CANTO I.]
HUDIBRAS.
295
Until they're hamper'd in the noose,
Too fast to dream of breaking loose:
When all the flaws they strove to hide 735
Are made unready with the bride,
That with her wedding-clothes undresses
Her complaisance and gentilesses;
Tries all her arts to take upon her
The government, from th' easy owner; 740
Until the wretch is glad to wave
His lawful right, and turn her slave;
Finds all his having and his holding
Reduc'd t' eternal noise and scolding;
The conjugal petard, that tears 745
Down all portcullices of ears,[1]
And makes the volley of one tongue
For all their leathern shields too strong;
When only arm'd with noise and nails,
The female silkworms ride the males,[2] 750
Transform 'em into rams and goats,
Like syrens, with their charming notes;[3]
Sweet as a screech-owl's serenade,
Or those enchanting murmurs made
By th' husband mandrake, and the wife, 755
Both buried, like themselves, alive.[4]
Quoth he, these reasons are but strains
Of wanton, over-heated brains,
Too fast to dream of breaking loose:
When all the flaws they strove to hide 735
Are made unready with the bride,
That with her wedding-clothes undresses
Her complaisance and gentilesses;
Tries all her arts to take upon her
The government, from th' easy owner; 740
Until the wretch is glad to wave
His lawful right, and turn her slave;
Finds all his having and his holding
Reduc'd t' eternal noise and scolding;
The conjugal petard, that tears 745
Down all portcullices of ears,[1]
And makes the volley of one tongue
For all their leathern shields too strong;
When only arm'd with noise and nails,
The female silkworms ride the males,[2] 750
Transform 'em into rams and goats,
Like syrens, with their charming notes;[3]
Sweet as a screech-owl's serenade,
Or those enchanting murmurs made
By th' husband mandrake, and the wife, 755
Both buried, like themselves, alive.[4]
Quoth he, these reasons are but strains
Of wanton, over-heated brains,
- ↑ The poet humorously compares the noise and clamour of a scolding wife, which breaks the drum of her husband's ears, to the petard, or short cannon, used for beating down the gates of a castle.
- ↑ This was one of the early beliefs respecting the silkworm. See Edward Williams' Virginia's richly valued, Lond. 1650, p. 26.
- ↑ The Sirens, according to the poets, were three sea-monsters, half women and half fish; their names were Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia. Their usual residence was about the island of Sicily, where, by the charming melody of their voices, they used to detain those that heard them, and then transformed them into some sort of brute animals.
- ↑ Ancient botanists entertained various conceits about this plant; in its forked roots they discovered the shapes of men and women; and the sound which proceeded from its strong fibres when strained or torn from the ground, they took for the voice of a human being; sometimes they imagined that they had distinctly heard their conversation. The poet takes the liberty of enlarging upon those hints, and represents the mandrake
distinctive sign by the gay ladies of the theatre. Afterwards the use of them became more general.
