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starlings, magpies,' parrots and jack-daws, those things he would have taught the Belly. Beware of dealing with the Belly, the Belly will not be talk'd to, especially when he is full; then there is no venturing upon Venter, he will blow you all up, he will thunder indeed la! Some in derision call him the father of farts; but I say he was the first inventor of great ordnance, and taught us to discharge them on festival days, would we had a fit feast for him, i' faith, to shew his activity; I would have something now fetched in to please his five senses, the throat; or the two senses, the eyes: pardon me for my two senses; for I that carry Hercules's bowl in the service, may see double by my place; for I have drunk like a frog to-day: I would have a tun now brought in to dance, and so many bottles about him. Ha! you look as if you would make a problem of this; do you see, do you see? a problem: Why bottles, and why a tun? and why a tun, and why bottles, to dance? I I say, that men that drink hard, and serve the Belly in any place of quality, (as the jovial tinkers, or the lusty kindred,) are living measures of drink, and can transform themselves, and do every day, to bottles or tuns, when they please: and when they have done all they can, they are as I say again (for I think I said somewhat like it afore) but moving measures of drink, and there is a piece in the cellar can hold more than all they. This will I make good, if it please our new god but to give a nod, for the Belly does all by signs; and I am all for the belly, the truest clock in the world to go by.

1 And now is he fain to get his living with teaching of starlings, magpies, &c.] An allusion to Persius, in the prologue to his satires:

Quis expedivit psittaco suum xaipe?

Picasque docuit nostra verba conari?
Magister artis, ingenique largitor

Venter, negatas artifex sequi voces. WHAL.

Here the first Antimasque, danced by men in the shape of bottles, tuns, &c.

Enter HERCULES.

Her. What rites are these? breeds earth more

monsters yet?

Antæus scarce is cold: what can beget

This store? and, stay!-such contraries upon her! Is earth so fruitful of her own dishonour?

Or 'cause his vice was inhumanity,

Hopes she by vicious hospitality

To work an expiation first? and, then,

(Help virtue,) these are sponges and not men;
Bottles; mere vessels; half a ton of paunch!
How? and the other half thrust forth in haunch!
Whose feast? the Belly's? Comus! and my cup
Brought in to fill the drunken orgies up,
And here abus'd; that was the crown'd reward
Of thirsty heroes, after labour hard !2

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Of thirsty heroes, after labour hard.] We have had an allusion to this bowl of Hercules, the scyphus Herculeus of the ancients, in the account of the scenery. Hercules is said to have sailed over the sea in a large cup or goblet, and thence a bowl of a particular make and fashion became appropriated to him. Let us hear what Macrobius offers on this subject: Herculem vero fictores veteres non sine causâ cum poculo fecerunt, et nonnunquam casabundum et ebrium : non solum quod is heros bibax fuisse perhibetur, sed etiam quod antiqua historia est Herculem poculo tanquam navigio ventis immensa maria transisse. He adds, afterwards, it was much more probable that he passed the ocean, not in a bowl, or scyphus, but in a vessel which bore that name. Ego tamen arbitror non poculo Herculem maria transvectum, sed navigio cui Scypho nomen fuit. Saturnal. lib. v. cap. 21.

It became the custom for succeeding heroes to drink in honour of Hercules out of a cup of the same form which he himself was supposed to have used. Thus Curtius, relating the manner in

Burdens and shames of nature, perish, die!
For yet you never liv'd, but in the sty

Of vice have wallow'd, and, in that swine's strife,
Been buried under the offence of life:

Go reel and fall under the load you make,

Till your swollen bowels burst with what you take.
Can this be pleasure, to extinguish man,
Or so quite change him in his figure? can
The Belly love his pain, and be content
With no delight but what's a punishment?
These monsters plague themselves, and fitly too,
For they do suffer what, and all they do.
But here must be no shelter, nor no shrowd
For such Sink, grove, or vanish into cloud!

At this the Grove and Antimasque vanished, and the whole Music was discovered, sitting at the foot of the mountain, with PLEASURE and VIRTUE seated above them.

Cho. Great friend and servant of the good,
Let cool a while thy heated blood,
And from thy mighty labour cease.
Lie down, lie down,

And give thy troubled spirits peace:
Whilst Virtue, for whose sake
Thou dost this godlike travail take
May of the choicest herbage make,
Here on this mountain bred,
A crown, a crown

For thy immortal head.

which Alexander was seized at his physician's banquet, represents him with this bowl of Hercules in his hand: Ibi, nondum Herculis scypho epoto, repente velut telo confixus ingemuit. Q. Curt. lib. x. сар. 4. WHAL.

Here HERCULES lay down at their feet, and the second Antimasque, which was of Pigmies, appeared.

1 Pig. Antæus dead, and Hercules yet live! Where is this Hercules? what would I give To meet him now ? meet him! nay, three such other, If they had hand in murder of our brother? With three! with four, with ten, nay, with as many As the name yields ? pray anger, there be any Whereon to feed my just revenge, and soon! How shall I kill him? hurl him 'gainst the moon, And break him in small portions! give to Greece His brain, and every tract of earth a piece! 2 Pig. He's yonder.

I Pig. Where?

3 Pig. At the hill-foot asleep. Pig. Let one go steal his club.

2 Pig. My charge;

4 Pig. He's ours!

i Pig. Yes, peace.

I'll creep.

3 Pig. Triumph! we have him, boy. 4 Pig. Sure, sure, he's sure.

I Pig. Come, let us dance for joy.

[Music.

At the end of their DANCE they thought to surprise him, when suddenly, being awaked by the music, he roused himself, and they all ran into holes.

3

Nay, with as many

As the name yields.] There were several heroes who had the name of Hercules; and the Pigmy here means, he would encounter all who bore that name. WHAL.

Philostratus tells us (Icon. ii. cap. 22,) that Hercules, after his victory over Antæus, fell asleep in the deserts of Africa, and was attacked by the pigmies, who discharged their arrows at him. This is Jonson's authority. It is not likely that Swift had much acquaintance with Philostratus; and it is therefore highly probable that he derived the hint of the first assault of the Lilliputians on the slumbering Gulliver, from the passage before us.

SONG.

Wake, Hercules, awake; but heave up thy black eye, 'Tis only ask'd from thee to look, and these will die, Or fly

Already they are fled,

Whom scorn had else left dead.

At which MERCURY descended from the Hill, with a garland of poplar, to crown him.

Mer. Rest still, thou active friend of Virtue; these
Should not disturb the peace of Hercules:

Earth's worms, and honour's dwarfs, at too great odds,
Prove or provoke the issue of the gods.

See here a crown the aged Hill hath sent thee,
My grandsire Atlas, he that did present thee
With the best sheep that in his fold were found,
Or golden fruit in the Hesperian ground,
For rescuing his fair daughters, then the prey
Of a rude pirate, as thou cam'st this way;
And taught thee all the learning of the sphere,
And how, like him, thou might'st the heavens up-bear,
As that thy labour's virtuous recompense.
He, though a mountain now, hath yet the sense
Of thanking thee for more, thou being still
Constant to goodness, guardian of the hill;
Antæus by thee suffocated here,

And the voluptuous Comus, god of cheer,
Beat from his grove, and that defaced: but now
The time's arriv'd that Atlas told thee of, how
B' unalter'd law, and working of the stars,
There should be a cessation of all jars,
'Twixt Virtue and her noted opposite,

Pleasure; that both should meet here in the sight
Of Hesperus, the glory of the west,

The brightest star that from his burning crest

Union of

Pleasure &
Vir the

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