Trajan's Engines

Another rainy night on Petersham platform

Another rainy night on Petersham platform. I don’t remember what I was doing there unless I had been out late to see about a job. The sickly gas lamps again, the wet shiny asphalt, the posters on the mean brick walls close at hand, the light glistening on the enamelled iron notice saying ‘Second Class Wait Here’, and I alone and tired as usual and cold with a shoddy overcoat coarse as sacking and warm as a refrigerator. But it was here I struck the keynote, or the keyline of ‘Faces In The Street’.

Chinese Poetry in Pink Floyd

http://www.cjvlang.com/Pfloyd/index.html




It's not that widely known that Pink Floyd quoted lines from classical Chinese poetry in a couple of their early songs. (Not widely known, but known nevertheless - see Note at bottom of page).

The first was the song 'Chapter 24' on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released in 1967. This song by Syd Barrett quotes the Chinese Book of Changes (Yi Jing), a very trendy thing to do at the time and still apparently quite trendy, judging by the number of hits for this term on the Internet. But this is pretty boring stuff. Anyone with a passing interest in Oriental mysticism is apt to quote the Yi Jing as proof of his/her hipness. It's on a par with attributing anything vaguely Oriental to 'Zen influences'.

Another song is much more interesting. First, it doesn't quote just any old classical Chinese poetry, but a couple of incredible, even startling poets of the ninth century Tang Dynasty. One of the poets has always been popular, noted for his mysterious love poetry. Another, known as a 'daemonic genius', has been neglected for over a thousand years and only recently rediscovered. Moreover, some of the lines quoted refer even further back, to the oldest major poet in the Chinese tradition, born in the fourth century before Christ.

The song in question is 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun', from A Saucerful of Secrets, which we will look at below. In addition, 'Cirrus Minor' from the album More also alludes to Chinese poetry, so we will also have a look at this song.

As this site is devoted to Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese, we'll take this as an opportunity not just to look at the source of Pink Floyd's lyrics, a humble but compelling Penguin anthology of Chinese poetry, but also to look at the original works — in Chinese. Don't worry if your classical Chinese is a bit rusty. It's reasonably easy to understand in a word-for-word translation and we'll be providing the English version that Roger Waters read.

One Rothko per Hour (1rph)

https://onerothkoperhour.com/

Fixation IPA

https://www.fixationbrewing.com.au/

CK3

Ну, погоди!, Nu, pogodi!,

Letters from a Stoic

https://www.lettersfromastoic.net/

A Slip of the Tongue in Salutation - Lucian

If a poor mortal has some difficulty in guarding against that spirit of mischief which dwells aloft, he has still more in clearing himself of the absurd consequences when that spirit trips him up. I am in both predicaments at once; coming to make you my morning salutation, which should have taken the orthodox form of Rejoice, I bade you, in a very choice fit of absent-mindedness, Be healthy — a good enough wish in its way, but a little untimely and unconnected with that early hour. I at once went moist and red, not quite aware whether I was on my head or my heels; some of the company took me for a lunatic, no doubt, some thought I was in my second childhood, some that I had not quite got over my last night’s wine — though you yourself were the pink of good manners, not showing your consciousness of the slip by any ghost of a smile. It occurred to me to write to myself a little something in the way of comfort, and so modify the distress my blunder gave me — prove to myself that it was not absolutely unpardonable for an old man to transgress etiquette so flagrantly before so many witnesses. As to apology, there could be no occasion for that, when one’s slip had resulted in so well-omened a wish.

I began to write expecting my task to be very difficult, but found plenty of material as I went on. I will defer it, however, till I have cleared the way with a few necessary remarks on the three forms — Rejoice or Joy, Prosper or Prosperity, Hail or Health. Joy is a very ancient greeting; but it was not confined to the morning, or the first meeting. They did use it when they first saw one another:

Joy to thee, Lord of this Tirynthian land!

But again at the moment when the wine succeeded to the meal:

Achilles, Joy! We lack not fair repast —

so says Odysseus discharging his embassy. And even at parting:

Joy be with you! And henceforth know me God, No longer mortal man.

In fact the apostrophe was not limited to any particular season, as now to the morning alone; indeed they used it on gloomy, nay, on the most lamentable occasions; in Euripides, Polynices ends his life with the words,

Joy with you! for the darkness closes on me.

