, And shake at shadows fanciful and vain, As those which in the breasts of children reign. These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell, No rays of outward sunshine can dispel ; But nature and right reason must display Their beams abroad, and bring the darksome soul to-day.

LATTER PART OF THE THIRD BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH,

WHAT has this bugbear, death, to frighten men, If souls can die, as well as bodies can ? For, as before our birth we felt no pain, When Punic arms infested land and main, When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled, For the debated empire of the world, Which awed with dreadful expectation lay, Sure to be slaves, uncertain who should sway ; So, when our mortal flame shall be disjoined, The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind, From sense of grief and pain we shall be free ; We shall not feel, because we shall not be. Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost, We should not move, we only should be tost. Nay, even suppose, when we have suffered fate, The soul could feel in her divided state,

318 THE THIRD BOOK OP

What's that to us ? for we are only we,

While souls and bodies in one frame agree.

Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,

And matter leap into the former dance;

Though time our life and motion could restore,

And make our bodies what they were before ;

What gain to us would all this bustle bring?

The new-made man would be another thing.

When once an interrupting pause is made,

That individual being is decayed.

We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part

In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,

Which to that other mortal shall accrue,

Whom of our matter time shall mould anew.

For backward if you look on that long space

Of ages past, and view the changing face

Of matter, tost, and variously combined

In sundry shapes, 'tis easy for the mind

From thence to infer, that seeds of things have been

In the same order as they now are seen ;

Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace,

Because a pause of life, a gaping space,

Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead,

And all the wandering motions from the sense are fled.

For, whosoe'er shall in misfortunes live,

Must be, when those misfortunes shall arrive;

And since the man who is not, feels not woe,

(For death exempts him, and wards off the blow,

Which we, the living, only feel and bear,)

What is there left for us in death to fear ?

When once that pause of life has come between,

'Tis just the same as we had never been.

And, therefore, if a man bemoan his lot,

That after death his mouldering limbs shall rot,

Or flames, or jaws of beasts devour his mass,

Know, he's an unsincere, unthinking ass.

LUCRETIUS. 319

A secret sting remains within his mind ;

The fool is to his own cast offals kind.

He boasts no sense can after death remain ; ^

Yet makes himself a part of life again, >

As if some other he could feel the pain. j

If, while we live, this thought molest his head,

What wolf or vulture shall devour me dead ?

He wastes his days in idle grief, nor can

Distinguish 'twixt the body and the man ;

But thinks himself can still himself survive,

And, what when dead he feels not, feels alive.

Then he repines that he was born to die,

Nor knows in death there is no other he,

No living he remains his grief to vent,

And o'er his senseless carcase to lament.

If, after death, 'tis painful to be torn

By birds, and beasts, then why not so to burn,

Or drenched in floods of honey to be soaked,

Embalmed to be at once preserved and choked ;

Or on an airy mountain's top to lie,

Exposed to cold and heaven's inclemency ;

Or crowded in a tomb, to be opprest

With monumental marble on thy breast?

But to be snatched from all the household joys,

From thy chaste wife, and thy dear prattling boys,

Whose little arms about thy legs are cast,

And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste,

Inspiring secret pleasure through thy breast ;

Ah ! these shall be no more ; thy friends opprest

Thy care and courage now no more shall free ;

Ah ! wretch, thou criest, ah ! miserable me !

One woeful day sweeps children, friends, and wife,

And all the brittle blessings of my life !

Acid one thing more, and all thou say'st is true ;

Thy want and wish of them is vanished too ;

Which, well considered, were a quick relief

To all thy vain imaginary grief :

S20

THE THIRD BOOK OF

For thou shalt sleep, and never wake again, And, quitting life, shall quit thy loving pain. But we, thy friends, shall all those sorrows find, Which in forgetful death thou leav'st behind ; No time shall dry our tears, nor drive thee from

our mind.

