CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
389
For, as the Egyptians us'd by beesT'express their antique Ptolemies,And by their stings, the swords they wore,[1]Held forth authority and pow'r; 1590Because these subtle animalsBear all their int'rests in their tails;And when they're once impair'd in that,Are banish'd their well-order'd state:They thought all governments were best 1595By hieroglyphic Rumps exprest.For as in bodies natural,The Rump's the fundament of all;So, in a commonwealth or realm,The government is called the helm; 1600With which, like vessels under sail,They're turn'd and winded by the tail.The tail, which birds and fishes steerTheir courses with, thro' sea and air;To whom the rudder of the rump is 1605The same thing with the stern and compass,This shows, how perfectly the rumpAnd commonwealth in nature jump.For as a fly that goes to bed,Rests with his tail above his head,[2] 1610So, in this mongrel state of ours,The rabble are the supreme powers,That hors'd us on their backs, to show usA jadish trick at last, and throw us.The learned Rabbins of the Jews 1615Write, there's a bone, which they call luez,[3]
- ↑ The Egyptians anciently represented their kings under the emblem of a bee, which has the power of dispensing benefits and inflicting punishments by its honey and its sting; though the poet dwells most on the energy which it bears in its tail: so the citizens of London significantly represented this fag-end of a Parliament by the rumps, or tail-parts, of sheep and other animals. Some late editions read, ancient Ptolemies. See Butler's Remains, "A speech in the Rota."
- ↑ Alluding to the position flies take up, on walls.
- ↑ Eben Ezra, and Manasseh Ben Israel, taught that there is a bone in the rump of a man (that is, in the lower end of the back-bone) of the size
Egypt; one of them is called Œdipus Egyptiacus, for which he says he studied the Egyptian mysteries twenty years. The Copts were the primitive Christians of Egypt.
