Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

Quoth Hudibras, The day’s thine own;
Thou and thy stars have cast me down;
My laurels are transplanted now,
And flourish on thy conqu’ring brow:
My loss of honour’s great enough,
Thou need’st not brand it with a scoff:
Sarcasms may eclipse thine own,
But cannot blur my lost renown.
I am not now in Fortune’s power;
He that is down can fall no lower.
The ancient heroes were illustrious
For being benign, and not blustrous,
Against a vanquish’d foe: their swords
Were sharp and trenchant, not their words;
And did in fight but cut work out
T’ employ their courtesies about.

Quoth she, Although thou hast deserv’d,
Base slubberdegullion, to be serv’d
As thou did’st vow to deal with me,
If thou had’st got the victory;
Yet I shall rather act a part
That suits my fame than thy desert.
Thy arms, thy liberty, beside
All that’s on th’ outside of thy hide,
Are mine by military law,
Of which I will not hate one straw:
The rest, thy life and limbs, once more,
Though doubly forfeit, I restore,

Quoth Hudibras, It is too late
For me to treat or stipulate:
What thou command’st, I must obey:
Yet those whom I expugn’d to-day
Of thine own party, I let go,
And gave them life and freedom too:
Both dogs and bear, upon their parole,
Whom I took pris’ners in this quarrel.
Quoth Trulla, Whether thou or they
Let one another run away,
Concerns not me: but was’t not thou
That gave Crowdero quarter too?
Crowdero, whom, in irons bound,
Thou basely threw’st into Lob’s pound,
Where still he lies, and with regret
His gen’rous bowels rage and fret.
But now thy carcass shall redeem
And serve to be exchang’d for him.

This said, the Knight did straight submit,
And laid his weapons at her feet.
Next he disrob’d his gaberdine,
And with it did himself resign.
She took it, and forthwith divesting
The mantle that she wore, said jesting,
Take that, and wear it for my sake;
Then threw it o’er his sturdy back,
And as the French, we conquer’d once,
Now give us laws for pantaloons,77
The length of breeches, and the gathers,
Port-cannons, periwigs, and feathers;
Just so the proud insulting lass
Array’d and dighted Hudibras.

Meanwhile the other champions, yerst
In hurry of the fight disperst,
Arriv’d when Trulla won the day,
To share in th’ honour and the prey,
And out of Hudibras his hide
With vengeance to be satisfy’d;
Which now they were about to pour
Upon him in a wooden show’r;
But Trulla thrust herself between,
And striding o’er his back agen,
She brandish’d o’er her head his sword,
And vow’d they should not break her word:
Sh’ had giv’n him quarter, and her blood
Or theirs should make that quarter good;
For she was bound, by law of arms,
To see him safe from further harms,
In dungeon deep Crowdero, cast
By Hudibras, as yet lay fast;
Where, to the hard and ruthless stones,
His great heart made perpetual moans:
Him she resolv’d that Hudibras
Should ransom, and supply his place.

This stopp’d their fury, and the basting
Which toward Hudibras was hasting.
They thought it was but just and right
That what she had achiev’d in fight
She should dispose of how she pleas’d;
Crowdero ought to be releas’d:
Nor could that any way be done
So well as this she pitch’d upon:
For who a better could imagine?
This therefore they resolv’d t’ engage in.
The Knight and Squire first they made
Rise from the ground where they were laid;
Then mounted both upon their horses,
But with their faces to the arses;
Orsin led Hudibras’s beast,
And Talgol that which Ralpho prest,
Whom stout Magnano, valiant Cerdon,
And Colon, waited as a guard on;
All ush’ring Trulla in the rear,
With th’ arms of either prisoner.
In this proud order and array
They put themselves upon their way,
Striving to reach th’ enchanted castle,
Where stout Crowdero in durance lay still.
Thither with greater speed than shows
And triumph over conquer’d foes
Do use t’ allow, or than the bears
Or pageants borne before lord mayors
Are wont to use, they soon arriv’d
In order, soldier-like contriv’d;
Still marching in a warlike posture,
As fit for battle as for muster.
The Knight and Squire they first unhorse,
And bending ’gainst the fort their force,
They all advanc’d, and round about
Begirt the magical redoubt.
Magnan led up in this adventure,
And made way for the rest to enter;
For he was skilful in black art,
No less than he that built the fort;
And with an iron mace laid flat
A breach, which straight all enter’d at,
And in the wooden dungeon found
Crowdero laid upon the ground.
Him they release from durance base,
Restor’d t’ his fiddle and his case,
And liberty, his thirsty rage
With luscious vengeance to assuage:
For he no sooner was at large,
But Trulla straight brought on the charge,
And in the self-same limbo put
The Knight and Squire where he was shut;
Where leaving them in Hockley i’ th’ Hole,
Their bangs and durance to condole,
Confin’d and conjur’d into narrow
Enchanted mansion to know sorrow,
In the same order and array
Which they advanc’d, they march’d away.
But Hudibras who scorn’d to stoop
To Fortune, or be said to droop,
Cheer’d up himself with ends of verse,
And sayings of philosophers.

Quoth he, Th’ one half of man, his mind,
Is, sui juris, unconfin’d,
And cannot be laid by the heels,
Whate’er the other moiety feels.
’Tis not restraint or liberty
That makes men prisoners or free;
But perturbations that possess
The mind, or æquanimities.
The whole world was not half so wide
To Alexander, when he cry’d,
Because he had but one to subdue,
As was a paltry narrow