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Jan. 22nd, 2008 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickMore on our man Rochester. I'm sure everyone is as entranced by lengthy poetic efforts as I am. Today's offering has rather a lot to do with St. James's Park, where people get up to all sorts of shenanigans. (Not, if you've been asleep at the wheel for ages, for kids. Kind of pornish. Viewer discretion advised, and all that.)
Rochester wrote "A Ramble in St. James's Park" which we'll get to in a minute. It's kind of a riff on a poem by a different fellow, an Edmund Waller, who wrore a nice, not-perverse poem about St. James's Park, published in 1661. Let's look at Waller's first. Waller, apparently, is pitched as a big fan and promoter of ye olde couplet in English verse. (He wasn't the first, by any means. Chaucer, who is most amusing, did couplets way before Waller was a twinkle in his father's eye.) Me, I like couplets a lot, but I'd never met Waller or his poetry that I can recall, so this was news to me.
ON ST JAMES'S PARK, AS LATELY IMPROVED BY HIS MAJESTY.[1]
Of the first Paradise there's nothing found;
Plants set by Heaven are vanish'd, and the ground;
Yet the description lasts; who knows the fate
Of lines that shall this paradise relate?
Instead of rivers rolling by the side
Of Eden's garden, here flows in the tide;
The sea, which always served his empire, now
Pays tribute to our Prince's pleasure too.
Of famous cities we the founders know;
But rivers, old as seas, to which they go, 10
Are Nature's bounty; 'tis of more renown
To make a river, than to build a town.
For future shade, young trees upon the banks
Of the new stream appear in even ranks;
The voice of Orpheus, or Amphion's hand,
In better order could not make them stand;
May they increase as fast, and spread their boughs,
As the high fame of their great owner grows!
May he live long enough to see them all
Dark shadows cast, and as his palace tall! 20
Methinks I see the love that shall be made,
The lovers walking in that am'rous shade;
The gallants dancing by the river side;
They bathe in summer, and in winter slide.
Methinks I hear the music in the boats,
And the loud echo which returns the notes;
While overhead a flock of new-sprung fowl
Hangs in the air, and does the sun control,
Dark'ning the sky; they hover o'er, and shroud 29
The wanton sailors with a feather'd cloud.
Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides,
And plays about the gilded barges' sides;
The ladies, angling in the crystal lake,
Feast on the waters with the prey they take;
At once victorious with their lines, and eyes,
They make the fishes, and the men, their prize.
A thousand Cupids on the billows ride,
And sea-nymphs enter with the swelling tide,
From Thetis sent as spies, to make report,
And tell the wonders of her sovereign's court. 40
All that can, living, feed the greedy eye,
Or dead, the palate, here you may descry;
The choicest things that furnish'd Noah's ark,
Or Peter's sheet, inhabiting this park;
All with a border of rich fruit-trees crown'd,
Whose loaded branches hide the lofty mound,
Such various ways the spacious alleys lead,
My doubtful Muse knows not what path to tread.
Yonder, the harvest of cold months laid up,
Gives a fresh coolness to the royal cup; 50
There ice, like crystal firm, and never lost,
Tempers hot July with December's frost;
Winter's dark prison, whence he cannot fly,
Though the warm spring, his enemy, draws nigh.
Strange! that extremes should thus preserve the snow,
High on the Alps, or in deep caves below.
Here, a well-polished Mall gives us the joy
To see our Prince his matchless force employ;
His manly posture, and his graceful mien,
Vigour and youth in all his motions seen; 60
His shape so lovely and his limbs so strong,
Confirm our hopes we shall obey him long.
No sooner has he touch'd the flying ball, 63
But 'tis already more than half the Mall;
And such a fury from his arm has got,
As from a smoking culv'rin it were shot.[2]
Near this my Muse, what most delights her, sees
A living gallery of aged trees;
Bold sons of earth, that thrust their arms so high,
As if once more they would invade the sky. 70
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And, by frequenting sacred groves, grew wise.
Free from th'impediments of light and noise,
Man, thus retired, his nobler thoughts employs.
