[This prologue was first printed in Miscellany Poems, 1684. Scott's note upon it is of peculiar interest: "This prologue must have been spoken at Oxford during the residence of the Duke of York in Scotland, in 1681-82. [More exactly, from October, 1680, to March, 1682.] The humor turns upon a part of the company having attended the duke to Scotland, where, among other luxuries little known to my countrymen, he introduced, during his residence at Holyrood House, the amusements of the theater. I can say little about the actors commemorated in the following verses, excepting that their stage was erected in the tennis court of the palace, which was afterwards converted into some sort of manufactory, and finally burned down many years ago. Besides these deserters, whom Dryden has described very ludicrously, he mentions a sort of strolling company, composed, it would seem, of Irishmen, who had lately acted at Oxford."] DISCORD and plots, which have undone our age, With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the stage. But why should I these renegades describe, When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe ? Teg has been here, and, to this learned pit, With Irish action slander'd English wit: You have beheld such barb'rous Macs appear, As merited a second massacre: 30 Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace, And had their country stamp'd upon their face. When strollers durst presume to pick your purse, We humbly thought our broken troop not worse. How ill soe'er our action may deserve, Oxford's a place where wit can never sterve. [This prologue was first printed, with the above heading, in Examen Poeticum, 1693. From the reference in lines 19, 20, it seems to have been delivered shortly after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament on March 28, 1681.] THE fam'd Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance Orlando and the Paladins of France, Records that, when our wit and sense is flown, 'Tis lodg'd within the circle of the moon In earthen jars, which one, who thither soar'd, Set to his nose, snuff'd up, and was restor❜d. Whate'er the story be, the moral's true; The wit we lost in town we find in you. Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence, And fill their windy heads with sober [This tragedy, by John Banks, was probably acted in the spring or summer of 1681, since it was published late in that year, being entered in the Term Catalogue for Michaelmas Term (November). This edition was dated 1682. As it has been inaccessible, the text of the prologue is taken from the second edition of the play, 1685. The epilogue is also printed, with some variations of text, and with the heading, An Epilogue for the King's House, in Miscellany Poems, 1634, from which the present text is taken. The date of the royal visit referred to in the prologue is unknown. It seems to have been at the fifth performance of the play, since in the printed copy Dryden's prologue is preceded by a Prologue spoken by Major Mohun, the first four days. Perhaps it was upon the return of the king to London after the Oxford Parliament.] Without our blood our liberties we have: While we preserve our state of innocence: That lost, then beasts their brutal force employ, And first their lord, and then themselves What civil broils have cost we knew too well; O let it be enough that once we fell, tongue, Still to have such a king, and this king long! EPILOGUE WE act by fits and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then dop down again. Let those who call us wicked change their sense, For never men liv'd more on Providence. rents Of the three last ungiving parliaments: So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine, He might have spar'd his dream of seven lean kine, 10 And chang'd his vision for the Muses nine. 108 ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL A POEM Si propius stes Te capiet magis. [According to a note by Jacob Tonson, "in the year 1680 Mr. Dryden undertook the poem of Absalom and Achitophel, upon the desire of King Charles the Second:" see p. 137, below. The A note on the copy of the satire owned by Narpoem was printed as a folio pamphlet in 1681. cissus Luttrell, " 17th November, ex dono amici Jacobi Tonson." fixes the time of publication as on or shortly before that date: see note by Scott in Scott-Saintsbury edition, ix, 204. The poem was evidently meant to appear at the psychological moment for exciting public sentiment against Shaftesbury, who was brought before the grand jury, on a charge of high treason, on November 24. This first edition was anonymous; and, though the authorship of the satire at once became known, and was acknowledged by Dryden in his Discourse concerning Satire, 1692 (see pp. 303, 313, below), Dryden's name was never directly joined to it during his lifetime. The second edition, in quarto, which appeared before the close of 1681, besides making some included in Miscellany Poems, minor changes in the text, adds two important passages, lines 180-191 and 957-960. Seven other editions seem to have appeared before Dryden's death; the sixth 1684; the tenth in the collected Poems and Translations, 1701. These editions are apparently mere printers' reprints, containing no variations for which Dryden can be held responsible. The present text follows the second edition. Dryden seems to have taken the general idea of applying to contemporary politics the scriptural story of the revolt of Absalom (2 Samuel xiii-xviii), from an anonymous tract, published in 1680, Absalom's Conspiracy, or The Tragedy of Treason. This is reprinted by Scott: see Scott-Saintsbury edition, ix, 206–208.] sign, I am sure, is honest; but he who draws his pen for one party must expect to make enemies of the other. For wit and fool are consequents of Whig and Tory; and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side. There's not the temptations of Achitophel, than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from myself to shew Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist, and if the draught be so far true, 't is as much as I design'd. Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece with the reconcilement of Absalom to David. And who knows but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to an extremity where I left the story; there seems yet to be room left for a composure; hereafter there may only be for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accus'd of a good-natur'd error, and to hope with Origen, that the Devil himself may at last be sav'd. For which reason, in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards as he in wisdom shall think fit. God is infinitely merciful; and his vicegerent is only not so, because he is not infinite. a treasury of merits in the Fanatic Church, as well as in the Papist; and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads; but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an anti-Bromingham. My comfort is, their manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of less authority against me. Yet if a poem have a genius, it will force its own reception in the world; for there's a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts, and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will. The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms: if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concern'd are commonly the least corrupt. And, I confess, I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire (where justice would allow it) from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly, as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinc'd, at their own cost, that I can write severely with more ease than I can gently. I have but laugh'd at some men's follies, when I could have declaim'd against their vices; and other men's virtues I have commended, as freely as I have tax'd their crimes. And now, if you are a malicious reader. I expect you should return upon me that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am. But if men are not to be judg'd by their professions, God forgive you Commonwealth's-men for profess-natural, in my weak judgment, an act of obing so plausibly for the government. You cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing of my name; for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare, tho' they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not my poem, the fault may, possibly, be in my writing (tho' 't is hard for an author to judge against himself); but, more probably, 't is in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent, on both sides, will condemn the character of Absalom, as either too favorably or too hardly drawn. But they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The fault on the right hand is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and, to confess freely, I have endeavor'd to commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory; 't is no more a wonder that he withstood The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. And he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease; for those are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's work of an ense rescindendum, which I wish not to my very enemies. To conclude all; if the body politic have any analogy to the livion were as necessary in a hot, distemper'd state, , as an opiate would be in a raging fever, ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL His vigorous warmth did variously impart mand, 9 Scatter'd his Maker's image thro' the land. cend, |