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Title: The Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod
Author: Jonathan Swift [
More Titles by Swift]
The Virtues of Sid Hamet[1] the Magician's Rod. 1710[2]
The rod was but a harmless wand,
While Moses held it in his hand;
But, soon as e'er he laid it down,
Twas a devouring serpent grown.
Our great magician, Hamet Sid,
Reverses what the prophet did:
His rod was honest English wood,
That senseless in a corner stood,
Till metamorphos'd by his grasp,
It grew an all-devouring asp;
Would hiss, and sting, and roll, and twist.
By the mere virtue of his fist:
But, when he laid it down, as quick
Resum'd the figure of a stick.
So, to her midnight feasts, the hag
Rides on a broomstick for a nag,
That, rais'd by magic of her breech,
O'er sea and land conveys the witch;
But with the morning dawn resumes
The peaceful state of common brooms.
They tell us something strange and odd,
About a certain magic rod,[3]
That, bending down its top, divines
Whene'er the soil has golden mines;
Where there are none, it stands erect,
Scorning to show the least respect:
As ready was the wand of Sid
To bend where golden mines were hid:
In Scottish hills found precious ore,[4]
Where none e'er look'd for it before;
And by a gentle bow divine
How well a cully's purse was lined;
To a forlorn and broken rake,
Stood without motion like a stake.
The rod of Hermes [5] was renown'd
For charms above and under ground;
To sleep could mortal eyelids fix,
And drive departed souls to Styx.
That rod was a just type of Sid's,
Which o'er a British senate's lids
Could scatter opium full as well,
And drive as many souls to hell.
Sid's rod was slender, white, and tall,
Which oft he used to fish withal;
A PLACE was fasten'd to the hook,
And many score of _gudgeons_ took;
Yet still so happy was his fate,
He caught his fish and sav'd his bait.
Sid's brethren of the conj'ring tribe,
A circle with their rod describe,
Which proves a magical redoubt,
To keep mischievous spirits out.
Sid's rod was of a larger stride,
And made a circle thrice as wide,
Where spirits throng'd with hideous din,
And he stood there to take them in;
But when th'enchanted rod was broke,
They vanish'd in a stinking smoke.
Achilles' sceptre was of wood,
Like Sid's, but nothing near so good;
Though down from ancestors divine
Transmitted to the heroes line;
Thence, thro' a long descent of kings,
Came an HEIRLOOM,[6] as Homer sings.
Though this description looks so big,
That sceptre was a sapless twig,
Which, from the fatal day, when first
It left the forest where 'twas nurs'd,
As Homer tells us o'er and o'er,
Nor leaf, nor fruit, nor blossom bore.
Sid's sceptre, full of juice, did shoot
In golden boughs, and golden fruit;
And he, the dragon never sleeping,
Guarded each fair Hesperian Pippin.
No hobby-horse, with gorgeous top,
The dearest in Charles Mather's[7] shop,
Or glittering tinsel of May Fair,
Could with this rod of Sid compare.[8]
Dear Sid, then why wert thou so mad
To break thy rod like naughty lad?[9]
You should have kiss'd it in your distress,
And then return'd it to your mistress;
Or made it a Newmarket switch,[10]
And not a rod for thine own breech.
But since old Sid has broken this,
His next may be a rod in piss.
[Footnote 1: Cid Hamet Ben Eng'li, the supposed inspirer of Cervantes. See "Don Quixote," last chapter.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 2: When Swift came to London, in 1710, about the time the ministry was changed, his reception from Lord Treasurer Godolphin was, as he wrote to Archbishop King, 9th Sept., "altogether different from what he ever received from any great man in his life, altogether short, dry, and morose." To Stella he writes that this coldness had "enraged him so that he was almost vowing revenge." On the Treasurer's enforced retirement, Swift's resentment took effect in the above "lampoon" which was read at Harley's, on the 15th October, 1710, and "ran prodigiously," but was not then "suspected for Swift's." See Journal to Stella, Sept. 9 and Oct. 15.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 3: The _virgula divina_, said to be attracted by minerals.--_Swift_.]
[Footnote 4: Supposed to allude to the Union.--_Swift_.]
[Footnote 5: Mercury's Caduceus, by which he could settle all disputes and differences.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 6: Godolphin's favour arose from his connexion with the family of Marlborough by the marriage of his son to the Duke's daughter, Henrietta Churchill.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 7: An eminent toyman in Fleet Street.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 8: The allusion is to Godolphin's name, Sidney, and to his staff of office.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 9: A letter was sent him by the groom of the Queen's stables to desire he would break his staff, which would be the easiest way both to her Majesty and him. Mr. Smith, Chancellor of the Exchequer, happening to come in a little after, my lord broke his staff, and flung the pieces in the chimney, desiring Mr. Smith to witness that he had obeyed the Queen's commands. Swift to Archbishop King, Sept. 9, 1710.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 10: Lord Godolphin is satirized by Pope for a strong attachment to the turf. See his "Moral Essays," Epist. I, 81-5.
"Who would not praise Patritio's high desert,
His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,"
"He thanks you not, his pride is in piquet,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet."]
-THE END-
Jonathan Swift's Poem: the Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod
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