Here Charles contrives th'ordering of his states,
Here he resolves his neighb'ring princes' fates;
What nation shall have peace, where war be made,
Determined is in this oraculous shade; 80
The world, from India to the frozen north,
Concern'd in what this solitude brings forth.
His fancy objects from his view receives;
The prospect thought and contemplation gives.
That seat of empire here salutes his eye,
To which three kingdoms do themselves apply;
The structure by a prelate[3] raised, Whitehall,
Built with the fortune of Rome's capitol;
Both, disproportion'd to the present state
Of their proud founders, were approved by Fate. 90
From hence he does that antique pile[4] behold,
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold;
It gives them crowns, and does their ashes keep;
There made like gods, like mortals there they sleep;
Making the circle of their reign complete,
Those suns of empire! where they rise, they set.
When others fell, this, standing, did presage
The crown should triumph over popular rage;
Hard by that House,[5] where all our ills were shaped,
Th' auspicious temple stood, and yet escaped. 100
So snow on Aetna does unmelted lie,
Whence rolling flames and scatter'd cinders fly;
The distant country in the ruin shares;
What falls from heaven the burning mountain spares.
Next, that capacious Hall[6] he sees, the room
Where the whole nation does for justice come;
Under whose large roof flourishes the gown,
And judges grave, on high tribunals, frown.
Here, like the people's pastor he does go,
His flock subjected to his view below; 110
On which reflecting in his mighty mind,
No private passion does indulgence find;
The pleasures of his youth suspended are,
And made a sacrifice to public care.
Here, free from court compliances, he walks,
And with himself, his best adviser, talks;
How peaceful olives may his temples shade,
For mending laws, and for restoring trade;
Or, how his brows may be with laurel charged,
For nations conquer'd and our bounds enlarged. 120
Of ancient prudence here he ruminates,
Of rising kingdoms, and of falling states;
What ruling arts gave great Augustus fame,
And how Alcides purchased such a name.
His eyes, upon his native palace[7] bent,
Close by, suggest a greater argument.
His thoughts rise higher, when he does reflect
On what the world may from that star expect
Which at his birth appear'd,[8] to let us see
Day, for his sake, could with the night agree; 130
A prince, on whom such diff'rent lights did smile,
Born the divided world to reconcile!
Whatever Heaven, or high extracted blood
Could promise, or foretell, he will make good;
Reform these nations, and improve them more,
Than this fair park, from what it was before.
[1] See 'Macaulay.'
[2] Pall Mall derived its name from a particular game at bowls, in which Charles II. excelled.
[3] 'Prelate': Cardinal Wolsey.
[4] 'Antique pile': Westminster Abbey.
[5] 'House': House of Commons.
[6] 'Hall': Westminster Hall.
[7] 'Palace': St. James's Palace, where Charles II. was born.
[8] 'Birth appeared ': it seems a new star appeared in the heavens at the birth of the king.
(This text cut-n-pasted from Project Gutenberg, nice people that they are.)
Okay, so, Waller's poem. It's in not-entirely-unskilled couplets but the guy isn't jaw-droppingly good at this, either. Pope would be able to find plenty to mock, including some of the oh-so-anticipated rhymes. The poem is pastoral and gushingly praiseful about (a) the park and (b) the king. This sort of codswallop is not particularly unusual as a poet's got to eat. I can't fault him for this, but I've seen better.
Now, we have our man Rochester's poem, which is a hundred and sixty-some lines of not-very-pastoral imagery dating from sometime prior to 1672. It's pretty reasonable to assume that this St. James's Park poem is a riff on the previous but instead of saying nice things about the park and the king and instead of saying unkind things about the park and the king (which would be the obvious choice), the poem goes on at length about the right and wrong ways to be an indiscriminate cumslut. (Bet you weren't expecting that, were you?)
It appears that being an indiscriminate cumslut is not like eating a Reese's. There is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. You can, if you like, read this poem as sort of an allegorical deal where Corinna's cumsluttery stands in for libertine-ish behaviors of all sorts, so that the whole thing becomes a useful statement about appetites and what to do with them. Or, not.
