Page:Hudibras - Volume 2 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/111

You strove t' oblige him, by main force,
To scourge his ribs instead of yours;
But that he stood upon his guard, 475
And all your vapouring outdar'd;
For which, between you both, the feat
Has never been perform'd as yet.
 While thus the lady talk'd, the Knight
Turn'd th' outside of his eyes to white; 480
As men of Inward Light are wont
To turn their optics in upon 't;^[1]
He wonder'd how she came to know
What he had done, and meant to do;
Held up his affidavit hand,^[2] 485
As if he 'd been to be arraign'd;
Cast tow'rds the door a ghastly look,
In dread of Sidrophel, and spoke:
 Madam, if but one word be true
Of all the wizard has told you, 490
Or but one single circumstance
In all th' apocryphal romance;
May dreadful earthquakes swallow down
This vessel, that is all your own;^[3]
Or may the heavens fall, and cover 495
These relics of your constant lover.^[4]
 You have provided well, quoth she,
I thank you, for yourself and me,

1. The Dissenters are ridiculed for an affected sanctity, and turning up the whites of their eyes, which Echard calls "showing the heavenly part of the eye." Thus Ben Jonson in his story of Cocklossel and the Devil,
   To help it he called for a puritan poacht
   That used to turn up the eggs of his eyes.
   
   
   And Fenton (in his Epistle to Southerne):
   Her eyes she disciplin'd percisely right,
   Both when to wink, and how to turn the white.
   
   
   See also Tale of a Tub, p. 207.
2. When any one takes an oath, he puts his right hand to the book, that is, to the New Testament, and kisses it; but the Covenanters, in swearing, refused to kiss the book, saying it was Popish and superstitious; and substituted the ceremony of holding up the right hand, which they used also in taking any oath before the magistrate.
3. This is an equivocation; the "vessel" is evidently not the abject suitor, but the lady herself.
4. The Knight still means the widow, but speaks as if he meant himself.