The worst that can befal thee, measured right, Is a sound slumber, and a long good-night. Yet thus the fools, that would be thought the wits, Disturb their mirth with melancholy fits ; When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow. Till the fresh garlands on their foreheads glow, They whine, and cry, let us make haste to live, Short are the joys that human life can give. Eternal preachers, that corrupt the draught, And pall the god, that never thinks, with thought ; Idiots with all that thought, to whom the worst Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst, Or any fond desire as vain as these. For, even in sleep, the body, wrapt in ease, Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave ; And, wanting nothing, nothing can it crave. Were that sound sleep eternal, it were death ; Yet the first atoms then, the seeds of breath, Are moving near to sense ; we do but shake And rouse that sense, and straight we are awake. Then death to us, and death's anxiety, Is less than nothing, if a less could be; For then our atoms, which in order lay, Are scattered from their heap, and puffed away, And never can return into their place, When once the pause of life has left an empty space. And, last, suppose great Nature's voice should call To thee, or me, or any of us all, What dost thou mean, ungrateful wretch, thou vain, Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain,

LUCRETIUS. 321

And sigh and sob, that thou shalt be no more ? For, if thy life were pleasant heretofore, If all the bounteous blessings I could give Thou hast enjoyed, if thou hast known to live, And pleasure not leaked through thee like a sieve ; Why dost thou not give thanks as at a plenteous feast, Crammed to the throat with life, and rise and take

thy rest?

But, if my blessings thou hast thrown away, If undigested joys passed through, and would not stay, Why dost thou wish for more to squander still ? If life be grown a load, a real ill, And I would all thy cares and labours end, Lay down thy burden, fool, and know thy friend. To please thee, 1 have emptied all my store; j I can invent, and can supply no more, But run the round again, the round I ran before. 3 Suppose thou art not broken yet with years, Yet still the self- same scene of things appears, And would be ever, couldst thou ever live ; For life is still but life, there's nothing new to givft. What can we plead against so just a bill ? We stand convicted, and our cause goes ill. But if a wretch, a man oppressed by fate, Should beg of nature to prolong his date, She speaks aloud to him with more disdain, Be still, thou martyr fool, thou covetous of pain. But if an old decrepit sot lament, What, thou! she cries, who hast outlived content! Dost thou complain, who hast enjoyed my store ? But this is still the effect of wishing more. Unsatisfied with all that nature brings ; Loathing the present, liking absent things ; Fro;n hence it comes, thy vain desires, at strife Within themselves, have tantalized thy life, And ghastly death appeared before thy sight, Ere thou hast gorged thy soul and senses withdelight.

VOL. xii, :&

322

THIRD BOOK OP

Now leave those joys, unsuiting to thy age, To a fresh comer, and resign the stage.

Is Nature to be blamed if thus she chide ? No, sure ; for 'tis her business to provide Against this ever-changing frame's decay, New things to come, and old to pass away. One being, worn, another being makes ; Changed, bu t not lost ; for nature gives and takes : New matter must be found for things to come, And these must waste like those, and follow na- ture's doom.

All things, like thee, have time to rise and rot., And from each other's ruin are begot : For life is not confined to him or thee ; 'Tis given to all for use, to none for property. Consider former ages past and gone, Whose "circles ended long ere thine begun, Then tell me, fool, what part in them thou hast ? Thus may'st thou judge the future by the past. What horror seest thou in that quiet state, What bugbear dreams to fright thee after fate ? No ghost, no goblins, that still passage keep ; But all is there serene, in that eternal sleep. For all the dismal tales, that poets tell, Are verified on earth, and not in hell. No Tantalus looks up with fearful eye, Or dreads the impending rock to crush him from on

high;

But fear of chance on earth disturbs our easy hours, Or vain imagined wrath of vain imagined powers. No Tityus torn by vultures lies in hell ; \

Nor could the lobes of his rank liver swell To that prodigious mass, for their eternal meal; Not though his monstrous bulk had covered o'er Nine spreading acres, or nine thousand more ; Not though the globe of earth had been the giant's floor :

LUCRETIUS. 323

Nor in eternal torments could he lie,

Nor could his corpse sufficient food supply.

But he's the Tityus, who, by love opprest,

Or tyrant passion preying on' his breast,

And ever anxious thoughts, is robbed of rest.

The Sisyphus is he, whom noise and strife

Seduce from all the soft retreats of life,

To vex the government, disturb the laws ;

Drunk with the fumes of popular applause,

He courts the giddy crowd to make him great,

And sweats and toils in vain, to mount the sovereign

seat. '

For, still to aim at power, and still to fail, Ever to strive, and never to prevail, What is it, but, in reason's true account, To heave the stone against the rising mount ? Which urged, and laboured, and forced up with pain, Recoils, and rolls impetuous down, and smokes

along the plain.

