'Tis no stolen wedding this; rejecting awe, She scorns to marry, but in form of law: In this moot case, your judgment to refuse Is present death, besides the night you lose: If you consent, 'tis hardly worth your pain, A day or two of anxious life you gain; Till loud reports through all the town have past, And reach the prince--for cuckolds hear the last. Indulge thy pleasure, youth, and take thy swing, For not to take is but the self-same thing; Inevitable death before thee lies, But looks more kindly through a lady's eyes. What then remains? are we deprived of will; Must we not wish, for fear of wishing ill? Receive my counsel, and securely move;-- Intrust thy fortune to the powers above; Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant What their unerring wisdom sees thee want: In goodness, as in greatness, they excel; Ah, that we loved ourselves but half so well! We, blindly by our head-strong passions led, Are hot for action, and desire to wed; Then wish for heirs; but to the gods alone } Our future offspring, and our wives, are known; } The audacious strumpet, and ungracious son. } Yet, not to rob the priests of pious gain, That altars be not wholly built in vain, Forgive the gods the rest, and stand confined To health of body, and content of mind; A soul, that can securely death defy, And count it nature's privilege to die; Serene and manly, hardened to sustain The load of life, and exercised in pain; Guiltless of hate, and proof against desire, That all things weighs, and nothing can admire; That dares prefer the toils of Hercules, To dalliance, banquet, and ignoble ease. The path to peace is virtue: what I show, Thyself may freely on thyself bestow; Fortune was never worshipped by the wise, But, set aloft by fools, usurps the skies. FOOTNOTES: [142] Milo, of Crotona; who, for a trial of his strength, going to rend an oak, perished in the attempt; for his arms were caught in the trunk of it, and he was devoured by wild beasts. [143] Sejanus was Tiberius's first favourite; and, while he continued so, had the highest marks of honour bestowed on him. Statues and triumphal chariots were every where erected to him. But, as soon as he fell into disgrace with the emperor, these were all immediately dismounted; and the senate and common people insulted over him as meanly as they had fawned on him before. [144] The island of Caprea, which lies about a league out at sea from the Campanian shore, was the scene of Tiberius's pleasures in the latter part of his reign. There he lived, for some years, with diviners, soothsayers, and worse company; and from thence dispatched all his orders to the senate. [145] Julius Cæsar, who got the better of Pompey, that was styled, The Great.