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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=512559" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Hudibras, Part I (excerpts)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST CANTOSir Hudibras his passing worth,<br>The manner how he sallied forth; <br>His arms and equipage are shown; <br>His horse's virtues, and his own. <br>Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle<br>Is sung, but breaks off in the middle. <br> When civil fury first grew high,<br> And men fell out, they knew not why;<br> When hard words, jealousies, and fears,<br> Set folks together by the ears,<br> And made them fight, like mad or drunk,<br> For Dame Religion, as for punk;<br> Whose honesty they all durst swear for,<br> Though not a man of them knew wherefore:<br> When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded<br> With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded,<br> And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,<br> Was beat with fist, instead of a stick;<br> Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,<br> And out he rode a colonelling.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A wight he was, whose very sight would<br> Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood;<br> That never bent his stubborn knee<br> To any thing but Chivalry;<br> Nor put up blow, but that which laid<br> Right worshipful on shoulder-blade;<br> Chief of domestic knights and errant,<br> Either for cartel or for warrant;<br> Great on the bench, great in the saddle,<br> That could as well bind o'er, as swaddle;<br> Mighty he was at both of these,<br> And styl'd of war, as well as peace.<br> (So some rats, of amphibious nature,<br> Are either for the land or water).<br> But here our authors make a doubt<br> Whether he were more wise, or stout:<br> Some hold the one, and some the other;<br> But howsoe'er they make a pother,<br> The diff'rence was so small, his brain<br> Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain;<br> Which made some take him for a tool<br> That knaves do work with, call'd a fool,<br> And offer to lay wagers that<br> As Montaigne, playing with his cat,<br> Complains she thought him but an ass,<br> Much more she would Sir Hudibras;<br> (For that's the name our valiant knight<br> To all his challenges did write).<br> But they're mistaken very much,<br> 'Tis plain enough he was no such;<br> We grant, although he had much wit,<br> H' was very shy of using it;<br> As being loth to wear it out,<br> And therefore bore it not about,<br> Unless on holy-days, or so,<br> As men their best apparel do.<br> Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek<br> As naturally as pigs squeak;<br> That Latin was no more difficile,<br> Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:<br> Being rich in both, he never scanted<br> His bounty unto such as wanted;<br> But much of either would afford<br> To many, that had not one word.<br> For Hebrew roots, although th'are found<br> To flourish most in barren ground,<br> He had such plenty, as suffic'd<br> To make some think him circumcis'd;<br> And truly so, perhaps, he was,<br> 'Tis many a pious Christian's case.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> He was in logic a great critic,<br> Profoundly skill'd in analytic;<br> He could distinguish, and divide<br> A hair 'twixt south, and south-west side:<br> On either which he would dispute,<br> Confute, change hands, and still confute,<br> He'd undertake to prove, by force<br> Of argument, a man's no horse;<br> He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,<br> And that a lord may be an owl,<br> A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,<br> And rooks Committee-men and Trustees.<br> He'd run in debt by disputation,<br> And pay with ratiocination.<br> All this by syllogism, true<br> In mood and figure, he would do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> For rhetoric, he could not ope<br> His mouth, but out there flew a trope;<br> And when he happen'd to break off<br> I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,<br> H' had hard words, ready to show why,<br> And tell what rules he did it by;<br> Else, when with greatest art he spoke,<br> You'd think he talk'd like other folk,<br> For all a rhetorician's rules<br> Teach nothing but to name his tools.<br> His ordinary rate of speech<br> In loftiness of sound was rich;<br> A Babylonish dialect,<br> Which learned pedants much affect.<br> It was a parti-colour'd dress<br> Of patch'd and pie-bald languages;<br> 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,<br> Like fustian heretofore on satin;<br> It had an odd promiscuous tone,<br> As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;<br> Which made some think, when he did gabble,<br> Th' had heard three labourers of Babel;<br> Or Cerberus himself pronounce<br> A leash of languages at once.<br> This he as volubly would vent<br> As if his stock would ne'er be spent:<br> And truly, to support that charge,<br> He had supplies as vast and large;<br> For he would coin, or counterfeit<br> New words, with little or no wit:<br> Words so debas'd and hard, no stone<br> Was hard enough to touch them on;<br> And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em,<br> The ignorant for current took 'em;<br> That had the orator, who once<br> Did fill his mouth with pebble stones<br> When he harangu'd, but known his phrase<br> He would have us'd no other ways.