CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
327
That first run all religion down,
And after ev'ry swarm, its own:
For as the Persian Magi once[1]
Upon their mothers got their sons,
That were incapable t' enjoy 15
That empire any other way;[2]
So presbyter begot the other[3]
Upon the Good Old Cause, his mother,
That bore them like the devil's dam,[4]
Whose son and husband are the same; 20
And yet no nat'ral tie of blood,
Nor int'rest for their common good,
Could, when their profits interfer'd,
Get quarter for each other's beard:[5]
For when they thriv'd they never fadg'd,[6] 25
But only by the ears engag'd;
And after ev'ry swarm, its own:
For as the Persian Magi once[1]
Upon their mothers got their sons,
That were incapable t' enjoy 15
That empire any other way;[2]
So presbyter begot the other[3]
Upon the Good Old Cause, his mother,
That bore them like the devil's dam,[4]
Whose son and husband are the same; 20
And yet no nat'ral tie of blood,
Nor int'rest for their common good,
Could, when their profits interfer'd,
Get quarter for each other's beard:[5]
For when they thriv'd they never fadg'd,[6] 25
But only by the ears engag'd;
- ↑ It was about 521 years before Christ, that they first had the name of Magians, which signifies crop-eared; it was given them by way of nickname and contempt, because of the impostor (Smerdis) who was then cropt. Prideaux's Connection. Hence, perhaps, might come the proverb, "Who made you a conjurer and did not crop your ears."
- ↑ The poet cannot mean the Persian empire, which was only in the hands of the Magi for a few months, but the presidency of the Magi. Zoroaster, the first institutor of the sect, allowed of incestuous marriages to preserve the line without intermixture. He maintained the doctrine of a good and bad principle; the former was worshipped under the emblem of fire, which they kept constantly burning.
- ↑ The Presbyterians first broke down the pale of order and discipline, and so made way for the Independents and every other sect.
- ↑ This is not the first time we have heard of the devil's mother. In Wolfii Memorabilia, is a quotation from Erasmus: "If you are the devil, I am his mother." And in the Agamemnon of Æschylus, Cassandra, after loading Clytemnestra with every opprobrious name she can think of, calls her "mother of the devil." Larcher, the editor of the French Hudibras, remarks in a note, that this passage alludes to the description of Sin and Death in the second book of Milton's Paradise Lost.
- ↑ When the Presbyterians prevailed, Calamy, being asked what he would do with the Anabaptists, Antinomians, and others, replied, that he would not meddle with their consciences, but only with their bodies and estates.
- ↑ That is, never agreed or united, from gefegen, Sax. See Wright's Provincial Dictionary.
to have printed ye instead of we in several editions, and particularly in his beautiful folio edition of 1659, as well as his octavo of 1661; and, according to Grey, he was "the first printer of the forgery, and received £1500 for it." But this error had previously occurred in the Bible printed at Cambridge by Buck and Daniel, 1638. See Lowndes' Bibliographical Manual, by Bohn, page 187.