A Ramble in St. James's Park, again allegedly by our man Rochester
Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see 5
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
Look at the above. He's had enough to drink and is now going walkabout for porn. In a way, this makes sense. A man can get a lot more drinking and swiving done if he mixes 'em up a bit -- too heavy a hand on the bottle and the game'll be up for the night, whereas persons who get to the right amount of drunk can happily, sloppily fuck their way through the smalls of the night to greet the dawn half sober and ready to drink again. It takes a bit of planning and malice aforethought to maximize one's debauchery. :) Incidentally, this was one of the lessons I taught to The Boy when we went to Amsterdam -- that moderation would, contrary to common expectation, allow more enthusiastic, extensive, and continual enjoyment of the world's delights than a heedless gluttony of consumption followed by unhappy surfeit.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and cunt. 10
There, by a most incestuous birth,
Strange woods spring from the teeming earth;
For they relate how heretofore,
When ancient Pict began to whore,
Deluded of his assignation 15
(Jilting, it seems, was then in fashion),
Poor pensive lover, in this place
Would frig upon his mother's face;
Whence rows of mandrakes tall did rise
Whose lewd tops fucked the very skies. 20
Each imitative branch does twine
In some loved fold of Aretine,
And nightly now beneath their shade
Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.
It kind of sounds like he's blaming the landscape for what takes place in amongst it. Look particularly on the lines "Poor pensive lover, in this place, Would frig upon his mother's face;" Anyway, contrast this not-so-pastoral stuff to Waller's efforts above. Waller, bless his heart, uses the scenery to lift us up, inspiring us with the same fresh originality and individual approach as you might see in an after school special.
Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove 25
Whores of the bulk and the alcove,
Great ladies, chambermaids, and drudges,
The ragpicker, and heiress trudges.
Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors,
Prentices, poets, pimps, and jailers, 30
Footmen, fine fops do here arrive,
And here promiscuously they swive.
St. James' Park was the spot to see and be seen, or whatever. This should not be surprising -- every halfway decent size city has a red light district. York (where brother-the-younger is a lawyer) has a red light district-ette, for fuck's sake, and that's hardly a cosmopolitan burg. This is a nice cross-section of society. Also, I love lists of things that rhyme.
Along these hallowed walks it was
That I beheld Corinna pass.
Whoever had been by to see 35
The proud disdain she cast on me
Through charming eyes, he would have swore
She dropped from heaven that very hour,
Forsaking the divine abode
In scorn of some despairing god. 40
But mark what creatures women are:
How infinitely vile, when fair!
It's surprising to me that a smart guy like Rochester doesn't get *why* so many of the fair women are so infinitely vile. It's because they can get away with it, yo.
Three knights o' the' elbow and the slur
With wriggling tails made up to her.
The first was of your Whitehall blades, 45
Near kin t' th' Mother of the Maids;
Graced by whose favor he was able
To bring a friend t' th' Waiters' table,
Where he had heard Sir Edward Sutton
Say how the King loved Banstead mutton; 50
Since when he'd ne'er be brought to eat
By 's good will any other meat.
In this, as well as all the rest,
He ventures to do like the best,
But wanting common sense, th' ingredient 55
In choosing well not least expedient,
Converts abortive imitation
To universal affectation.
Thus he not only eats and talks
But feels and smells, sits down and walks, 60
Nay looks, and lives, and loves by rote,
In an old tawdry birthday coat.
Not one of the world's originals, this Whitehall blade.
The second was a Grays Inn wit,
A great inhabiter of the pit,
Where critic-like he sits and squints, 65
Steals pocket handkerchiefs, and hints
From 's neighbor, and the comedy,
To court, and pay, his landlady.
The third, a lady's eldest son
Within few years of twenty-one 70
Who hopes from his propitious fate,
Against he comes to his estate,
By these two worthies to be made but they're not worthy, and that's part of the point, here
A most accomplished tearing blade.
One, in a strain 'twixt tune and nonsense, 75
Cries, "Madam, I have loved you long since.
Permit me your fair hand to kiss";
When at her mouth her cunt cries, "Yes!"
In short, without much more ado,
Joyful and pleased, away she flew, 80
And with these three confounded asses
From park to hackney coach she passes.