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> In mathematics he was greater<br> Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater:<br> For he, by geometric scale,<br> Could take the size of pots of ale;<br> Resolve, by sines and tangents straight,<br> If bread or butter wanted weight,<br> And wisely tell what hour o' th' day<br> The clock does strike by algebra.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,<br> And had read ev'ry text and gloss over;<br> Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,<br> He understood b' implicit faith:<br> Whatever sceptic could inquire for,<br> For ev'ry why he had a wherefore;<br> Knew more than forty of them do,<br> As far as words and terms could go.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> All which he understood by rote,<br> And, as occasion serv'd, would quote;<br> No matter whether right or wrong,<br> They might be either said or sung.<br> His notions fitted things so well,<br> That which was which he could not tell;<br> But oftentimes mistook th' one<br> For th' other, as great clerks have done.<br> He could reduce all things to acts,<br> And knew their natures by abstracts;<br> Where entity and quiddity,<br> The ghosts of defunct bodies fly;<br> Where truth in person does appear,<br> Like words congeal'd in northern air.<br> He knew what's what, and that's as high<br> As metaphysic wit can fly;<br> In school-divinity as able<br> As he that hight Irrefragable;<br> Profound in all the Nominal<br> And Real ways, beyond them all:<br> And with as delicate a hand,<br> Could twist as tough a rope of sand;<br> And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull<br> That's empty when the moon is full;<br> Such as take lodgings in a head<br> That's to be let unfurnished.<br> He could raise scruples dark and nice,<br> And after solve 'em in a trice;<br> As if Divinity had catch'd<br> The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd;<br> Or, like a mountebank, did wound<br> And stab herself with doubts profound,<br> Only to show with how small pain<br> The sores of Faith are cur'd again;<br> Although by woful proof we find,<br> They always leave a scar behind.<br> He knew the seat of Paradise,<br> Could tell in what degree it lies;<br> And, as he was dispos'd, could prove it,<br> Below the moon, or else above it.<br> What Adam dreamt of, when his bride<br> Came from her closet in his side:<br> Whether the devil tempted her<br> By an High Dutch interpreter;<br> If either of them had a navel:<br> Who first made music malleable:<br> Whether the serpent, at the fall,<br> Had cloven feet, or none at all.<br> All this, without a gloss, or comment,<br> He could unriddle in a moment,<br> In proper terms, such as men smatter<br> When they throw out, and miss the matter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> For his Religion, it was fit<br> To match his learning and his wit;<br> 'Twas Presbyterian true blue;<br> For he was of that stubborn crew<br> Of errant saints, whom all men grant<br> To be the true Church Militant;<br> Such as do build their faith upon<br> The holy text of pike and gun;<br> Decide all controversies by<br> Infallible artillery;<br> And prove their doctrine orthodox<br> By apostolic blows and knocks;<br> Call fire and sword and desolation,<br> A godly-thorough-reformation,<br> Which always must be carried on,<br> And still be doing, never done;<br> As if religion were intended<br> For nothing else but to be mended.<br> A sect, whose chief devotion lies<br> In odd perverse antipathies;<br> In falling out with that or this,<br> And finding somewhat still amiss;<br> More peevish, cross, and splenetic,<br> Than dog distract, or monkey sick.<br> That with more care keep holy-day<br> The wrong, than others the right way;<br> Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,<br> By damning those they have no mind to:<br> Still so perverse and opposite,<br> As if they worshipp'd God for spite.<br> The self-same thing they will abhor<br> One way, and long another for.<br> Free-will they one way disavow,<br> Another, nothing else allow:<br> All piety consists therein<br> In them, in other men all sin:<br> Rather than fail, they will defy<br> That which they love most tenderly;<br> Quarrel with minc'd-pies, and disparage<br> Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge;<br> Fat pig and goose itself oppose,<br> And blaspheme custard through the nose.<br> Th' apostles of this fierce religion,<br> Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon,<br> To whom our knight, by fast instinct<br> Of wit and temper, was so linkt,<br> As if hypocrisy and nonsense<br> Had got th' advowson of his conscience.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">...</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Samuel+Butler">Samuel Butler</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=512559" data-title="Hudibras, Part I (excerpts) de Samuel Butler" data-description="THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST CANTOSir Hudibras his passing worth,
The manner how he sallied forth; 
His arms and equipage are shown; 
His horse's virtues, and his own. 
Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle. 
 Whe..."></div>
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