Then, still to treat thy ever-craving mind With every blessing, and of every kind, Yet never fill thy ravening appetite, Though years and seasons vary thy delight, Yet nothing to be seen of all the store, But still the wolf within thee barks for more ; This is the fable's moral, which they tell Of fifty foolish virgins damned in hell To leaky vessels, which the liquor spill ; To vessels of their sex, which none could ever fill. As for the dog, the furies, and their snakes, The gloomy caverns, and the burning lakes, And all the vain infernal trumpery, They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be. But here, on earth, the guilty have in view The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due ; Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian rock, Stripes, hangmen, pitch, and suffocating smoke ;

THE THIRD BOOK OF

And last, and most, if these were cast behind, The avenging horror of a conscious mind ; "Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow, And sees no end of punishment and woe, But looks for more, at the last gasp of breath ; This makes an hell on earth, and life a death.

Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head, Consider, Ancus, great and good, is dead ; Ancus, thy better tar, was born to die, And thou, dost thou bewail mortality ? So many monarchs with their mighty state, Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by fate. That haughty king, who lorded o'er the main, And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves re-

strain,

(In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wreck, "While his proud legions marched upon their back,) Him death, a greater monarch, overcame ; Nor spared his guards the more, for their immortal

name.

The Roman chief, the Carthaginian dread, "j

Scipio, the thunderbolt of war, is dead, And, like a common slave, by fate in triumph led. 3 1 he founders of invented arts are lost, And wits, who made eternity their boast. Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne ? The immortal work remains, the immortal author's

gone.

Democritus, perceiving age invade, His body weakened, and his mind decayed, Obeyed the summons with a cheerful face ; Made haste to welcome death, and met him half the

race.

That stroke even Epicurus could not bar, ^

Though he in wit surpassed mankind, as far

3

As cloeb the mid-clay sun the mid-night star.

LUCRETIUS. 325

And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath, Whose very life is little more than death ? More than one half by Uzy sleep possest ; Y

And when awake, thy soul but nods at best, f Day-dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in th

breast

Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind, Whose cause and cure thou never hop's t to find ; But still uncertain, with thyself at strife, Thou wanderest in the labyrinth of life. O, if the foolish race of man, who find A weight of cares still pressing on their mind, Could find as well the cause ot this unrest, And all this burden lodged within the breast; Sure they would change their course, nor live as now, Uncertain what to wish, or what to vow. Uneasy both in country and in town, They search a place to lay their burden down. One, restless in his palace, walks abroad, And vainly thinks to leave behind the load, But strait returns ; for he's as restless there, And finds there's no relief in open air. Another to his villa would retire, And spurs as hard as if it were on fire ; No sooner entered at his country door, y

But he begins to stretch, and yawn, and snore, C Or seeks the city, which he left before.

^

The shaking fit returns, and hangs upon him still. )

No prospect of repose, nor hope of ease,

The wretch is ignorant of his disease ;

Which, known, would all his fruitless trouble spare,

For he would know the world not worth his care :

Then would he search more deeply for the cause,

And study nature well, and nature's laws ;

Thus every man overworks his weary will, To shun himself, and to shake off his ill ;

326

THE THIRD BOOK, &C.

For in this moment lies not the debate,

But on our future, fixed, eternal state ;

That never-changing state, which all must keep,

Whom death has doomed to everlasting sleep.

Why are we then so fond of mortal life,

Beset with dangers, and maintained with strife ?

A life, which all our care can never save ;

One fate attends us, and one common grave.

Besides, we tread but a perpetual round ; ^

We ne'er strike out, but beat the former ground, f

And the same maukish joys in the same track are f

found.

For still we think an absent blessing best, ^

Which cloys, and is no blessing when possest ; A new arising wish expels it from the breast. 3 The feverish thirst of life increases still ; We call for more and more, and never have our fill ; Yet know not what to-morrow we shall try, What dregs of life in the last draught may lie. Nor, by the longest life we can attain, ^

One moment from the length of death we gain ; j For all behind belongs to his eternal reign. 3

When once the fates have cut the mortal thread, The man as much to all intents is dead, Who dies to-day, and will as long be so, As he who died a thousand years ago.

THE LATTER PART OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF LUCRETIUS;

CONCERNING THE NATURE OF LOVE.