So a proud bitch does lead about
Of humble curs the amorous rout,
Who most obsequiously do hunt 85
The savory scent of salt-swoln cunt.
Now, here, it looks like she's all happy about going away with these guys. "Joyful and pleased", he says.
Some power more patient now relate
The sense of this surprising fate.
Gods! that a thing admired by me
Should fall to so much infamy. 90
Had she picked out, to rub her arse on,
Some stiff-pricked clown or well-hung parson,
Each job of whose spermatic sluice
Had filled her cunt with wholesome juice,
I the proceeding should have praised 95
In hope sh' had quenched a fire I raised.
Such natural freedoms are but just:
There's something generous in mere lust.
So, see, it'd be OK if she were going after somebody in the park because she was horny and genuinely wanted to get laid. That'd be just fine.
But to turn a damned abandoned jade
When neither head nor tail persuade; 100
Doing it, in short, when you don't really *want* to...
To be a whore in understanding,
A passive pot for fools to spend in!
The devil played booty, sure, with thee
To bring a blot on infamy.
It's doing it for no apparent reason that is not OK. Rochester is saying that the aforementioned Corrina is just going through the motions because that's what everybody does in St. James's Park... and that's the wrong way to be an indiscriminate cumslut. However, there's more to it than that.
But why am I, of all mankind, 105
To so severe a fate designed?
Ungrateful! Why this treachery
To humble fond, believing me,
Who gave you privilege above
The nice allowances of love? 110
Did ever I refuse to bear
The meanest part your lust could spare?
When your lewd cunt came spewing home
Drenched with the seed of half the town,
My dram of sperm was supped up after 115
For the digestive surfeit water.
Full gorged at another time
With a vast meal of slime
Which your devouring cunt had drawn
From porters' backs and footmen's brawn, 120
I was content to serve you up
My ballock-full for your grace cup,
Nor ever thought it an abuse
While you had pleasure for excuse -
See, and here he says it again, that it's OK if she's doing it because she wants to and that he's happily okay with sloppy... tenths, maybe, so long as she's enjoying herself... and, (salient point) comes home to him again.
You that could make my heart away 125
For noise and color, and betray
The secrets of my tender hours
To such knight-errant paramours,
When, leaning on your faithless breast,
Wrapped in security and rest, 130
Soft kindness all my powers did move,
And reason lay dissolved in love!
Here, we go into the point of the poem -- he put up with all that crap because he was in love with her. Yeah, yeah. And now that she's not doing him any longer, he's pissy that she's doing everyone else.
May stinking vapors choke your womb
Such as the men you dote upon
May your depraved appetite, 135
That could in whiffling fools delight,
Beget such frenzies in your mind
You may go mad for the north wind,
And fixing all your hopes upon't
To have him bluster in your cunt, 140
Turn up your longing arse t' th' air
And perish in a wild despair!
Apparently they've had a bit of a tiff.
But cowards shall forget to rant,
Schoolboys to frig, old whores to paint;
The Jesuits' fraternity 145
Shall leave the use of buggery;
Give me a boy until the age of seven...
Crab-louse, inspired with grace divine,
From earthly cod to heaven shall climb;
Physicians shall believe in Jesus,
And disobedience cease to please us, 150
Ere I desist with all my power
To plague this woman and undo her.
Oh, we are unhappy, aren't we?
But my revenge will best be timed
When she is married that is limed.
In that most lamentable state 155
I'll make her feel my scorn and hate:
Pelt her with scandals, truth or lies,
And her poor cur with jealousies,
Till I have torn him from her breech,
While she whines like a dog-drawn bitch; 160
Loathed and despised, kicked out o' th' Town
Into some dirty hole alone,
To chew the cud of misery
And know she owes it all to me.
And may no woman better thrive
That dares profane the cunt I swive! 165
Well, you're not swiving it any longer, are you, dear boy? And that's why you're pissed. She gives it up to everybody but you.
---------------------------
I still think, though, that the Three-Jolly-Luck Takeaway lesson, here, is that it's reasonable to debauch if you want but not so much if you're just doing it to be one of the in-crowd. Kind of a level-headed thing to pull out of a poem about a foursome (Ever wonder if he set it that way so that it'd be one for each hole? I did.) in a park, some three hundred years ago.
