Hudibras Samuel Butler (free novels to read TXT) 📖

how can their effects still hold
To be the same they were of old?
This, though the art were true, would make
Our modern soothsayers mistake:
And in one cause they tell more lies,
In figures and nativities,
Than th’ old Chaldean conjurers
In so many hundred thousand years;131
Beside their nonsense in translating,
For want of accidence and Latin,
Like Idus, and Calendae, Englisht
The quarter-days, by skilful linguist;
And yet with canting, sleight, and cheat,
’Twill serve their turn to do the feat;
Make fools believe in their foreseeing
Of things before they are in being;
To swallow gudgeons ere th’ are catch’d,
And count their chickens ere th’ are hatch’d;
Make them the constellations prompt,
And give ’em back their own accompt;
But still the best to him that gives
The best price for’t, or best believes.
Some towns and cities, some, for brevity,
Have cast the ’versal world’s nativity,
And made the infant-stars confess,
Like fools or children, what they please.
Some calculate the hidden fates
Of monkeys, puppy-dogs, and cats;
Some running-nags and fighting-cocks,
Some love, trade, law-suits, and the pox:
Some take a measure of the lives
Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives:
Make opposition, trine, and quartile,
Tell who is barren, and who fertile;
As if the planets’ first aspect
The tender infant did infect
In soul and body, and instil
All future good, and future ill;
Which, in their dark fatalities lurking,
At destin’d periods fall a working;
And break out, like the hidden seeds
Of long diseases, into deeds,
In friendships, enmities, and strife,
And all th’ emergencies of life.
No sooner does he peep into
The world, but he has done his do;
Catch’d all diseases, took all physic
That cures or kills a man that is sick;
Marry’d his punctual dose of wives;
Is cuckolded, and breaks or thrives.
There’s but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war;
A thief and justice, fool and knave,
A huffing officer and a slave;
A crafty lawyer and a pick-pocket,
A great philosopher and a blockhead;
A formal preacher and a player,
A learn’d physician and manslayer.
As if men from the stars did suck
Old age, diseases, and ill-luck,
Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice,
Trade, travel, women, claps, and dice;
And draw, with the first air they breathe,
Battle and murder, sudden death.
Are not these fine commodities
To be imported from the skies,
And vended here amongst the rabble,
For staple goods and warrantable?
Like money by the Druids borrow’d,132
In th’ other world to be restor’d?

Quoth Sidrophel, To let you know
You wrong the art, and artists too,
Since arguments are lost on those
That do our principles oppose,
I will (although I’ve done’t before)
Demonstrate to your sense once more,
And draw a figure, that shall tell you,
What you, perhaps, forget befel you,
By way of horary inspection,
Which some account our worst erection.
With that he circles draws, and squares,
With cyphers, astral characters;
Then looks ’em o’er, to understand ’em,
Although set down hab-nab, at random.

Quoth he, This scheme of th’ heavens set,
Discovers how in fight you met
At Kingston with a May-pole idol,
And that y’ were bang’d both back and side well;
And though you overcame the bear,
The dogs beat you at Brentford fair;
Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle,
And handled you like a fop-doodle.

Quoth Hudibras, I now perceive
You are no conj’rer, by your leave;
That paltry story is untrue,133
And forg’d to cheat such gulls as you.

Not true? quoth he; howe’er you vapour,
I can what I affirm make appear:
Whachum shall justify it t’ your face,
And prove he was upon the place.
He play’d the Saltinbancho’s part,
Transform’d t’ a Frenchman by my art:
He stole your cloak, and pick’d your pocket,
Chows’d and caldes’d ye like a blockhead:
And what you lost I can produce,
If you deny it, here i’ th’ house.

Quoth Hudibras, I do believe
That argument’s demonstrative.
Ralpho, bear witness; and go fetch us
A constable to seize the wretches:
For though th’ are both false knaves and cheats,
Impostors, jugglers, counterfeits,
I’ll make them serve for perpendiculars,
As true as e’er were us’d by bricklayers.
They’re guilty, by their own confessions,
Of felony; and at the sessions,
Upon the bench, I will so handle ’em,
That the vibration of this pendulum134
Shalt make all tailors’ yards of one
Unanimous opinion;
A thing he long has vapour’d of,
But now shall make it out by proof.

Quoth Sidrophel, I do not doubt
To find friends that will bear me out:
Nor have I hazarded my art,
And neck, so long on the state’s part,
To be expos’d i’ th’ end to suffer
By such a braggadocio huffer.

Huffer! quoth Hudibras: this sword
Shall down thy false throat craw that word.
Ralpho, make haste, and call an officer,
To apprehend this Stygian sophister;
Meanwhile I’ll hold ’em at a bay,
Lest he and Whachum run away.

But Sidrophel who, from th’ aspect
Of Hudibras, did now erect
A figure worse portenting far
Than that of a malignant star,
Believ’d it now the fittest moment
To shun the danger that might come on’t,
While Hudibras was all alone,
And he and Whachum, two to one.
This being resolv’d, he spy’d, by chance,
Behind the door, an iron lance,
That many a sturdy limb had gor’d,
And legs, and loins, and shoulders bor’d:
He snatch’d it up, and made a pass,
To make his way through Hudibras.
Whachum had got a fire-fork,
With which he vow’d to do his work.
But Hudibras was well prepar’d,
And stoutly stood upon his guard;
He put by Sidrophello’s thrust,
And in right manfully he rusht:
The weapon from his gripe he wrung,
And laid him on the earth along.
Whachum his sea-coal prong threw by,
And basely turn’d his back to fly:
But Hudibras gave him a twitch
As quick as lightning in the breech,
Just in the place where honour’s lodg’d,
As wise philosophers have judg’d;
Because a kick in that place more
Hurts honour than deep wounds before.

Quoth Hudibras, The stars determine
You are my prisoners, base vermin!
Could they not tell you so as well
As what I came to know foretell?
By this what cheats you are we find,
That in your own concerns are blind.
Your lives are now at my dispose,
To be redeem’d by fine or blows:
But who his honour would defile,
To take or sell two lives so vile?
I’ll give you quarter; but your pillage,
The conqu’ring warrior’s crop and tillage,
Which with his sword he reaps and ploughs,
That’s mine, the law of arms allows.

This said in haste, in haste he fell
To rummaging of Sidrophel.
First, he expounded both his pockets,
And found a watch with rings and lockets,
Which had been left with him t’ erect
A figure for, and so detect;
A copper-plate, with almanacs
Engrav’d