Nor was it necessarily significative of friendliness; it could express hatred and the determination to see no more of another. To wish much joy to, was a regular form for ceasing to care about.

The modern use of the word dates back to Philippides the dispatch-runner. Bringing the news of Marathon, he found the archons seated, in suspense regarding the issue of the battle. ‘Joy, we win!’ he said, and died upon his message, breathing his last in the word Joy. The earliest letter beginning with it is that in which Cleon the Athenian demagogue, writing from Sphacteria, sends the good news of his victory and capture of Spartans at that place. However, later than that we find Nicias writing from Sicily and keeping to the older custom of coming to business at once with no such introduction.

Now the admirable Plato, no bad authority on such matters, would have us reject the salutation Joy altogether; it is a mean wish, wanting in seriousness, according to him; his substitute is Prosperity, which stands for a satisfactory condition both of body and soul; in a letter to Dionysius, he reproves him for commencing a hymn to Apollo with Joy, which he maintains is unworthy of the Pythian, and not fit even for men of any discretion, not to mention Gods.

Pythagoras the mystic has vouchsafed us no writings of his own; but we may infer from his disciples, Ocellus the Lucanian and Archytas, for instance, that he headed his letters neither with Joy nor Prosperity, but recommended beginning with Hail. At any rate all the Pythagoreans in writing to one another (when their tone is serious, that is) started with wishing Health, which they took to be the prime need of soul and body alike, and to include all human blessings. The Pentagram 30, that interlaced triple triangle which served them as a sort of password, they called by the name Health. They argued that Health included Joy and Prosperity, but that neither of those two was coextensive with Health. Some of them gave to the Quaternion, 31 which is their most solemn oath, and sums their perfect number, the name of Beginning of Health. Philolaus might be quoted.

But I need hardly go so far back. Epicurus assuredly rejoiced in joy — pleasure was the chief Good in his eyes; yet in his most earnest letters (which are not very numerous), and in those to his most intimate friends, he starts with Hail. And in tragedy and the old comedy you will constantly find it used quite at the beginning. You remember,

Hail to thee, joy be thine —

which puts health before rejoicing clearly enough. And says Alexis:

All hail, my lord; after long time thou comest.

Again Achaeus:

I come in sorry plight, yet wish thee health.

And Philemon:

Health first I ask, and next prosperity, Joy thirdly, and to owe not any man.

As for the writer of the drinking-song mentioned in Plato, what says he? —‘Best is health, and second beauty, and third wealth’; joy he never so much as names. I need hardly adduce the trite saw:

Chief of them that blessings give, Health, with thee I mean to live.

But, if Health is chief, her gift, which is the enjoyment of health, should rank before other Goods.

I could multiply these examples by the thousand from poets, historians, philosophers, who give Health the place of honour; but you will not require any such childish pedantry of me, wiping out my original offence by another; I shall do better to add a historical anecdote or two which occur to me as relevant.

Eumenes of Cardia, writing to Antipater, states that just before the battle of Issus, Hephaestion came at dawn into Alexander’s tent. Either in absence of mind and confusion like mine, or else under a divine impulse, he gave the evening salutation like me —‘Hail, sire; ’tis time we were at our posts.’ All present were confounded at the irregularity, and Hephaestion himself was like to die of shame, when Alexander said, ‘I take the omen; it is a promise that we shall come back safe from battle.’

Antiochus Soter, about to engage the Galatians, dreamed that Alexander stood over him and told him to give his men the password Health; and with this word it was that he won that marvellous victory.

Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, in a letter to Seleucus, just reversed the usual order, bidding him Hail at the beginning, and adding Rejoice at the end instead of wishing him Health; this is recorded by Dionysodorus, the collector of his letters.

The case of Pyrrhus the Epirot is well worth mention; as a general he was only second to Alexander, and he experienced a thousand vicissitudes of fortune. In all his prayers, sacrifices, and offerings, he never asked for victory or increase of his royal dignity, for fame or excessive wealth; his whole prayer was always in one word, Health; as long as he had that, he thought all else would come of itself. And it was true wisdom, in my opinion; he remembered that all other good things are worthless, if health is wanting.