Rochester wrote "A Ramble in St. James's Park" which we'll get to in a minute. It's kind of a riff on a poem by a different fellow, an Edmund Waller, who wrore a nice, not-perverse poem about St. James's Park, published in 1661. Let's look at Waller's first. Waller, apparently, is pitched as a big fan and promoter of ye olde couplet in English verse. (He wasn't the first, by any means. Chaucer, who is most amusing, did couplets way before Waller was a twinkle in his father's eye.) Me, I like couplets a lot, but I'd never met Waller or his poetry that I can recall, so this was news to me.
ON ST JAMES'S PARK, AS LATELY IMPROVED BY HIS MAJESTY.[1]
Of the first Paradise there's nothing found;
Plants set by Heaven are vanish'd, and the ground;
Yet the description lasts; who knows the fate
Of lines that shall this paradise relate?
Instead of rivers rolling by the side
Of Eden's garden, here flows in the tide;
The sea, which always served his empire, now
Pays tribute to our Prince's pleasure too.
Of famous cities we the founders know;
But rivers, old as seas, to which they go, 10
Are Nature's bounty; 'tis of more renown
To make a river, than to build a town.
For future shade, young trees upon the banks
Of the new stream appear in even ranks;
The voice of Orpheus, or Amphion's hand,
In better order could not make them stand;
May they increase as fast, and spread their boughs,
As the high fame of their great owner grows!
May he live long enough to see them all
Dark shadows cast, and as his palace tall! 20
Methinks I see the love that shall be made,
The lovers walking in that am'rous shade;
The gallants dancing by the river side;
They bathe in summer, and in winter slide.
Methinks I hear the music in the boats,
And the loud echo which returns the notes;
While overhead a flock of new-sprung fowl
Hangs in the air, and does the sun control,
Dark'ning the sky; they hover o'er, and shroud 29
The wanton sailors with a feather'd cloud.
Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides,
And plays about the gilded barges' sides;
The ladies, angling in the crystal lake,
Feast on the waters with the prey they take;
At once victorious with their lines, and eyes,
They make the fishes, and the men, their prize.
A thousand Cupids on the billows ride,
And sea-nymphs enter with the swelling tide,
From Thetis sent as spies, to make report,
And tell the wonders of her sovereign's court. 40
All that can, living, feed the greedy eye,
Or dead, the palate, here you may descry;
The choicest things that furnish'd Noah's ark,
Or Peter's sheet, inhabiting this park;
All with a border of rich fruit-trees crown'd,
Whose loaded branches hide the lofty mound,
Such various ways the spacious alleys lead,
My doubtful Muse knows not what path to tread.
Yonder, the harvest of cold months laid up,
Gives a fresh coolness to the royal cup; 50
There ice, like crystal firm, and never lost,
Tempers hot July with December's frost;
Winter's dark prison, whence he cannot fly,
Though the warm spring, his enemy, draws nigh.
Strange! that extremes should thus preserve the snow,
High on the Alps, or in deep caves below.
Here, a well-polished Mall gives us the joy
To see our Prince his matchless force employ;
His manly posture, and his graceful mien,
Vigour and youth in all his motions seen; 60
His shape so lovely and his limbs so strong,
Confirm our hopes we shall obey him long.
No sooner has he touch'd the flying ball, 63
But 'tis already more than half the Mall;
And such a fury from his arm has got,
As from a smoking culv'rin it were shot.[2]
Near this my Muse, what most delights her, sees
A living gallery of aged trees;
Bold sons of earth, that thrust their arms so high,
As if once more they would invade the sky. 70
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And, by frequenting sacred groves, grew wise.
Free from th'impediments of light and noise,
Man, thus retired, his nobler thoughts employs.
Here Charles contrives th'ordering of his states,
Here he resolves his neighb'ring princes' fates;
What nation shall have peace, where war be made,
Determined is in this oraculous shade; 80
The world, from India to the frozen north,
Concern'd in what this solitude brings forth.
His fancy objects from his view receives;
The prospect thought and contemplation gives.