BEGINNING AT THIS LINE:

Sic igitur Veneris qui telis accipit ictum, fyc.

THUS, therefore, he, who feels the fiery dart Of strong desire transfix his amorous heart, Whether some beauteous boy's alluring face, Or lovelier maid, with unresisting grace, From her each part the winged arrow sends, From whence he first was struck he thither tends ; Restless he roams, impatient to be freed, And eager to inject the sprightly seed ; For fierce desire does all his mind employ, And ardent love assures approaching joy. Such is the nature of that pleasing smart, Whose burning drops distil upon the heart,

7

THE FOURTH BOOK OF

The fever of the soul shot from the fair,

And the cold ague of succeeding care.

If absent, her idea still appears,

And her sweet name is chiming in your ears.

But strive those pleasing phantoms to remove,

And shun the aerial images of love,

That feed the flame : when one molests thy mind,,

Discharge thy loins on all the leaky kind ;

For that's a wiser way, than to restrain

Within thy swelling nerves that hoard of pain.

For every hour some deadlier symptom shews,

And by delay the gathering venom grows,

When kindly applications are not used ;

The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised,

On that one object 'tis not safe to stay,

But force the tide of thought some other way ;

The squandered spirits prodigally throw,

And in the common glebe of nature sow.

Nor wants he all the bliss that lovers feign,

Who takes the pleasure, and avoids the pain ;

For purer jo} s in purer health abound,

And less aftect the sickly than the sound.

When love its utmost vigour does employ,

Even then 'tis but a restless wandering joy ;

Nor knows the lover in that wild excess,

W ith hands or eyes, what first he would possess ;

But strains at all and, fastening where he strains,

Too closely presses with his frantic pains ;

With biting kisses hurts the twining fair,

Which shews his joys imperfect, insincere:

For, stung with inward rage, he flings around,

And strives to avenge the smart on that which gave

the wound.

But love those eager bitings does restrain, And mingling pleasure mollifies the pain. For ardent hope still flatters anxious grief, And sends him to ins foe to seek relief:

LUCRETIUS.

Which yet the nature of the thing denies ;

For love, and love alone of all our joys,

By full possession does but fan the fire ;

The more we still enjoy, the more we still desire.

Nature for meat and drink provides a space,

And, when received, they fill their certain place;.

Hence thirst and hunger may be satisfied,

But this repletion is to love denied :

Form, feature, colour, whatsoe'er delight

Provokes the lover's endless appetite,

These fill no space, nor can we thence remove

With lips, or hands, or all our instruments of love:

In our deluded grasp we nothing find,

But thin aerial shapes, that fleet before the mind.

As he, who in a dream with drought is curst,

And finds no real drink to quench his thirst,

Runs to imagined lakes his heat to steep,

And vainly swills and labours in his sleep;

So love with phantoms cheats our longing eyes,

Which hourly seeing never satisfies :

Our hands pull nothing from the parts they strain,

But wander o'er the lovely limbs in vain.

Nor when the youthful pair more closely join,

When hands in hands they lock, and thighs in thighs

they twine,

Just in the raging foam of full desire, When both press on, both niurmur, both expire, They gripe, they squeeze, their humid tongues they

dart,

As each would force their way to Mother's heart; In vain; they only cruize about the coast; For bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost, As sure they strive to be, when both engage In that tumultuous momentary rage; So tangled in ihe nets of love they lie, Till man dissolves in that excess of joy.

350 THE FOURTH BOOK OF

Then, when the gathered bag has burst its way,

And ebbing tides the slackened nerves betray,

A pause ensues ; and nature nods a- while,

Till with recruited rage new spirits boil;

And then the same vain violence returns,

With flames renewed the erected furnace burns ;

Again they in each other would be lost,

But still by adamantine bars are crost.

All ways they try, successless all they prove,

To cure the secret sore of lingering love.

Besides

They waste their strength in the venereal strife,

And to a woman's will enslave their life ;

The estate runs out, and mortgages are made, "^

All offices of friendship are decayed,

Their fortune ruined, and their fame betrayed. J

Assyrian ointment from their temples flows,

And diamond buckles sparkle in their shoes ;

The cheerful emerald twinkles on their hands,

With all the luxury of foreign lands ;

And the blue coat, that with embroidery shines,

Is drunk with sweat of their o'er-laboured loins.

