Vulgar words in The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 2 - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes (Page 1)
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 454 ~ ~ ~
50 These Dutch delights I mention'd last Suit not, I know, your English taste: For wine to leave a whore or play Was ne'er your Excellency's way.
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Nor was thy labour'd drama damn'd or hiss'd, 20 But with a kind civility dismiss'd; With such good manners, as the Wife[17] did use, Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.
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All torments of the damn'd we find In only thee, O Jealousy!
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All that are writing now he would disown, But then he must except--even all the town; All choleric, losing gamesters, who, in spite, Will damn to-day, because they lost last night; All servants, whom their mistress' scorn upbraids; All maudlin lovers, and all slighted maids; All who are out of humour, all severe; All that want wit, or hope to find it here.
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As for the coffee wits, he says not much; Their proper business is to damn the Dutch: 20 For the great dons of wit-- Phoebus gives them full privilege alone, To damn all others, and cry up their own.
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Fools, which each man meets in his dish each day, Are yet the great regalios of a play; In which to poets you but just appear, To prize that highest, which cost them so dear: Fops in the town more easily will pass; One story makes a statutable ass: But such in plays must be much thicker sown, Like yolks of eggs, a dozen beat to one.
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Then damn not, but indulge his rude essays; Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise, That he may get more bulk before he dies: He's not yet fed enough for sacrifice.
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Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass; But there goes more to a substantial ass: Something of man must be exposed to view, That, gallants, they may more resemble you.
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Next summer, Nostradamus tells, they say, That all the critics shall be shipp'd away, And not enow be left to damn a play.
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Now, should it fail (as Heaven avert our fear), Damn it in silence, lest the world should hear.
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If, notwithstanding all that we can say, You needs will have your penn'orths of the play, And come resolved to damn, because you pay, Record it, in memorial of the fact, The first play buried since the woollen act.
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When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth, You can but damn for one poor spot of earth: And when your children find your judgment such, They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch; Each haughty poet will infer, with ease, How much his wit must underwrite to please.
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That fumbling lecher to revenge is bent, Because he thinks himself or whore is meant: Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms; From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms: 10 Were there no fear of Antichrist, or France, In the bless'd time poor poets live by chance.
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20 No zealous brother there would want a stone To maul us cardinals, and pelt Pope Joan: Religion, learning, wit, would be suppress'd-- Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast: Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down, As chief supporters of the triple crown; And Aristotle's for destruction ripe; Some say he call'd the soul an organ-pipe, Which by some little help of derivation, Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.
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Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor, Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore; Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents Of the three last ungiving parliaments: So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine, He might have spared his dream of seven lean kine, 10 And changed his vision for the Muses Nine.
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POETS, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage, Till critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd our age.
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The punk of Babylon in pomp appears, A lewd old gentleman of seventy years: Whose age in vain our mercy would implore; 30 For few take pity on an old cast whore.
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But after he's once saved, to make amends, In each succeeding health they damn his friends: So God begins, but still the Devil ends.
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8 When men will, needlessly, their freedom barter For lawless power, sometimes they catch a Tartar; There's a damn'd word that rhymes to this call'd Charter.
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You'll say, I play the pimp, on my friend's score; But since 'tis for a friend your gibes give o'er: For many a mother has done that before.
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Yet it were modest, could it but be said, They strip the living, but these rob the dead; Dare with the mummies of the Muses play, And make love to them the Egyptian way; 30 Or, as a rhyming author would have said, Join the dead living to the living dead.
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Smile on our author then, if he has shown A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
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But for the pit confounders, let 'em go, And find as little mercy as they show: The Actors thus, and thus thy Poets pray; For every critic saved, thou damn'st a play.
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The Poet has one disadvantage more, That if his play be dull, he's damn'd all o'er, Not only a damn'd blockhead, but damn'd poor.
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Yet worse, their brother poets damn the play, And roar the loudest, though they never pay.
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We know not by what name we should arraign him, For no one category can contain him; A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack, Are load enough to break one ass's back: 50 At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write, Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite; One made the doctor, and one dubb'd the knight.
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10 The poets, who must live by courts, or starve, Were proud so good a government to serve: And, mixing with buffoons and pimps profane, Tainted the stage, for some small snip of gain.
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To live uprightly, then, is sure the best, 850 To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest.
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I should be loath to lay you on a bier; And though there lives no pothecary near, I dare for once prescribe for your disease, And save long bills, and a damn'd doctor's fees.
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Yet (lest surprised, unknowing what to say, 100 Thou damn thyself) we give thee farther day: A year is thine to wander at thy will, And learn from others, if thou want'st the skill.
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Midas the king, as in his book appears, By Phoebus was endow'd with ass's ears, Which under his long locks he well conceal'd, (As monarchs' vices must not be reveal'd) 160 For fear the people have them in the wind, Who long ago were neither dumb nor blind: Nor apt to think from Heaven their title springs, Since Jove and Mars left off begetting kings.
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Beneath his locks the king, my husband wears A goodly royal pair of ass's ears: Now I have eased my bosom of the pain, Till the next longing fit return again.
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If you tralineate from your father's mind, What are you else but of a bastard kind?