Page:The London Magazine, volume 9 (January–June 1824).djvu/16
Mr. Raymond, Mr. Pope, Mr. Egerton, and all the stall-fed gentlemen of the theatre, have invariably introduced their fatness in blue tin, to the great ruin of the ethereal, and "all that sort of thing." Ghosts should not weigh more than fifteen stone, we think, and then they may enter a room at any time.
Some of our modern versifiers might reap benefit, we think, from reading the following clever translation, which is at once light, simple, and fanciful, without owing any thing to the poor hard-used flowers, and dews, and roses of the every-day Muse. The translator is a stranger to us.
CUPID'S REVENGE.
Translated from Benedetto Menzini.[1]
Listen, ladies, listen;
Listen while I say,
How Cupid was in prison.
And peril t'other day:
All ye who jeer and scoff him
Will joy to hear it of him!
Some damsels, proad, delighted.
Had caught him unespied;
And, by their strength united,
His hands behina him tied:
His wings of down and feather
They twisted both together.
His bitter grief I'm fearful
Can never be express'd,
Not how his blue eyes tearful
Rain'd down his ivory breast.
To nought can I resemble
What I to think of tremble.
These fair but foul murdresses
Then stript his beamy wings,
And cropt his golden tresses
That flowed in wanton rings.
He could not choose but languish,
Whiile writhing in such anguish.
They to an oak-tree took him,
Its sinewy arms that spread.
And there they all forsook him,
To hang till he was dead.
Ah was not this inhaman?
Yet still 'twas done by woman!
This life were mere vexation,
Had love indeed been slain;
The soul of our creation!
The antidote of pain!
Air, sea, earth, sans his presence,
Would lose their chiefest pleasance.
But his immortal mother
His suffering chanc'd to see;
First this band, then the other,
She cut and set him free.
He vengeance vow'd, and kept it;
And thousands since have wept it.
For being no forgiver,
With gold and leaden darts
He fill'd his rattling quiver,
And pierc'd with gold the hearts
Of lovers young, who never
Could hope, yet lov'd for ever.
With leaden shaft, not forceless,
'Gainst happy lover's state
He aim'd with hand remorseless,
And turn'd their love to hate.
Their love long cherish'd, blasting
With hatred everlasting.
Ye fair ones, who so often
At Cupid's power have laugh'd,
Your scornful pride now soften,
Beware his vengeful shaft!
His quiver bright and bunish'd
With love or bate is furnish'd.
N. O. H. I.
- ↑ Born 1646. Died 1704. Vide his Works, Vol. iii. p. 74. Edit 1734.
Our Chesterfield Correspondent J. S. shall be attended to in our next Number.
The fate of the Stray Students—W. C. D—The Mercian Princess—The Devil Sick—On Sculpture, &c.—The Midwatch—The Present Times, &c. &c. may be learned at our War Office, if their friends are curious enough to inquire:—But we pursue the same course that other great Ruling Powers adopt, and do not gazette the dead privates.