That seat of empire here salutes his eye,
To which three kingdoms do themselves apply;
The structure by a prelate[3] raised, Whitehall,
Built with the fortune of Rome's capitol;
Both, disproportion'd to the present state
Of their proud founders, were approved by Fate. 90
From hence he does that antique pile[4] behold,
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold;
It gives them crowns, and does their ashes keep;
There made like gods, like mortals there they sleep;
Making the circle of their reign complete,
Those suns of empire! where they rise, they set.
When others fell, this, standing, did presage
The crown should triumph over popular rage;
Hard by that House,[5] where all our ills were shaped,
Th' auspicious temple stood, and yet escaped. 100
So snow on Aetna does unmelted lie,
Whence rolling flames and scatter'd cinders fly;
The distant country in the ruin shares;
What falls from heaven the burning mountain spares.
Next, that capacious Hall[6] he sees, the room
Where the whole nation does for justice come;
Under whose large roof flourishes the gown,
And judges grave, on high tribunals, frown.
Here, like the people's pastor he does go,
His flock subjected to his view below; 110
On which reflecting in his mighty mind,
No private passion does indulgence find;
The pleasures of his youth suspended are,
And made a sacrifice to public care.
Here, free from court compliances, he walks,
And with himself, his best adviser, talks;
How peaceful olives may his temples shade,
For mending laws, and for restoring trade;
Or, how his brows may be with laurel charged,
For nations conquer'd and our bounds enlarged. 120
Of ancient prudence here he ruminates,
Of rising kingdoms, and of falling states;
What ruling arts gave great Augustus fame,
And how Alcides purchased such a name.
His eyes, upon his native palace[7] bent,
Close by, suggest a greater argument.
His thoughts rise higher, when he does reflect
On what the world may from that star expect
Which at his birth appear'd,[8] to let us see
Day, for his sake, could with the night agree; 130
A prince, on whom such diff'rent lights did smile,
Born the divided world to reconcile!
Whatever Heaven, or high extracted blood
Could promise, or foretell, he will make good;
Reform these nations, and improve them more,
Than this fair park, from what it was before.
[1] See 'Macaulay.'
[2] Pall Mall derived its name from a particular game at bowls, in which Charles II. excelled.
[3] 'Prelate': Cardinal Wolsey.
[4] 'Antique pile': Westminster Abbey.
[5] 'House': House of Commons.
[6] 'Hall': Westminster Hall.
[7] 'Palace': St. James's Palace, where Charles II. was born.
[8] 'Birth appeared ': it seems a new star appeared in the heavens at the birth of the king.
(This text cut-n-pasted from Project Gutenberg, nice people that they are.)
Okay, so, Waller's poem. It's in not-entirely-unskilled couplets but the guy isn't jaw-droppingly good at this, either. Pope would be able to find plenty to mock, including some of the oh-so-anticipated rhymes. The poem is pastoral and gushingly praiseful about (a) the park and (b) the king. This sort of codswallop is not particularly unusual as a poet's got to eat. I can't fault him for this, but I've seen better.
Now, we have our man Rochester's poem, which is a hundred and sixty-some lines of not-very-pastoral imagery dating from sometime prior to 1672. It's pretty reasonable to assume that this St. James's Park poem is a riff on the previous but instead of saying nice things about the park and the king and instead of saying unkind things about the park and the king (which would be the obvious choice), the poem goes on at length about the right and wrong ways to be an indiscriminate cumslut. (Bet you weren't expecting that, were you?)
It appears that being an indiscriminate cumslut is not like eating a Reese's. There is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. You can, if you like, read this poem as sort of an allegorical deal where Corinna's cumsluttery stands in for libertine-ish behaviors of all sorts, so that the whole thing becomes a useful statement about appetites and what to do with them. Or, not.
