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(Translated by John Nott, 1775)
PASSENGER HAIL, 1 door, to husband and to father dear! | |
| And may Jove make thee his peculiar care! | |
| Thou who, when Balbus liv’d, if fame say true, | |
| Wast wont a thousand sorry things to do; | |
| And, when they carried forth the good old man, | 5 |
| For the new bride who didst them o’er again; | |
| Say, how have people this strange notion got, | |
| As if thy former faith thou hadst forgot? | |
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DOOR So may Cæcilius help me, whom I now | |
| Must own my master, as I truly vow!— | 10 |
| Be the offences talk’d of great or small; | |
| Still I am free, and ignorant of all: | |
| I boldly dare the worst that can be said; | |
| And yet, what charges to my fault are laid! | |
| No deed so infamous, but straight they cry, | 15 |
| “Fie, wicked door! this is your doing, fie!” | |
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PASSENGER This downright, bold assertion ne’er will do; | |
| You must speak plainer, and convince us too. | |
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DOOR I would;—but how, when no one wants to know? | |
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PASSENGER I want;—collect your facts, and tell them now. | 20 |
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DOOR First, then, I will deny, for so ’tis thought, | |
| That a young virgin to my charge was brought; | |
| Not that her husband, with ungovern’d flame, | |
| Had stol’n, in hasty joy, that sacred name; | |
| So vile his manhood, and so cold his blood, | 25 |
| Poor, languid tool! he could not, if he wou’d: | |
| But his own father, ’tis expressly said, | |
| Had stain’d the honours of his nuptial bed; | |
| Whether, because, to virtue’s image blind, | |
| Thick clouds of lust had darken’d all his mind; | 30 |
| Or, conscious of his son’s unfruitful seed, | |
| He thought some abler man should do the deed. | |
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PASSENGER A pious deed, in truth; and nobly done— | |
| A father makes a cuckold of his son! | |
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DOOR Nor was this all that conscious Brixia knew; | 35 |
| Sweet mother of the country where I grew | |
| In earliest youth! who, from Chinæa’s height, | |
| Sees boundless landscapes burst upon the sight; | |
| Brixia! whose sides the yellow Mela laves | |
| With the calm current of its gentle waves: | 40 |
| She also knows what bliss Posthumius prov’d; | |
| And how, in triumph, gay Cornelius lov’d; | |
| With both of whom, so wanton was the fair, | |
| She did not blush her choicest gifts to share. | |
| “But how,” you’ll ask, “could you, a senseless door, | 45 |
| These secrets, and these mysteries explore; | |
| Who never from your master’s threshold stirr’d, | |
| Nor what the people talk’d of ever heard; | |
| Content upon your hinges to remain, | |
| To ope, and shut, and then to ope again.”— | 50 |
| Learn, that full oft I’ve heard the whisp’ring fair, | |
| Who ne’er suspected I had tongue, or ear, | |
| To her own slaves her shameful actions tell, | |
| And speak the very names I now reveal. | |
| One more she mention’d, whom I will not speak, | 55 |
| Lest warm displeasure flush his angry cheek: | |
| Thus far I’ll tell thee; he’s an awkward brute, | |
| Whose spurious birth once caused no small dispute. | |
