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Louisa[1] To Strephon. 1724
By Jonathan Swift
Ah! Strephon, how can you despise
Her, who without thy pity dies!
To Strephon I have still been true,
And of as noble blood as you;
Fair issue of the genial bed,
A virgin in thy bosom bred:
Embraced thee closer than a wife;
When thee I leave, I leave my life.
Why should my shepherd take amiss,
That oft I wake thee with a kiss?
Yet you of every kiss complain;
Ah! is not love a pleasing pain?
A pain which every happy night
You cure with ease and with delight;
With pleasure, as the poet sings,
Too great for mortals less than kings.
Chloe, when on thy breast I lie,
Observes me with revengeful eye:
If Chloe o'er thy heart prevails,
She'll tear me with her desperate nails;
And with relentless hands destroy
The tender pledges of our joy.
Nor have I bred a spurious race;
They all were born from thy embrace.
Consider, Strephon, what you do;
For, should I die for love of you,
I'll haunt thy dreams, a bloodless ghost;
And all my kin, (a numerous host,)
Who down direct our lineage bring
From victors o'er the Memphian king;
Renown'd in sieges and campaigns,
Who never fled the bloody plains:
Who in tempestuous seas can sport,
And scorn the pleasures of a court;
From whom great Sylla[2] found his doom,
Who scourged to death that scourge of Rome,
Shall on thee take a vengeance dire;
Thou like Alcides[3] shalt expire,
When his envenom'd shirt he wore,
And skin and flesh in pieces tore.
Nor less that shirt, my rival's gift,
Cut from the piece that made her shift,
Shall in thy dearest blood be dyed,
And make thee tear thy tainted hide.
Extra Info:
[Footnote 1: The solution is, phtheirhiasis morbus pedicularis. With this piece may be read Peter Pindar's epic, "The Lousiad." - W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: Plutarch tells how Sylla's body was so corrupted with these vermin, that they streamed from him into every place: pasan esthêta kai loutron kai aponimma kai sition anapimplasthai tou reumatos ekeinon kai tes phthoras. tosouton exenthei. "Vita Syllae," xxxvi.]
[Footnote 3: Hercules, who died from wearing the shirt (given him by his wife as a charm against his infidelities) stained with the blood of Nessus, the centaur, whom Hercules had slain with a poisoned arrow. Ovid, "Epist. Heroid. Deianira Herculi," and "Metam.," lib. ix, 101.]
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