Oh, certainly (says some one); but we have assigned each form to its proper place by this time; and if you disregard that — even though there was no bad meaning in what you did say — you cannot fairly claim to have made no mistake; it is as though one should put a helmet on the shins, or greaves on the head. My dear sir (I reply), your simile would go on all fours if there were any season at all which did not require health; but in point of fact it is needed in the morning and at noonday and at night — especially by busy rulers like you Romans, to whom physical condition is so important. And again, the man who gives you Joy is only beginning auspiciously; it is no more than a prayer; whereas he who bids you Hail is doing you a practical service in reminding you of the means to health; his is more than a prayer, it is a precept.

Why, in that book of instructions which you all receive from the Emperor, is not the first recommendation to take care of your health? Quite rightly; that is the condition precedent of efficiency. Moreover, if I know any Latin, you yourselves, in returning a salutation, constantly use the equivalent of Health.

However, all this does not mean that I have deliberately abandoned Rejoice and substituted Hail for it. I admit that it was quite unintentional; I am not so foolish as to innovate like that, and exchange the regular formulae.

No, I only thank Heaven that my stumble had such very fortunate results, landing me in a better position than I had designed; may it not be that Health itself, or Asclepius, inspired me to give you this promise of health? How else should it have befallen me? In the course of a long life I have never been guilty of such a confusion before.

Or, if I may not have recourse to the supernatural, it is no wonder that my extreme desire to be known to you for good should so confuse me as to work the contrary effect. Possibly, too, one might be robbed of one’s presence of mind by the crowd of military persons pushing for precedence, or treating the salutation ceremony in their cavalier fashion.

As to yourself, I feel sure that, however others may have referred it to stupidity, ignorance, or lunacy, you took it as the sign of a modest, simple, unspoiled, unsophisticated soul. Absolute confidence in such matters comes dangerously near audacity and impudence. My first wish would be to make no such blunder; my second that, if I did, the resulting omen should be good.

There is a story told of the first Augustus. He had given a correct legal decision, which acquitted a maligned person of a most serious charge. The latter expressed his gratitude in a loud voice, thus:—‘I thank your majesty for this bad and inequitable verdict.’ Augustus’s attendants raged, and were ready to tear the man to pieces. But the Emperor restrained them; ‘Never mind what he said; it is what he meant that matters.’ That was Augustus’s view. Well, take my meaning, and it was good; or take my word, and it was auspicious.

And now that I have got to this point, I have reason to fear that I may be suspected of having made the slip on purpose, leading up to this apology. O God of health, only grant me that the quality of my piece may justify the notion that I wanted no more than a peg whereon to hang an essay!


29 This piece, which even in the Greek fails to convince us that Asclepius heard the prayer with which it concludes, is still flatter in English, because we have no words of salutation which correspond at once in etymological meaning and in conventional usage to the Greek. The English reader who cares to understand a piece so little worth his attention, will obligingly bear in mind that the Greek word represented here by Joy and Rejoice roughly answered in Lucian’s time to our Good-morning and How do you do, as well as to the epistolary My dear ——; while that represented by Hail or Health did the work of Good-night, Good-bye, Farewell, and (in letters) Yours truly.

30 See Pythagoras in Notes.

31 See Pythagoras in Notes.

How to read a history book

The Mathematical Universe

Breakpoint

Colloquial Icelandic

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

The Economic Consequences of the Spanish Reconquest: The Long-term Effects of Medieval Conquest and Colonization

Eureka - A Prose Poem

Eureka - A Prose PoemBy: Edgar Allan Poe
(1848)

WITH VERY PROFOUND RESPECT,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED
TO
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

PREFACETo the few who love me and whom I love -- to those who feel rather than to those who think -- to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities -- I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone:- let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem.

What I here propound is true:- * therefore it cannot die:- or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will "rise again to the Life Everlasting."

Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.

E. A. P.


EUREKA:

AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE

IT is with humility really unassumed -- it is with a sentiment even of awe -- that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn -- the most comprehensive -- the most difficult -- the most august. What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity -- sufficiently sublime in their simplicity -- for the mere enunciation of my theme?

I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical -- of the Material and Spiritual Universe:- of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny. I shall be so rash, moreover, as to challenge the conclusions, and thus, in effect, to question the sagacity, of many of the greatest and most justly reverenced of men.

