And into noble families advance
A nameless iffue, the blind work of chance.
Indulgent fortune does her care employ,
And, fmiling, broods upon the naked boy:
Her garment spreads, and laps him in the fold,
And covers with her wings, from nightly cold:
Gives him her bleffing; puts him in a way;
Sets up the farce, and laughs at her own play.
Him the promotes; the favours him alone,
And makes provifion for him, as her own.
The craving wife, the force of magic tries,
And philters for th' unable husband buys :
The potion works not on the part defign'd;
But turns his brains, and ftupifies his mind.
The fotted moon-calf gapes, and staring on,
Sees his own bus'nefs by another done:
A long oblivion, a benumming frost,
Constrains his head; and yesterday is loft:
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and
Like that Cæfonia to her Caius gave:
Who, plucking from the forehead of the fole
His mother's love, infus'd it in the bowl:
The boiling blood ran hiffing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The Thund'rer was not half so much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his defire.
What woman will not use the pois'ning trade,
When Cæfar's wife the precedent has made;
Let Agrippina's mushroom be forgot,
Giv'n to a flav'ring, old, unufeful fot;
That only clos'd the driv'ling dotard's eyes,
And fent his godhead downward to the skies.
But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword;
Nor fpares the common, when it ftrikes the
lord.
mischiefs were in one combin'd;
So much one fingle pois'ner coft mankind.
If stepdames feek their fons-in-law to kill,
'Tis venial trefpafs; let them have their will:
But let the child, entrusted to the care
Of his own mother, of her bread beware:
Beware the food fhe reaches with her hand;
The morfel is intended for thy land.
Thy tutor be thy tafter, ere thou eat;
There's poifon in thy drink, and in thy meat.
You think this feign'd; the fatire in a rage
Struts in the buskins of the tragic ftage,
Forgets his bus'nefs is to laugh and bite;
And will of deaths and dire revenges write.
Would it were all a fable, that
you read; But Drymon's wife pleads guilty to the deed. I (fhe confeffes) in the fact was caught, Two fons dispatching at one deadly draught. What two! Two fons, thou viper, in one day! Yes, fev'n, fhe cries, if fev'n were in my way. Medea's legend is no more a lye;
One age adds credit to antiquity.
Great ills, we grant, in former times did reign,
And murders then were done: but not for gain.
Lefs admiration to great crimes is due,
Which they thro wrath, or thro revenge, purfue.
For, weak of reafon, impotent of will,
The fex is hurry'd headlong into ill:
And, like a cliff from its foundation torn,
By raging earthquakes, into feas is born.
But those are fiends, who crimes from thought begin:
And cool in mifchief, meditate the fin.
They read th' example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet, if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would fave their lap-dog fooner than their lord.
Where-e'er you walk, the Belides you meet;
And Clytemneftras grow in ev'ry street:
But here's the diff'rence; Agamemnon's wife
Was a grofs butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employ'd alone:
Unless fome antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balfam all the nobler parts:
In fuch a cafe, referv'd for fuch a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.
THE ARGUMENT.
The poet's defign, in this divine fatire, is to represent the various wishes and defires of mankind; and to fet out the folly of them. He runs through all the feveral heads of riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial atchievements, long life, and beauty; and gives inftances, in each, how frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned them. He concludes therefore, that fince we generally chufe fo ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it to the Gods, to make the choice for us. All we can fafely afk of heaven, lies within a very Small compass. 'Tis but health of body and mind. And if we have thefe, it is not much matter what we want befides; for we have already enough to make us happy.
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