Their frugal father's gains they misemploy,

And turn to point, and pearl, and every female toy.

Trench fashions, costly treats are their delight;

The park by day, and plays and balls by night.

In vain ;

For in the fountain, where their sweets are sought, Some bitter bubbles up, and poisons all the draught. First, guilty conscience does the mirror bring, Then sharp remorse shoots out her angry sting ; And anxious thoughts, within themselves at strife, Upbraid the long mispent, luxurious life. Perhaps, the fickle fair-one proves unkind, "1

Or drops a doubtful word, that pains his mind, f And leaves a rankling jealousy behind. 3

LUCRETIUS. 531

ivhile ^ ,ile; ) it spirits/"

Perhaps, he watches close her amorous eyes, And in the act of ogling does surprise, And thinks he sees upon her cheeks the while The dimpled tracks of some foregoing smile His raging pulse beats thick, and his pent

boil.

This is the product e'en of prosperous love ; Think then what pangs disastrous passions prove; Innumerable ills ; disdain, despair, With all the meagre family of care.

Thus, as I said, 'tis better to prevent, Than flatter the disease, and late repent ; Because to shun the allurement is not hard To minds resolved, forewarned, and well prepared; But wonderous difficult, when once beset, To struggle through the straits, and break the in- volving net.

Yet, thus ensnared, thy freedom thou may'st gain, If, like a fool, thou dost not hug thy chain ; If not to ruin obstinately blind, ~\

And wilfully endeavouring not to find Her plain defects of body and of mind. J 1

For thus the Bedlam train of lovers use To enhance the value, and the faults excuse; And therefore 'tis no wonder if we see They doat on dowdies and deformity. Even what they cannot praise, they will not blame, But veil with some extenuating name. The sallow skin is for the swarthy put, And love can make a slattern of a slut ; If cat-eyed, then a Pallas is their love ; If freckled, she's a party-coloured dove ; If little, then she's life and soul all o'er ; An Amazon, the large two-handed whore. She stammers ; oh what grace in lisping lies ! If she says nothing, to be sure she's wise.

53 THE FOURTH BOOK OP

If shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire,

Sharp-witted she must be. and full of fire ;

The lean, consumptive wench, with coughs decayed,

Is called a pretty, tight, and slender maid;

The o'er-grown, a goodly Ceres is exprest,

A bed-fellow for Bacchus at the least ;

Flat-nose the name of Satyr never misses,

And hanging blohber lips but pout for kisses.

The task were endless all the rest to trace ;

Yet grant she were a Venus for her face

And shape, yet others equal beauty share,

And time was you could live without the fair ;

She does no more, in that for which you woo,

Than homelier women full as well can do.

Besides, she daubs, and stinks so much of paint,

Her own attendants cannot bear the scent,

But laugh behind, and bite their lips to hold.

Meantime, excluded, and exposed to cold,

The whining lover stands before the gates,

And there with humble adoration waits ;

Crowning with flowers the threshold and the floor^

And printing kisses on the obdurate door ;

Who ; if admitted in that nick ot time,

If some unsavoury whirl betray the crime,

Invents a quarrel straight, if there be none,

Or makes some faint excuses to be gone ;

And calls himself a doating fool to serve,

Ascribing more than woman can deserve.

Which well they understand, like cunning queans,

And hide their nastiness behind the scenes,

From him they have allured, and would retain ;

But to a piercing eye 'tis all in vain :

For common sense brings ail their cheats to view,

And the false light discovers by the true ;

Which a wise harlot owns, and hopes to find

A pardon for defects, that run through all the kind.

LUCRETIUS. 333

Nor always do they feign the sweets of love, When round the panting youth their pliant limbs

they move,

And cling, and heave, and moisten every kiss; They often share, and more than share the bliss : From every part, even to their inmost soul, They feel the trickling joys, and run with vigour to

the goal.