In the beginning, let me as distinctly as possible announce -- not the theorem which I hope to demonstrate -- for, whatever the mathematicians may assert, there is, in this world at least, no such thing as demonstration -- but the ruling idea which, throughout this volume, I shall be continually endeavoring to suggest.

My general proposition, then, is this: -- In the Original Unity of the First Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of their Inevitable Annihilation.

In illustration of this idea, I propose to take such a survey of the Universe that the mind may be able really to receive and to perceive an individual impression.

He who from the top of AEtna casts his eyes leisurely around, is affected chiefly by the extent and diversity of the scene. Only by a rapid whirling on his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama in the sublimity of its oneness. But as, on the summit of AEtna, no man has thought of whirling on his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain the full uniqueness of the prospect; and so, again, whatever considerations lie involved in this uniqueness, have as yet no practical existence for mankind.

I do not know a treatise in which a survey of the Universe -- using the word in its most comprehensive and only legitimate acceptation -- is taken at all: -- and it may be as well here to mention that by the term "Universe," wherever employed without qualification in this essay, I mean to designate the utmost conceivable expanse of space, with all things, spiritual and material, that can he imagined to exist within the compass of that expanse. In speaking of what is ordinarily implied by the expression, "Universe," I shall take a phrase of limitation -- "the Universe of stars." Why this distinction is considered necessary, will be seen in the sequel.

But even of treatises on the really limited, although always assumed as the un limited, Universe of stars, I know none in which a survey, even of this limited Universe, is so taken as to warrant deductions from its individuality. The nearest approach to such a work is made in the "Cosmos" of Alexander Von Humboldt. He presents the subject, however, not in its individuality but in its generality. His theme, in its last result, is the law of each portion of the merely physical Universe, as this law is related to the laws of every other portion of this merely physical Universe. His design is simply synoeretical. In a word, he discusses the universality of material relation, and discloses to the eye of Philosophy whatever inferences have hitherto lain hidden behind this universality. But however admirable be the succinctness with which he has treated each particular point of his topic, the mere multiplicity of these points occasions, necessarily, an amount of detail, and thus an involution of idea, which preclude all individuality of impression.

It seems to me that, in aiming at this latter effect, and, through it, at the consequences -- the conclusions -- the suggestions -- the speculations -- or, if nothing better offer itself, the mere guesses which may result from it -- we require something like a mental gyration on the heel. We need so rapid a revolution of all things about the central point of sight that, while the minutiae vanish altogether, even the more conspicuous objects become blended into one. Among the vanishing minutiae, in a survey of this kind, would be all exclusively terrestrial matters. The Earth would be considered in its planetary relations alone. A man, in this view, becomes mankind; mankind a member of the cosmical family of Intelligences.

And now, before proceeding to our subject proper, let me beg the reader's attention to an extract or two from a somewhat remarkable letter, which appears to have been found corked in a bottle and floating on the Mare Tenebrarum - an ocean well described by the Nubian geographer, Ptolemy Hephestion, but little frequented in modern days unless by the Transcendentalists and some other divers for crotchets. The date of this letter, I confess, surprises me even more particularly than its contents; for it seems to have been written in the year Two thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. As for the passages I am about to transcribe, they, I fancy, will speak for themselves.

The Maya Scribe and His World

Marx, Karl. Doctoral Thesis: The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature

Christopher Wool

http://wool735.com/

Ulysses - First Edition

The Clouds Float North

RTÉ Radio - Reading Ulysses

https://www.rte.ie/readingulysses/episodeguide.html


Introduction
Joseph O'Connor, Edna O'Brien and Gerry O'Flaherty recall the events and characters of this day and explore why James Joyce's fictionalised events of an ordinary day should become such a literary masterpiece.
Episode 1 Telemachus
Stephen breakfasts at the Tower in Sandycove.
Episode 2 Nestor
Stephen teaches in Dalkey.
Episode 3 Proteus
Stephen walks along Sandymount Strand.
Episode 4 Calypso
Blooms has breakfast at 7 Eccles Street.
Episode 5 Lotus Eaters
Bloom goes to the Post Office on Westland Row and then buys some soap at Sweny's.
Episode 6 Hades
Bloom Attends the funeral of Paddy Dignam.
Episode 7 Aeolus
At the offices of The Freeman's Journal, Bloom and Stephen cross paths.
Episode 8 Lestrygonians
Blooms eats lunch in Davy Byrnes.
Episode 9 Scylla and Charybdis
Discussions about Shakespeare at the National Library.
Episode 10 Wandering Rocks
Dublin's citizens go about their day.
Episode 11 Sirens
There is music at the Ormond Hotel where Bloom stops for food.
Episode 12 Cyclops
The Citizen holds fort in Barney Kiernan's Pub.
Episode 13 Nausicaa
Bloom watches Gerty MacDowell on Sandymount Strand.
Episode 14 Oxen of the Sun
Blooms goes to visit Mina Purefoy at Holles Street Hospital, and then joins the Medical Students.
Episode 15 Circe
Stephen and Bloom go to Nighttown.
Episode 16 Eumeus
A sober Bloom looks after a drunken Stephen at the Cabman's Shelter.
Episode 17 Ithaca
Bloom and Stephen go back to Eccles Street where they talk.
Episode 18 Penelope
Molly Bloom recalls her day.
The music of Ulysses
In the final programme of the series, Barry McGovern and Bernard Clarke discuss the music of Ulysses.

The Dunciad Book I

The Proposition, the Invocation, and the Inscription. Then the original of the great Empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The College of the Goddess in the city, with her private academy for Poets in particular; the Governors of it, and the four Cardinal Virtues. Then the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a Lord Mayor’s day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eye on Bayes, to be the Instrument of that great event which is the Subject of the poem. He is described pensive among his books, giving up the Cause, and apprehending the Period of her Empire. After debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to Gaming, or to Party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the Goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out, by casting upon it the poem of Thulé. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her Temple, unfolds her Arts, and initiates him into her Mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden, the Poet Laureate, anoints him, carries him to Court, and proclaims him Successor.