A Ramble in St. James's Park, again allegedly by our man Rochester
Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see 5
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
Look at the above. He's had enough to drink and is now going walkabout for porn. In a way, this makes sense. A man can get a lot more drinking and swiving done if he mixes 'em up a bit -- too heavy a hand on the bottle and the game'll be up for the night, whereas persons who get to the right amount of drunk can happily, sloppily fuck their way through the smalls of the night to greet the dawn half sober and ready to drink again. It takes a bit of planning and malice aforethought to maximize one's debauchery. :) Incidentally, this was one of the lessons I taught to The Boy when we went to Amsterdam -- that moderation would, contrary to common expectation, allow more enthusiastic, extensive, and continual enjoyment of the world's delights than a heedless gluttony of consumption followed by unhappy surfeit.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and cunt. 10
There, by a most incestuous birth,
Strange woods spring from the teeming earth;
For they relate how heretofore,
When ancient Pict began to whore,
Deluded of his assignation 15
(Jilting, it seems, was then in fashion),
Poor pensive lover, in this place
Would frig upon his mother's face;
Whence rows of mandrakes tall did rise
Whose lewd tops fucked the very skies. 20
Each imitative branch does twine
In some loved fold of Aretine,
And nightly now beneath their shade
Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.
It kind of sounds like he's blaming the landscape for what takes place in amongst it. Look particularly on the lines "Poor pensive lover, in this place, Would frig upon his mother's face;" Anyway, contrast this not-so-pastoral stuff to Waller's efforts above. Waller, bless his heart, uses the scenery to lift us up, inspiring us with the same fresh originality and individual approach as you might see in an after school special.
Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove 25
Whores of the bulk and the alcove,
Great ladies, chambermaids, and drudges,
The ragpicker, and heiress trudges.
Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors,
Prentices, poets, pimps, and jailers, 30
Footmen, fine fops do here arrive,
And here promiscuously they swive.
St. James' Park was the spot to see and be seen, or whatever. This should not be surprising -- every halfway decent size city has a red light district. York (where brother-the-younger is a lawyer) has a red light district-ette, for fuck's sake, and that's hardly a cosmopolitan burg. This is a nice cross-section of society. Also, I love lists of things that rhyme.
Along these hallowed walks it was
That I beheld Corinna pass.
Whoever had been by to see 35
The proud disdain she cast on me
Through charming eyes, he would have swore
She dropped from heaven that very hour,
Forsaking the divine abode
In scorn of some despairing god. 40
But mark what creatures women are:
How infinitely vile, when fair!
It's surprising to me that a smart guy like Rochester doesn't get *why* so many of the fair women are so infinitely vile. It's because they can get away with it, yo.
Three knights o' the' elbow and the slur
With wriggling tails made up to her.
The first was of your Whitehall blades, 45
Near kin t' th' Mother of the Maids;
Graced by whose favor he was able
To bring a friend t' th' Waiters' table,
Where he had heard Sir Edward Sutton
Say how the King loved Banstead mutton; 50
Since when he'd ne'er be brought to eat
By 's good will any other meat.
In this, as well as all the rest,
He ventures to do like the best,
But wanting common sense, th' ingredient 55
In choosing well not least expedient,
Converts abortive imitation
To universal affectation.
Thus he not only eats and talks
But feels and smells, sits down and walks, 60
Nay looks, and lives, and loves by rote,
In an old tawdry birthday coat.
Not one of the world's originals, this Whitehall blade.
The second was a Grays Inn wit,
A great inhabiter of the pit,
Where critic-like he sits and squints, 65
Steals pocket handkerchiefs, and hints
From 's neighbor, and the comedy,
To court, and pay, his landlady.
The third, a lady's eldest son
Within few years of twenty-one 70
Who hopes from his propitious fate,
Against he comes to his estate,
By these two worthies to be made but they're not worthy, and that's part of the point, here
A most accomplished tearing blade.
One, in a strain 'twixt tune and nonsense, 75
Cries, "Madam, I have loved you long since.
Permit me your fair hand to kiss";
When at her mouth her cunt cries, "Yes!"
In short, without much more ado,
Joyful and pleased, away she flew, 80
And with these three confounded asses
From park to hackney coach she passes.
So a proud bitch does lead about
Of humble curs the amorous rout,
Who most obsequiously do hunt 85
The savory scent of salt-swoln cunt.
Now, here, it looks like she's all happy about going away with these guys. "Joyful and pleased", he says.
Some power more patient now relate
The sense of this surprising fate.