Stirred with the same impetuous desire, Birds, beasts, and herds, and mares, their males re- quire ;

Because the throbbing nature in their veins Provokes them to assuage their kindly pains. The lusty leap the expecting female stands, By mutual heat compelled to mutual bands. Thus dogs with lolling tongues by love are tied, Nor shouting boys nor blows their union can divide; At either end they strive the link to loose, In vain, for stronger Venus holds the noose ; Which never would those wretched lovers do, But that the common heats of love they know; The pleasure therefore must be shared in common

too:

And when the woman's more prevailing juice Sucks in the man's, the mixture will produce The mother's likeness ; when the man prevails, His own resemblance in the seed he seals. But when we see the new-begotten race Reflect the features of each parent's face, Then of the father's and the mother's blood The justly tempered seed is understood ; When both conspire, with equal ardour bent, From every limb the due proportion sent. When neither party foils, when neither foiled, This gives the splendid features of the child. Sometimes the boy the grandsire's image bears ; Sometimes the more remote progenitor he shares ;

3S4 THE FOURTH BOOK OF

Because the genial atoms of the seed

Lie long concealed ere they exert the breed ;

And, after sundry ages past, produce

The tardy likeness of the latent juice.

Hence, families such different figures take,

And represent their ancestors in face, and hair, and

make;

Because of the same seed, the voice, and hair, And shape, and face, and other members are, And the same antique mould the likeness does pre- pare.

Thus, oft the father's likeness does prevail In females, and the mother's in the male; For, since the seed is of a double kind, From that, where we the most resemblance find, We may conclude the strongest tincture sent, And that was in conception prevalent. Nor can the vain decrees of powers above Deny production to the act of love, Or hinder fathers of that happy name, Or with a barren womb the matron shame ; As many think, who stain with victims blood The mournful altars, and with incense load, To bless the showery seed with future life, And to impregnate the well-laboured wife. In vain they weary heaven with prayer, or fly To oracles, or magic numbers try ; For barrenness of sexes will proceed Either from too condensed, or watery, seed: The watery juice too soon dissolves away, And in the parts projected will not stay ; The too condensed, unsouled, unwieldy mass, Drops short, nor carries to the destined place ; Nor pierces to the parts, nor, though injected home, Will mingle with the kindly moisture of the womb. For nuptials are unlike in their success ; Some men with fruitful seed some women bless.

LUCRETIUS.

An3 from some men some women fruitful are,

Just as their constitutions join or jar :

And many seeming barren wives have been,

Who after, matched with more prolific men,

Have filled a family with prattling boys ;

And many, not supplied at home with joys,

Have found a friend abroad to ease their smart,

And to perform the sapless husband's part.

So much it does import, that seed with seed

Should of the kindly mixture make the breed ;

And thick with thin, and thin with thick should join,

So to produce and propagate the line.

Of such concernment too is drink and food,

To incrassate, or attenuate the blood.

Of like importance is the posture too,

In which the genial feat of love we do ;

For, as the females of the four- foot kind

Receive the leapings of their males behind,

So the good wives, with loins uplifted high,

And leaning on their hands, the fruitful stroke may

try:

For in that posture will they best conceive ; Not when, supinely laid, they frisk and heave ; For active motions only break the blow, And more of strumpets than the wives they show, When, answering stroke with stroke, the mingled

liquors flow.

Endearments eager, and too brisk a bound, Throw off the plow-share from the furrowed ground; But common harlots in conjunction heave, Because 'tis less their business to conceive, Than to delight, and to provoke the deed ; A trick which honest wives but little need. Nor is it from the gods, or Cupid's dart, That many a homely woman takes the heart, But wives well-humoured, dutiful, and chaste, y And clean, will hold their wandering husbands fast ; C Such are the links of love, and such a love will last. >

336 THE FOURTH BOOK, &C.

For what remains, long habitude, and use, Will kindness in domestic bands produce ; For custom will a strong impression leave. Hard bodies, which the lightest stroke receive, In length of time will moulder and decay, And stones with drops of rain are washed away.

FK011

THE FIFTH BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

Tum porro puer, &c.

THUS, like a sailor by a tempest hurled

Ashore, the babe is shipwrecked on the world.

Naked he lies, and ready to expire,

Helpless of all that human wants require ;

Exposed upon unhospitable earth,

From the first moment of his hapless birth.

Straight with foreboding cries he fills the room,

Too true presages of his future doom.

But flocks and herds, and every savage beast,

By more indulgent nature are increased :

They want no rattles for their froward mood,

Nor nurse to reconcile them to their food,

With broken words ; nor winter blasts they fear,

Nor change their habits with the changing year ;

Nor, for their safety, citadels prepare,

Nor forge the wicked instruments of war ;

Unlaboured earth her bounteous treasure grants,

And Nature's lavish hand supplies their common wants.