THE MIGHTY MOTHER, and her son who brings
The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings,
I sing. Say you, her instruments the great!
Call’d to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;
You by whose care, in vain decried and curst, 5
Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first;
Say how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep,
And pour’d her Spirit, o’er the land and deep.
In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read,
Ere Pallas issued from the Thund’rer’s head, 10
Dulness o’er all possess’d her ancient right,
Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night:
Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave,
Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave;
Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind, 15
She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.
Still her old empire to restore she tries,
For, born a Goddess, Dulness never dies.
O thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! 20
Whether thou choose Cervantes’ serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais’ easy chair,
Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,
Or thy griev’d country’s copper chains unbind;
From thy Bœotia tho’ her power retires, 25
Mourn not, my Swift! at aught our realm requires.
Here pleas’d behold her mighty wings outspread
To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.
Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down, 30
Where o’er the gates, by his famed father’s hand,
Great Cibber’s brazen, brainless brothers stand;
One cell there is, conceal’d from vulgar eye,
The cave of Poverty and Poetry:
Keen hollow winds howl thro’ the bleak recess, 35
Emblem of Music caus’d by Emptiness:
Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down,
Escape in monsters, and amaze the town;
Hence Miscellanies spring, the weekly boast
Of Curll’s chaste press, and Lintot’s rubric post; 40
Hence hymning Tyburn’s elegiac lines;
Hence Journals, Medleys, Merceries, Magazines;
Sepulchral Lies, our holy walls to grace,
And new-year Odes, and all the Grub-street race.
In clouded majesty here Dulness shone, 45
Four guardian Virtues, round, support her throne:
Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears
Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:
Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake,
Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling sake: 50
Prudence, whose glass presents th’ approaching jail:
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Here she beholds the Chaos dark and deep, 55
Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,
Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,
Call forth each mass, a Poem or a Play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry, 60
Maggots, half-form’d, in rhyme exactly meet,
And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.
Here one poor word a hundred clenches makes,
And ductile Dulness new meanders takes;
There motley images her fancy strike, 65
Figures ill pair’d, and Similes unlike.
She sees a Mob of Metaphors advance,
Pleas’d with the madness of the mazy dance;
How Tragedy and Comedy embrace;
How Farce and Epic get a jumbled race; 70
How Time himself stands still at her command,
Realms shift their place, and Ocean turns to land.
Here gay description Egypt glads with showers,
Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;
Glitt’ring with ice here hoary hills are seen, 75
There painted valleys of eternal green;
In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.
All these, and more, the cloud-compelling Queen
Beholds thro’ fogs that magnify the scene. 80
She, tinsel’d o’er in robes of varying hues,
With self-applause her wild creation views;
Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,
And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.
’T was on the day when Thorold, rich and grave, 85
Like Cimon, triumph’d both on land and wave
(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,
Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces):
Now Night descending, the proud scene was o’er,
But lived in Settle’s numbers one day more. 90
Now Mayors and Shrieves all hush’d and satiate lay,
Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day;
While pensive Poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
Much to the mindful Queen the feast recalls 95
What city swans once sung within the walls;
Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,
And sure succession down from Heywood’s days.
She saw with joy the line immortal run,
Each sire imprest and glaring in his son. 100
So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,
Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.
She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel shine,
And Eusden eke out Blackmore’s endless line;
She saw slow Philips creep like Tate’s poor page, 105
And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.
In each she marks her image full exprest,
But chief in Bayes’s monster-breeding breast;
Bayes, form’d by nature stage and town to bless,
And act, and be, a coxcomb with success; 110
Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce,
Rememb’ring she herself was Pertness once.
Now (shame to Fortune!) an ill run at play
Blank’d his bold visage, and a thin third day:
Swearing and supperless the hero sate, 115
Blasphemed his gods the dice, and damn’d his fate;
Then gnaw’d his pen, then dash’d it on the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there,
Yet wrote and flounder’d on in mere despair. 120
Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay,
Much future Ode, and abdicated Play;
Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,
That slipp’d thro’ cracks and zigzags of the head;
All that on folly frenzy could beget, 125
Fruits of dull heat, and Sooterkins of wit.
Next o’er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole;
How here he sipp’d, how there he plunder’d snug,
And suck’d all o’er like an industrious bug. 130
Here lay poor Fletcher’s half-eat scenes, and here
The frippery of crucified Molière;
There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald sore,
Wish’d he had blotted for himself before.
The rest on outside merit but presume, 135
Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room;
Such with their shelves as due proportion hold,
Or their fond parents dress’d in red and gold;
Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own. 140
Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great;
There, stamp’d with arms, Newcastle shines complete:
Here all his suff’ring brotherhood retire,
And ’scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire:
A Gothic library! of Greece and Rome 145
Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.
But, high above, more solid Learning shone,
The classics of an age that heard of none;
There Caxton slept, with Wynkyn at his side,
One clasp’d in wood, and one in strong cow-hide; 150
There, saved by spice, like mummies, many a year,
Dry bodies of Divinity appear:
De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,
And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends.
Of these, twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size, 155
Redeem’d from tapers and defrauded pies,
Inspired he seizes: these an altar raise;
A hecatomb of pure unsullied lays
That altar crowns; a folio Commonplace
Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base: 160
Quartos, octavos, shape the less’ning pyre,
A twisted Birth-day Ode completes the spire.
