For as he view'd his person round,
Mere mortal flesh was all he found :
His hand, his neck, his mouth, and feet
Were duly wash'd to keep them sweet
(With other parts that shall be nameless,
The ladies elfe might think me shameless).
The weather and his love were hot;
And should he struggle I know what
Why let it go, if I must tell it-
He'll sweat, and then the nymph may
smell it.
While she, a goddess dy'd in grain,
Was unsusceptible of stain ;
And, Venus-like, her fragrant skin
Exhal'd ambrosia from within.
Can such a deity endure
A mortal human touch impure?
How did the humbled fwain deteft
His prickly beard, and hairy breast !
His night-cap border'd round with lace
Could give no softness to his face.
Yet if the goddess could be kind, What endless raptures must he find! And goddesses have now and then Come down to visit mortal men: Vol. VII. P
To
To visit and to court them too :
A certain goddess, God knows who
(As in a book he heard it read),
Took col'nel Peleus to her bed.
But what if he should lose his life
By yent’ring on his heavenly wife?
For Strephon could remember well,
That once he heard a school-boy tell,
How Semele of mortal race
Ry thunder died in Jove's embrace :
And what if daring Strephon dies
By lightning shot from Chloe's eyes ?
While these reflexions fill'd his head, The bride was put in form to bed : He follow'd, stript, and in he crept, But awfully his distance kept.
Now ponder well, ye parents dear; Forbid your daughters guzzling beer; And make them
every
afternoon Forbear their tea, or drink it soon': That ere to bed they venture up, They may discharge it ev'ry sup: If not, they must in evil plight Be often forc'd to rise at night. Keep them to wholesome food confin'd, Nor let them tafte what causes wind
('Tis
('Tis this* the fage of Samos means,
Forbidding his disciples beans).
O! think what evils must ensue ;
Miss Moll the jade will burn it blue :
And when she once has got the art,
She cannot help it for her heart;
But out it Aies, ev’n when she meets
Her bridegroom in the wedding-sheets.
+ Carminative and I diuretic
Will damp all passion sympathetic :
And love such nicety requires,
One blast will put out all his fires.
Since husbands get behind the scene,
The wife should study to be clean ;
Nor give the smallest room to guess
The time when wants of nature press ;
But after marriage practise more
Decorum than she did before ;
To keep her spouse deluded still,
And make him fancy what she will.
In bed we left the married pair : 'Tis time to shew how things went there,
A well known precept of tain some allegorical meaning Pythagoras, not to eat beans; + Medicines to break wind. which has beenvariously inter- I Medicines to provoke preted, and is supposed to con- urine.
Strephon, who had been often told
That Fortune ftill assists the bold,
Resolv'd to make the first attack;
But Chloe drove him fiercely back.
How could a nymph so chalte as Chloe,
With conftitution cold and snowy,
Permit a brutish man to touch her?
Ev’n lambs by instinct Aly the butcher,
Resistance on the wedding-night
Is what our maidens claim by right:
And Chloe 'tis by all agreed,
Was maid in thought, and word, and deed.
Yet some assign a different reason;
That Strephon chose no proper
season.
Say, fair ones, must I make a pause,
Or freely tell the secret cause ?
Twelve cups of tea (with grief I speak)
Had now constrain’d the nymph to leak.
This point must needs be settled first :
The bride must either void or burst.
Then see the dire effect of pease,
Think what can give the colick ease.
The nymph opprest before, behind,
As ships are toss’d by waves and wind,
Steals out her hand, by nature led,
And brings a vesel into bed : :
Fair utenfil, as smooth and white
As Chloe's skin, almost as bright.
Strephon, who heard the fuming rill
As from a mossy cliff distil,
Cry'd out, Ye Gods! what found is this?
Can Chloe, heavenly Chloe, —?
But when he smelt a noisome steam,
Which oft attends that luke-warm stream
(Salerno both together joins
As fov’reign med'cines for the loins) ;
And though contrivd, we may suppose,
To flip his ears, yet struck his nose:
He found her while the scent increas'd
As mortal as himself at least.
But soon with like occasions prest,
He boldly sent his hand in quest
(Inspir’d with courage from his bride)
To reach the pot on t'other fide :
And, as he fillid the reeking vase,
Let fly a rouser in her face,
The little Cupids hovering round (As pictures prove), with garlands crown'd,
Vide Schol. Salern. Rules of health, written by the school of Salernum.
Mingere cum bumbis. res eft faluberrima lumbis.
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