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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472554" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The First Fan</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON BRIC-A-BRAC<br>CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1877</div><div style="margin:10px 0">WHEN rose the cry 'Great Pan is dead!'<br>And Jove's high palace closed its portal,<br>The fallen gods, before they fled,<br>Sold out their frippery to a mortal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To whom?' you ask. I ask of you.<br>The answer hardly needs suggestion;<br>Of course it was the Wandering Jew,--<br>How could you put me such a question?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A purple robe, a little worn,<br>The Thunderer deigned himself to offer;<br>The bearded wanderer laughed in scorn,--<br>You know he always was a scoffer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Vife shillins! 't is a monstrous price;<br>Say two and six and further talk shun.'<br>'Take it,' cried Jove; 'we can't be nice,--<br>'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's auction.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The ice was broken; up they came,<br>All sharp for bargains, god and goddess,<br>Each ready with the price to name<br>For robe or head-dress, scarf or bodice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">First Juno, out of temper, too,--<br>Her queenly forehead somewhat cloudy;<br>Then Pallas in her stockings blue,<br>Imposing, but a little dowdy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The scowling queen of heaven unrolled<br>Before the Jew a threadbare turban<br>'Three shillings.' 'One. 'T will suit some old<br>Terrific feminine suburban.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But as for Pallas,--how to tell<br>In seemly phrase a fact so shocking?<br>She pointed,--pray excuse me,--well,<br>She pointed to her azure stocking.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And if the honest truth were told,<br>Its heel confessed the need of darning;<br>'Gods!' low-bred Vulcan cried, 'behold!<br>There! that's what comes of too much larning!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pale Proserpine came groping round,<br>Her pupils dreadfully dilated<br>With too much living underground,--<br>A residence quite overrated;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This kerchief's what you want, I know,--<br>Don't cheat poor Venus of her cestus,--<br>You'll find it handy when you go<br>To--you know where; it's pure asbestus.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Phoebus of the silverr bow,<br>And Hebe, dimpled as a baby,<br>And Dian with the breast of snow,<br>Chaser and chased--and caught, it may be:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One took the quiver from her back,<br>One held the cap he spent the night in,<br>And one a bit of bric-a-brac,<br>Such as the gods themselves delight in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Mars, the foe of human kind,<br>Strode up and showed his suit of armor;<br>So none at last was left behind<br>Save Venus, the celestial charmer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor Venus! What had she to sell?<br>For all she looked so fresh and jaunty,<br>Her wardrobe, as I blush' to tell,<br>Already seemed but quite too scanty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her gems were sold, her sandals gone,--<br>She always would be rash and flighty,--<br>Her winter garments all in pawn,<br>Alas for charming Aphrodite.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The lady of a thousand loves,<br>The darling of the old religion,<br>Had only left of all the doves<br>That drew her car one fan-tailed pigeon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How oft upon her finger-tips<br>He perched, afraid of Cupid's arrow,<br>Or kissed her on the rosebud lips,<br>Like Roman Lesbia's loving sparrow!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'My bird, I want your train,' she cried;<br>'Come, don't let's have a fuss about it;<br>I'll make it beauty's pet and pride,<br>And you'll be better off without it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'So vulgar! Have you noticed, pray,<br>An earthly belle or dashing bride walk,<br>And how her flounces track her way,<br>Like slimy serpents on the sidewalk?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'A lover's heart it quickly cools;<br>In mine it kindles up enough rage<br>To wring their necks. How can such fools<br>Ask men to vote for woman suffrage?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The goddess spoke, and gently stripped<br>Her bird of every caudal feather;<br>A strand of gold-bright hair she clipped,<br>And bound the glossy plumes together,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And lo, the Fan! for beauty's hand,<br>The lovely queen of beauty made it;<br>The price she named was hard to stand,<br>But Venus smiled: the Hebrew paid it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Jove, Juno, Venus, where are you?<br>Mars, Mercury, Phoebus, Neptune, Saturn?<br>But o'er the world the Wandering Jew<br>Has borne the Fan's celestial pattern.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So everywhere we find the Fan,--<br>In lonely isles of the Pacific,<br>In farthest China and Japan,--<br>Wherever suns are sudorific.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, even the oily Esquimaux<br>In summer court its cooling breezes,--<br>In fact, in every clime 't is so,<br>No matter if it fries or freezes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And since from Aphrodite's dove<br>The pattern of the fan was given,<br>No wonder that it breathes of love<br>And wafts the perfumed gales of heaven!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Before this new Pandora's gift<br>In slavery woman's tyrant kept her,<br>But now he kneels her glove to lift,--<br>The fan is mightier than the sceptre.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The tap it gives how arch and sly!<br>The breath it wakes how fresh and grateful!<br>Behind its shield how soft the sigh!<br>The whispered tale of shame how fateful!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Its empire shadows every throne<br>And every shore that man is tost on;<br>It rules the lords of every zone,<br>Nay, even the bluest blood of Boston!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But every one that swings to-night,<br>Of fairest shape, from farthest region,<br>May trace its pedigree aright<br>To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Oliver+Wendell+Holmes">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472554" data-title="The First Fan de Oliver Wendell Holmes" data-description="READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON BRIC-A-BRAC
CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1877

WHEN rose the cry 'Great Pan is dead!'
And Jove's high palace closed its portal,
The fallen gods, before they fled,
Sold out their frippery to a mortal.

'To whom?' you ask. I as..."></div>
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