Then he: ‘Great tamer of all human art!
First in my care, and ever at my heart;
Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, 165
With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end,
E’er since Sir Fopling’s periwig was praise,
To the last honours of the Butt and Bays:
O thou! of bus’ness the directing soul
To this our head, like bias to the bowl, 170
Which, as more pond’rous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:
Oh! ever gracious to perplex’d mankind,
Still spread a healing mist before the mind;
And, lest we err by Wit’s wild dancing light, 175
Secure us kindly in our native night.
Or, if to Wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and Sense;
Or quite unravel all the reas’ning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead! 180
As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond’rous slugs cut swiftly thro’ the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below;
Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire, 185
And were my elasticity and fire.
Some Dæmon stole my pen (forgive th’ offence),
And once betray’d me into common sense:
Else all my prose and verse were much the same;
This prose on stilts, that poetry fall’n lame. 190
Did on the stage my fops appear confin’d?
My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.
Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk example never fail’d to move.
Yet sure, had Heav’n decreed to save the state, 195
Heav’n had decreed these works a longer date.
Could Troy be saved by any single hand,
This gray-goose weapon must have made her stand.
What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,
Take up the Bible, once my better guide? 200
Or tread the path by venturous heroes trod,
This box my Thunder, this right hand my God?
Or chair’d at White’s, amidst the doctors sit,
Teach oaths to Gamesters, and to Nobles Wit?
O bidd’st thou rather Party to embrace? 205
(A friend to party thou, and all her race;
’T is the same rope at diff’rent ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist;)
Shall I, like Curtius, desp’rate in my zeal,
O’er head and ears plunge for the Commonweal? 210
Or rob Rome’s ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?
Hold—to the Minister I more incline;
To server his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.
And see! thy very Gazetteers give o’er, 215
Ev’n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain;
This brazen brightness to the ’Squire so dear;
This polish’d hardness that reflects the Peer; 220
This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This mess, toss’d up of Hockley-hole and White’s;
Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the Bear and fiddle of the town.
‘O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! 225
Works damn’d or to be damn’d (your father’s fault)!
Go, purified by flames, ascend the sky,
My better and more Christian progeny!
Unstain’d, untouch’d, and yet in maiden sheets,
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets. 230
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a pass and vagrant thro’ the land;
Not sail with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes;
Not sulphur-tipt, emblaze an alehouse fire! 235
Not wrap up oranges to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our Father Tate:
Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest
In Shadwell’s bosom with eternal rest! 240
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy’d are swept to things unborn.’
With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the sev’nfold face;
And thrice he lifted high the Birthday brand, 245
And thrice he dropt it from his quiv’ring hand;
Then lights the structure with averted eyes:
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns; 250
Great Cæsar roars and hisses in the fires;
King John in silence modestly expires:
No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Molière’s old stubble in a moment flames.
Tears gush’d again, as from pale Priam’s eyes, 255
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.
Rous’d by the light, old Dulness heav’d the head,
Then snatch’d a sheet of Thulé from her bed;
Sudden she flies, and whelms it o’er the pyre:
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire. 260
Her ample presence fills up all the place;
A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:
Great in her charms! as when on Shrieves and Mayors
She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.
She bids him wait her to her sacred dome: 265
Well pleas’d he enter’d, and confess’d his home.
So spirits ending their terrestrial race
Ascend, and recognize their Native Place.
This the Great Mother dearer held than all
The clubs of Quidnuncs, or her own Guild-hall: 270
Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls,
And here she plann’d th’ imperial seat of Fools.
Here to her chosen all her works she shows,
Prose swell’d to verse, verse loit’ring into prose:
How random thoughts now meaning chance to find, 275
Now leave all memory of sense behind:
How Prologues into Prefaces decay,
And these to Notes are fritter’d quite away:
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail: 280
How, with less reading than makes felons scape,
Less human genius than God gives an ape,
Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,
A past, vamp’d future, old revived, new piece,
’Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakspeare, and Corneille, 285
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.
The Goddess then o’er his anointed head,
With mystic words, the sacred opium shed.
And lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl,
Something betwixt a heideggre and an owl) 290
Perch’d on his crown:—‘All hail! and hail again,
My son! the promised land expects thy reign.
Know Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;
He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest, 295
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,
With fool of quality completes the quire.
Thou, Cibber! thou his laurel shalt support;
Folly, my son, has still a Friend at Court. 300
Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him come!
Sound, sound ye viols, be the cat-call dumb!
Bring, bring the madding Bay, the drunken Vine,
The creeping, dirty, courtly Ivy join.
And thou! his Aid-de-camp, lead on my sons, 305
Light-arm’d with Points, Antitheses, and Puns.
Let Bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear,
Support his front, and Oaths bring up the rear:
And under his, and under Archer’s wing,
Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the King. 310
‘Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own,
And I, a nursing mother, rock the throne;
’Twixt Prince and People close the curtain draw,
Shade him from light, and cover him from law;
Fatten the Courtier, starve the learned band, 315
And suckle Armies, and dry-nurse the land;
Till Senates nod to lullabies divine,
And all be sleep, as at an Ode of thine?’
She ceas’d. Then swells the Chapel-royal throat;
‘God save King Cibber!’ mounts in every note. 320
Familiar White’s, ‘God save King Colley!’ cries,
‘God save King Colley!’ Drury-lane replies.
To Needham’s quick the voice triumphant rode,
But pious Needham dropt the name of God;
Back to the Devil the last echoes roll, 325
And ‘Coll!’ each butcher roars at Hockley-hole.
So when Jove’s block descended from on high
(As sings thy great forefather Ogilby),
Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog,
And the hoarse nation croak’d, ‘God save King Log!’ 330

Conan Exiles

Kronos Quartet