Classic Poem

A HUNDRED thousand thanks I offered him
And promptly, like a pilgrim most devout,
Precipitate, but fervent and sincere,
After that sweet permission, made my way
Like loyal lover toward the loophole fair,
The end of all my pilgrimage to achieve.
With greatest effort I conveyed with me
My scrip and pilgrim staff so stiff and stout
That it no ferrule needed to assure
That it would hold the path and never slip.
The scrip was of a supple leather made
Most skillfully, without a single seam;
Nor was it empty. As it seemed to me,
Since none had opened it, Nature had placed
Most diligently, with the greatest care,
The hammers therewithin together laid.
When she had subtly manufactured it,
Excelling Daedalus in craftsmanship,
She lent the scrip to me. I think 'twas done
Because she thought that I might have to shoe
My palfreys when I felt their footsteps slip.
So should I do, if I but felt the need,
Most certainly; for, thanks be unto God!
I well know how to do such smithy work.
Truly I tell you that I better love
My scrip and hammers than my lute and harp.
When such equipment Nature furnished me,
Much was I honored; and I learned its use
Till I became a craftsman wise and good.
It was she, too, who furnished me my staff —
Another gift — and ere I went to school,
To polish it would have me set to work;
But for a ferrule she cared not a straw,
Nor valued less the staff for want of it.
Since I received it, I have always kept
The staff with me. I've never lost it yet;
Nor shall I lose it if I can prevent
Its loss; and not for fifty million pounds
Would I e'er part with it. Dame Nature made,
When she presented it, a lovely gift;
And therefore I must ever guard it well.
When I upon it gaze, I'm always glad
And thank her for the present. When I feel
Its sturdiness, I'm overjoyed and gay.
Much comfort has it given me many a time,
And well it's served me in full many a place,
Where I have put it. Know you how it serves?
When I am journeying and chance upon
A hidden place obscure, I thrust my staff
Into the ditches bottomless to sight,
Or test with it the depths of dubious fords.
Now I can boast that I've so well assayed
Such depths that I have often saved myself
From perishing therein. By springs and streams
I make my way in perfect confidence.
If e'er I find the bed too deep — the banks
Too steep — I much prefer to coast the flood
And make my way two leagues along the shore.
I suffer less fatigue than I should feel
In risking water that is perilous,
As I know well by sore experience;
Though in such waters I have ne'er been drowned.
Soon as I test the depths that I would ford
And find no bottom with my staff or oar,
I go around, and, keeping near the banks,
Find my way out, at least eventually.
To find an exit I could ne'er be sure
Had I not the equipment Nature gave.
Now let us leave these dangerous, slippery trails
To those who willingly would travel them,
And hold our way, not by the wagon roads
But by delightful footpaths, pretty lanes
Which lead the happy man to fond delights
There's more productive gain in trodden roads
Than in new-broken paths; and there men find
Fair properties that livings will provide.
It is by Juvenal himself affirmed
That one who'd quickly come to great estate
Can find no shorter road — no better way —
Than to invest in some old, moneyed dame;
For if she finds his service to her taste
She soon will raise him to a high degree.
Ovid repeats a maxim proved and true
That whoso will a wealthy widow take
Soonest attains the greatest recompense.
Great riches are acquired most rapidly
By sending goods to market by such roads.
But he who'd steal an older woman's love,
Or even purchase it most lawfully
When Cupid catches him within his net,
Should take good care that naught he says or does
Resembles subterfuge or trickery;
For tough old pallid dames, who've left their youth,
Having of yore been flattered, duped, and tricked,
When they're deceived again, more readily
Perceive the subtlety of flatterers
Than do the tender maids who doubt no ruse
When they give ear to their deceivers' talk
And think all guileful lies the gospel truth,
Since they have not been scorched. But wrinkled dames,
Malicious and hard baked, are in the art
Of fraud so well instructed that they know
The science well by old experience.
When they are thus approached by flatterers
Who hope to capture them with fairy tales,
And play upon their ears, and labor long
To gain their grace by humbleness and sighs
And begging mercy with hands joined in prayer,
With bowed heads kneeling, weeping lavish tears,
And torturing themselves that they may gain
Better belief, making feigned promises
Of heart and body, services and wealth,
Calling to witness all the holy saints
That are, have been, or ever more shall be,
And thus with windy words attempt deceit
As does the fowler hidden in the woods,
Who with his whistled notes decoys the birds
To come within the nets where they'll be caught,
And is abroached by all the foolish fowl
Who don't know how to meet his sophistries
But are deceived as by a metaphor,
As are the silly quail who hear the sound
The fowler makes to win them to his trap
And hover round, and then beneath the net,
Which he has stretched upon the springtime grass
So thick and fresh, they flutter and are lost,
Unless some older quail refuse the snare
Because she has been singed and almost caught,
Having seen other netting likewise spread,
From which she has escaped by miracle —
So older women who have once been lured,
And by their suitors tricked by flatteries,
Hearing the words that they have heard before
And seeing the attitudes that they have seen,
The more they've been deceived, the more they're sly
To recognize, far off, the trick again.
