In serious jest, and jesting seriousness, I strive to scourge polluting beastliness; I invocate no Delian deity, No sacred offspring of Mnemosyne; I pray in aid of no Castalian[545] muse, No nymph, no female angel, to infuse A sprightly wit to raise my flagging wings, And teach me tune these harsh discordant strings. I crave no sirens of our halcyon times, To grace the accents of my rough-hew'd rhymes; 10 But grim Reproof, stern hate of villainy, Inspire and guide a Satire's poesy. Fair Detestation of foul odious sin, In which our swinish times lie wallowing, Be thou my conduct and my genius, My wits-inciting sweet-breath'd Zephyrus. O that a Satire's hand had force to pluck Some floodgate up, to purge the world from muck! Would God I could turn Alpheus river in, To purge this Augean oxstall from foul sin! 20 Well, I will try; awake, Impurity, And view the veil drawn from thy villainy! [545] Ed. 1598 "Castalia." SATIRE VIII. _Inamorato, Curio._ Curio, aye me! thy mistress' monkey's dead; Alas, alas, her pleasure's burièd! Go, woman's slave, perform his exequies, Condole his death in mournful elegies. Tut, rather pæans sing, hermaphrodite; For that sad death gives life to thy delight. Sweet-faced Corinna, deign the riband tie Of thy cork-shoe, or else thy slave will die: Some puling sonnet tolls his passing bell, Some sighing elegy must ring his knell, 10 Unless bright sunshine of thy grace revive His wambling stomach, certes he will dive Into the whirlpool of devouring death, And to some mermaid sacrifice his breath. Then oh, oh then, to thy eternal shame, And to the honour of sweet Curio's name, This epitaph, upon the marble stone, Must fair be graved of that true-loving one: "Here lieth he, he lieth here, That bounced and pity cried: 20 The door not oped, fell sick, alas, Alas, fell sick and died!"