Page images
PDF
EPUB

Aversus mercaturis: delirus et amens
Undique dicatur meritò: quid discrepat istis,
Qui nummos aurumque recondit, nescius uti
Compositis, metuensque velut contingere sacrum?
Si quis ad ingentem frumenti semper acervum
Porrectus vigilet, cum longo fuste, neque illinc
Audeat esuriens dominus contingere granum ;
Ac potius foliis parcus vescatur amaris :
Si positis intus Chii veterisque Falerni

Mille cadis, (nihil est ter centum millibus) acre
Potet acetum: age, si et stramentis incubet, unde-
Octoginta annos natus, cui stragula vestis,
Blattarum ac tinearum epula, putrescat in arcú ;
Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod
Maxima pars homimum morbo jactatur eodem.
Filius aut etiam libertus ut ebibat hæres,
Dis inimice senex custodis? né tibi desit?
Quantulum enim summæ curtabit quisque dierum,
Ungere si caules oleo meliore caputque
Cæperis impexá fædum porrigine? quare,
Si quidvis satis est, perjuras, surripis, aufers
Undique? tun' sanus? populum si cædere saxis
Incipias, servosque tuos quos are paráris;
Insanum omnes te pueri clamentque puellæ.
Quum laqueo uxorem interimis, matremque veneno,
Incolumi capite es? Quid enim? Neque tu hoc
facis Argis;

Nec ferro, ut demens genitricem occidit Orestes.
An tu reris eum occisa insanisse parente?

Ac non antè malis dementem actum furiis, quam
In matris jugulo ferrum tepefecit acutum ?

Quin ex quo est habitus malè tutæ mentis Orestes,
Nil sanè fecit quod tu reprendere possis:
Non Pyladen ferro violare, aususve sororem
Electram: tantùm maledicit utrique, vocando
Hanc furiam, hunc aliud, jussit quod splendida
Pauper Opimius argenti positi intus et auri, [bilis.
Qui Vejentanum festis potare diebus

Campana solitus trullá, (10) vappamque profestis:
Quondam lethargo grandi est oppressus: ut hæres
Jam circum loculos et claves lætus ovansque

(10) Campana trulla. It cannot have been forgotten that the principal heroine in Hudibras has the name of Trulla; and she appears to have been so named, from her head and body, as seen in the map of the moon, and drawn in Fig. 114.

resembling a wash-hand-bason. Such a bason is in Latin called trulla; and its bell-like shape may be referred to perhaps by the term campana.

[ocr errors]

Curreret; hunc medicus multùm celer atque fidelis
Excitat hoc pacto: mensam poni jubet, atque
Effundi saccos nummorum, accedere plures
Ad numerandum; hominem sic erigit: addit et illud,
Ni tua custodis, avidus jam hæc auferet hæres.
Men' vivo? Ut vivas igitur, vigila: (11) hoc age.
Quid vis?

Deficient inopem venæ te, ni cibus atque
Ingens accedat stomacho fultura ruenti ;

Quid cessas? age dum, sume hoc ptisanarium oriza.
Quanti emptæ ? parvo: quanti ergo? octo assibus.
Eheu (12)

Quid refert, morbo, an furtis pereamne rapinis ? DAM. Quisnam igitur sanus? Sro. Qui non stultus. DAM. Quid avarus?

STO. Stultus et insanus. DAM. Quid si quis non sit avarus?

Continuò sanus? STO. Minimè. DAM. Cur Stoice? STO. Dicam.

(11) Vigila. The moon is, as it were, a night-watch : but by this term vigila I take it there is a further allusion, intended to the prototype of Horatio in Hamlet, as filling the space that resembles the hour-glass, or ship-watch: and by the medicus, we should understand, perhaps, the steward in King Lear, drawn ante in fig. 87.

(12) Octo assibus. On the drinking-glass, or bowl, in which the potion prescribed may be supposed to be offered to the sick man, the streaks of light form the figure 8.

Non est cardiacus (Craterum dixisse putato) Rectè est igitur, surgetque? Negabit;

Hic æger.

Quod latus aut renes morbo tententur acuto.
Non est perjurus, neque sordidus. Immolet æquis
Hic porcum Laribus. Verum ambitiosus et audax:
Naviget Anticyram: quid enim differt, barathrone
Dones quicquid habes, an nunquam utare paratis ?
Servius Oppidius Canusî duo prædia dives
Antiquo censu natis divîsse duobus

Fertur: et hæc moriens pueris dixisse vocatis
Ad lectum: Postquam te talos, (13) Aule, nucesque
Ferre sinu laxo, donare et ludere vidi:

Te, Tiberi, numerare, cavis abscondere tristem;
Extimui, ne vos ageret vesania discors:
Tu Nomentanum, tu ne sequerere Cicutam.
Quare per divos oratus uterque Penates,
Tu cave ne minuas, tu, ne majus facias id

(13) Te talos, Aule. The several actions of Aulus may be referred to the prototype of Orsin in Hudibras, (fig. 15); the others, (viz. numerare, &c.) which regard Tiberius, to that of Glo'ster in King Lear, (who has the same prototype as the bear itself in Hudibras), immediately before w nom are the likenesses of numerical figures, pointed out in former notes. Vesania discors alludes to lunacy, as connected with the moon, and to the moon's alternate librations towards opposite parts, the faces of Orsin and of the bear being in fact turned contrary ways. The fox and the lion, drawn ante in figs. 36 and 64, are contiguous to both Orsin and the bear.

Quod satis esse putat pater, et natura coercet.
Præterea, ne vos titillet gloria, jure-

Jurando obstringam ambo; uter ædilis fuerit, vel
Vestrum prætor, is intestabilis et sacer esto.
In cicere atque faba, bona tu perdasque lupinis,
(14) Latus ut in circo spatiere, aut æneus ut stes,
Nudus agris, nudus nummis, insane, paternis?
Scilicet ut plausus, quos fert Agrippa, feras tu,
Astuta ingenuum vulpes imitata leonem? [cur?
(15) Ne quis humasse velit Ajacem, Atrida, vetas
Rex sum. Nil ultra quæro plebeius. Et æquam
Rem imperito: ac si cui videor non justus, inulto
Dicere quæ sentit permitto. Maxime regum,
Dî tibi dent captâ classam reducere Trojà:
Ergo consulere, et mox respondere licebit ?
Consule. Cur Ajax heros ab Achille secundus
Putrescit, toties servatis clarus Achivis?

(14) Spatiere refers to the moon's being considered a planet by the ancients; circo, to her circular form, and aneus to her colour of brass.

(15) As my purpose, by the insertion of this satire, is merely to give a general view of its being liable to the same sort of explanation as the compositions that precede it; I do not offer any notes upon the fables referred to in the lines Nequis humasse Ajacem, nor upon other passages of the satire of some length: the printing certain portions of them in italics will be sufficient to shew that they contain many allusions to lunacy, as connected with the moon, the main object of the satire,

« PreviousContinue »