If suitors seriously make their vows
To gain their just deserts from Cupid's game,
Like those in fact entangled in the net,
Whose torture is so pleasant, and whose toil
Is so delightful that there's nothing else
Half so agreeable to them as hope
Which grieves them more than it encourages,
Then do they fear to swallow hook with bait,
And listen close and try to figure out
Whether it's truth or fable they are told.
They weigh each word, so much they fear deceit
Because they have experienced it before
And of it have a lively memory.
All try to please her, thinks each aged dame.
You, if you wish, may turn your hearts to these,
The sooner to enrich yourselves; or you
Who study your delight, and pleasure find
In them, may jog along such well-worn roads
As will provide most solace and most joy.
You others who prefer the younger girls
(That you may never be by me deceived,
Whate'er my masters may command — and good
Are all behests that they have given me)
Again I tell you for the very truth —
Believe it he who will — that one does well
To try them all that he may better know
How to regale himself with what is best.
'Tis thus that gourmands do who of all food
Are connoisseurs, and many viands taste —
Roasted, and boiled, and fried, in gelatin,
In batter, or in souse — when they inspect
Their kitchens, and know well what should be praised
Or blamed, and what should be or sweet or sour;
For many a time they've tasted all the foods.
Know well, and have no doubt of it, that he
Who never tastes the bad can hardly know
How good things ought to taste; who knows not shame
Will scarcely recognize what honor means;
Who learns not first what real discomfort is
Will scarcely know what things are comfortable;
And he who's never suffered any pain
Will scarcely realize when he's at ease.
No one should offer solace to a man
Who has not learned its worth through suffering.
'Tis thus with all such opposites: the one
Explains the other. He who would define
A thing must have in mind its opposite
Or else no definition can he frame;
For he who knows not both cannot conceive
The difference between them. This unknown,
No proper definition can there be
The sacred relics of the ivory tower
I hoped to touch with all my equipage
If I so close approach might win for it
And get it through the little opening.
So after all my wanderings and toil —
Like pilgrim agile still and vigorous —
I knelt at last, and without more delay,
Between the two fair pillars I've described,
With staff unshod; for very fain was I,
With heart devout and full of piety,
To worship in that sanctuary sweet,
Which to be highly honored well deserved
Though now it lay flat fallen on the ground.
None of the structure had escaped the fire
Which toppled down all that was not destroyed.
A little then I pushed aside the shroud
That curtained the fair relics, and approached
The image that I knew was close within.
Devotedly I kissed the sacred place.
Safely to sheathe my staff within the shrine,
I thrust it through the loophole, while the scrip
Dangled behind it. Carefully I tried
To thrust it in; it bounded back again
Once more I thrust it in without avail;
Always it back recoiled. Try as I might,
Nothing could force the staff to enter there.
Then I perceived a little barricade,
Which though I well could feel I could not see,
Quite near the border of the opening,
Which from the inside fortified the shrine,
Having been placed there when it first was made,
And still remaining fast and quite secure.
More vigorously then I made assault;
But often as I thrust, so oft I failed.
If you had seen me there thus tourneying,
You would have been much taken with the sight
And would have thought of Hercules the Great
And, to dismember Cacus, how he strove.
Three times he assailed the gate, and thrice he failed;
Three times he struck, and thrice, exhausted, fell;
Three times he sat, hard-breathing, in the glen,
Such labor and such pain he had endured.
So I, when I had struggled there so long
That I perspired in very agony
Because the palisade would not give way,
Was just as tired, I think, as Hercules,
Or even more However, at the last,
My battery availed to this extent
That I perceived a narrow passageway
By which I thought to gain admission there,
Though I must quite destroy the palisade.
Pushing within this little, narrow path
By which I entrance sought, as I have said,
I broke down the obstruction with my staff.
Then through the passageway that I had made,
Though 'twas too narrow and too small for me,
I got inside — or, rather, half inside.
Sorely I grieved no farther to get in,
But could not do what was beyond my power,
Though not for anything would I relax
My efforts till the staff was quite inside
At last I got it in, but still the scrip
Remained outside, its hammers knocking there
For entrance; and so narrow was the path
That therein I was placed in great distress.
The passage would have been by far too small
For me to traverse it, and well I knew
By this that none had ever passed that way.
I was the first of men to tread that road;
The place was not accustomed to receive
The tributes pilgrims well might bring to it.
I know not whether it has offered since
Of its advantages to more than me;
But I assure you, even if it had,
I love it so that I would not believe
The truth, for no one readily mistrusts
That which he loves, no matter how defamed.
I'd be the last to credit evil tales.
However, at the least, I know that then
It never had been pierced or battered down.
I myself entered there because I ne'er
Without such entrance could have plucked the bud.
Imagine how I acted when I found
That quite at my disposal was my Rose!
Listen while I describe the deed itself,
So if you, too, should have a chance to go,
When spring's sweet season shall have come again,
To pluck a full-blown flower or tight-closed bud,
You then so wisely may conduct yourself
That you may never fail to gain your end.
Unless a better method you have learned,
Employ that one you hear me now explain.
If you can make the passage more at ease,
Or better, or with greater subtlety,
And not too much exert or tire yourself,
Use your own system when you've heard my plan.
At least this much advantage you will have,
That I will teach you, without asking pay,
My method. Listen to me, therefore, willingly.