human
Gravely demure, in wisdom's awful chair, His beetling eyebrows longer than his hair, 20 In solemn state, the affected Stoic sits, And drops his maxims on the crowd by fits!-- Yon Peribomius, whose emaciate air, And tottering gait, his foul disease declare, With patience I can view; he braves disgrace, 25 Not skulks behind a sanctimonious face: Him may his folly, or his fate excuse-- But whip me those, who Virtue's name abuse, And, soiled with all the vices of the times, Thunder damnation on their neighbor's crimes! 30
gpt
Shrink at the pathic Sextus! Can I be, Whate'er my guilt, more infamous than he? Varillus cries: Let those who tread aright, Deride the halt; the swarthy Moor, the white; This we might bear; but who his spleen could rein, 35 And hear the Gracchi of the mob complain? Who would not mingle earth, and sea, and sky, Should Milo murder, Verres theft, decry, Clodius adultery? Catiline accuse Cethegus, Lentulus, of factious views, 40 Or Sylla's pupils, soil'd with deeper guilt, Arraign their master for the blood he spilt? Yet have we seen--O shame, for ever fled!-- A barbarous judge start from the incestuous bed, And, with stern voice, those rigid laws awake, 45 At which the powers of War and Beauty quake, What time his drugs were speeding to the tomb The abortive fruit of Julia's teeming womb!-- And must not, now, the most debased and vile, Hear these false Scauri with a scornful smile; 50 And, while the hypocrites their crimes arraign, Turn, like the trampled asp, and bite again! They must; they do:--When late, amid the crowd, A zealot of the sect exclaimed aloud, Where sleeps the Julian law? Laronia eyed 55 The scowling Stoicide, and taunting, cried,
human
Blest be the age that such a censor gave, The groaning world to chasten and to save! Blush, Rome, and from the sink of sin arise-- Lo! a THIRD CATO, sent thee from the skies! 60 But--tell me yet--What shop the balm supplied, Which, from your brawny neck and bristly hide, Such potent fragrance breathes? nor let it shame Your gravity, to show the vender's name. If ancient laws must reassume their course, 65 Give the Scantinian first its proper force. Look, look at home; the ways of men explore-- Our faults, you say, are many; theirs are more: Yet safe from censure, as from fear, they stand, A firm, compact, impenetrable band! 70 We know your monstrous leagues; but can you find One proof in us, of this detested kind? Pure days and nights with Cluvia, Flora led, And Tedia chastely shared Catulla's bed; While Hippo's brutal itch both sexes tried, 75 And proved, by turns, the bridegroom and the bride! We ne'er, with misspent zeal, explore the laws, We throng no forum, and we plead no cause: Some few, perhaps, may wrestle, some be fed, To aid their breath, with strong athletic bread. 80 Ye fling the shuttle with a female grace, And spin more subtly than Arachne's race; Cowered o'er your labor, like the squalid jade, That plies the distaff, to a block belayed.
gpt
Why Hister's freedman heired his wealth, and why 85 His consort, while he lived, was bribed so high, I spare to tell; the wife that, swayed by gain, Can make a third in bed, and near complain, Must ever thrive: on secrets jewels wait: Then wed, my girls; be silent, and--be great! 90
human
Yet these are they, who, fierce in Virtue's cause, Consign our venial frailties to the laws; And, while with partial aim their censure moves, Acquit the vultures, and condemn the doves! She paused: the unmanly zealots felt the sway 95 Of conscious truth, and slunk, abashed, away. But how shall vice be shamed, when, loosely drest, In the light texture of a cobweb vest, You, Creticus, amid the indignant crowd At Procla and Pollinea rail aloud?-- 100 These, he rejoins, are
gpt
Strike, then;--yet know, though lost to honest fame, The wantons would reject a veil so thin, And blush, while suffering, to display their skin.
human
But Sirius glows; I burn. Then, quit your dress; 105 'Twill thus be madness, and the scandal less. O! could our legions, with fresh laurels crowned, And smarting still from many a glorious wound, Our rustic mountaineers (the plow laid by, For city cares), a judge so drest descry, 110 What thoughts would rise? Lo! robes which misbecome A witness, deck the awful bench of Rome; And Creticus, stern champion of the laws, Gleams through the tissue of pellucid gauze! Anon from you, as from its fountain-head, 115 Wide and more wide the flagrant pest will spread; As swine take measles from distempered swine, And one infected grape pollutes the vine. Yes, Rome shall see you, lewdlier clad, erewhile, (FOR NONE BECOME, AT ONCE, COMPLETELY VILE,) 120 In some opprobrious den of shame, combined With that vile herd, the horror of their kind, Who twine gay fillets round the forehead; deck With strings of orient pearl the breast and neck; Soothe the GOOD GODDESS with large bowls of wine, 125 And the soft belly of a pregnant swine.-- No female, foul perversion! dares appear, For males, and males alone, officiate here;
gpt
Far hence, they cry,
human
130 --At Athens thus, involved in thickest gloom, Cotytto's priests her secret torch illume; And to such orgies give the lustful night, That e'en Cotytto sickens at the sight. With tiring-pins, these spread the sooty dye, 135 Arch the full brow, and tinge the trembling eye; Those bind their flowing locks in cawls of gold, Swill from huge glasses of immodest mould, Light, filmy robes of azure net-work wear; And, by their Juno, hark! the attendants swear! 140 This grasps a mirror--pathic Otho's boast (Auruncan Actor's spoil), where, while his host, With shouts, the signal of the fight required, He viewed his mailed form; viewed, and admired! Lo, a new subject for the historic page, 145 A MIRROR, midst the arms of civil rage!-- To murder Galba, was--a general's part! A stern republican's--to dress with art! The empire of the world in arms to seek, And spread--a softening poultice o'er the cheek! 150 Preposterous vanity! and never seen, Or in the Assyrian or Egyptian queen, Though one in arms near old Euphrates stood, And one the doubtful fight at Actium viewed. Nor reverence for the table here is found; 155 But brutal mirth and jests obscene go round: They lisp, they squeal, and the rank language use Of Cybele's lewd votaries, or the stews: Some wild enthusiast, silvered o'er with age, Yet fired by lust's ungovernable rage, 160 Of most insatiate throat, is named the priest, And sits fit umpire of th' unhallowed feast; Why pause they here? Phrygians long since in heart, Whence this delay to lop a useless part? Gracchus admired a cornet or a fife, 165 And, with an ample dower, became his wife. The contract signed, the wonted bliss implored, A costly supper decks the nuptial board; And the new bride, amid the wondering room, Lies in the bosom of the accursed groom!-- 170 Say now, ye nobles, claims this monstrous deed, The Aruspex or the Censor? Can we need More expiations?--sacrifices?--vows? For calving women, or for lambing cows? The lusty priest, whose limbs dissolved with heat, 175 What time he danced beneath the Ancilia's weight, Now flings the ensigns of his god aside, And takes the stole and flammea of a bride! Father of Rome! from what pernicious clime, Did Latian swains derive so foul a crime? 180 Tell where the poisonous nettle first arose, Whose baneful juice through all thy offspring flows. Behold! a man for rank and power renowned, Marries a man!--and yet, with thundering sound, Thy brazen helmet shakes not! earth yet stands, 185 Fixed on its base, nor feels thy wrathful hands! Is thy arm shortened? Raise to Jove thy prayer-- But Rome no longer knows thy guardian care; Quit, then, the charge to some severer Power, Of strength to punish in the obnoxious hour. 190
gpt
To-morrow, with the dawn, I must attend In yonder valley! Why so soon?
human
A friend Takes HIM a husband there, and bids a few