Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/109

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CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS
45

For, as our modern wits behold,
Mounted a pick-back on the old,[1]
Much further off; much further he
Rais'd on his aged beast, could see;
Yet not sufficient to descry 75
All postures of the enemy;
Wherefore he bids the squire ride further.
T' observe their numbers, and their order;
That when their motions he had known,
He might know how to fit his own. 80
Meanwhile he stopp'd his willing steed,
To fit himself for martial deed:
Both kinds of metal he prepared,
Either to give blows, or to ward;
Courage and steel, both of great force, 85
Prepared for better, or for worse.[2]
His death-charged pistols he did fit well,
Drawn out from life-preserving vittle;[3]
These being primed, with force he labour'd
To free's blade from retentive scabbard; 90
And after many a painful pluck,
From rusty durance he bail'd tuck:[4]
Then shook himself, to see that prowess
In scabbard of his arms sat loose;
And, raised upon his desp'rate foot, 95
On stirrup-side he gazed about,[5]
Portending blood, like blazing star,
The beacon of approaching war.[6]

  1. Ridiculing the disputes formerly subsisting between the advocates for ancient and modern learning. Sir William Temple observes: that as to knowledge, the moderns must have more than the ancients, because they have the advantage both of theirs and their own: which is commonly illustrated by a dwarf standing upon a giant's shoulders, and therefore seeing more and further than the giant.
  2. These two lines, 85 and 86, were in the later editions altered to—
    Courage within and steel without,
    To give and to receive a rout.
  3. The reader will remember how the holsters were furnished. See note at p. 19.
  4. Altered in later editions to—He cleared at length the rugged tuck.
  5. It will be seen at Canto i. line 407, that he had but one stirrup.
  6. Comets and Meteors were held to be portentous. See Spenser on Prodigies, 1658.