Gods! that a thing admired by me
Should fall to so much infamy. 90
Had she picked out, to rub her arse on,
Some stiff-pricked clown or well-hung parson,
Each job of whose spermatic sluice
Had filled her cunt with wholesome juice,
I the proceeding should have praised 95
In hope sh' had quenched a fire I raised.
Such natural freedoms are but just:
There's something generous in mere lust.
So, see, it'd be OK if she were going after somebody in the park because she was horny and genuinely wanted to get laid. That'd be just fine.
But to turn a damned abandoned jade
When neither head nor tail persuade; 100
Doing it, in short, when you don't really *want* to...
To be a whore in understanding,
A passive pot for fools to spend in!
The devil played booty, sure, with thee
To bring a blot on infamy.
It's doing it for no apparent reason that is not OK. Rochester is saying that the aforementioned Corrina is just going through the motions because that's what everybody does in St. James's Park... and that's the wrong way to be an indiscriminate cumslut. However, there's more to it than that.
But why am I, of all mankind, 105
To so severe a fate designed?
Ungrateful! Why this treachery
To humble fond, believing me,
Who gave you privilege above
The nice allowances of love? 110
Did ever I refuse to bear
The meanest part your lust could spare?
When your lewd cunt came spewing home
Drenched with the seed of half the town,
My dram of sperm was supped up after 115
For the digestive surfeit water.
Full gorged at another time
With a vast meal of slime
Which your devouring cunt had drawn
From porters' backs and footmen's brawn, 120
I was content to serve you up
My ballock-full for your grace cup,
Nor ever thought it an abuse
While you had pleasure for excuse -
See, and here he says it again, that it's OK if she's doing it because she wants to and that he's happily okay with sloppy... tenths, maybe, so long as she's enjoying herself... and, (salient point) comes home to him again.
You that could make my heart away 125
For noise and color, and betray
The secrets of my tender hours
To such knight-errant paramours,
When, leaning on your faithless breast,
Wrapped in security and rest, 130
Soft kindness all my powers did move,
And reason lay dissolved in love!
Here, we go into the point of the poem -- he put up with all that crap because he was in love with her. Yeah, yeah. And now that she's not doing him any longer, he's pissy that she's doing everyone else.
May stinking vapors choke your womb
Such as the men you dote upon
May your depraved appetite, 135
That could in whiffling fools delight,
Beget such frenzies in your mind
You may go mad for the north wind,
And fixing all your hopes upon't
To have him bluster in your cunt, 140
Turn up your longing arse t' th' air
And perish in a wild despair!
Apparently they've had a bit of a tiff.
But cowards shall forget to rant,
Schoolboys to frig, old whores to paint;
The Jesuits' fraternity 145
Shall leave the use of buggery;
Give me a boy until the age of seven...
Crab-louse, inspired with grace divine,
From earthly cod to heaven shall climb;
Physicians shall believe in Jesus,
And disobedience cease to please us, 150
Ere I desist with all my power
To plague this woman and undo her.
Oh, we are unhappy, aren't we?
But my revenge will best be timed
When she is married that is limed.
In that most lamentable state 155
I'll make her feel my scorn and hate:
Pelt her with scandals, truth or lies,
And her poor cur with jealousies,
Till I have torn him from her breech,
While she whines like a dog-drawn bitch; 160
Loathed and despised, kicked out o' th' Town
Into some dirty hole alone,
To chew the cud of misery
And know she owes it all to me.
And may no woman better thrive
That dares profane the cunt I swive! 165
Well, you're not swiving it any longer, are you, dear boy? And that's why you're pissed. She gives it up to everybody but you.
---------------------------
I still think, though, that the Three-Jolly-Luck Takeaway lesson, here, is that it's reasonable to debauch if you want but not so much if you're just doing it to be one of the in-crowd. Kind of a level-headed thing to pull out of a poem about a foursome (Ever wonder if he set it that way so that it'd be one for each hole? I did.) in a park, some three hundred years ago.
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Date: 2008-01-22 08:32 pm (UTC)Or perhaps he was referring to Mother Nature. That seems, however, not to fit the rest of the poem. Not far enough into the gutter, as it were.