168
HUDIBRAS.
[PART II.
Or, vent'ring to be brisk and wanton.
Do penance in a paper lanthorn?[1] 870
All this you may compound for now,
By suff'ring what I offer you;
Which is no more than has been done
By knights for ladies long agone.
Did not the great La Mancha do so 875
For the Infanta Del Toboso?[2]
Did not th' illustrious Bassa make
Himself a slave for Miss's sake?[3]
And with bull's pizzle, for her love.
Was taw'd as gentle as a glove?[4] 880
Was not young Florio sent, to cool
His flame for Biancafiore, to school,[5]
Where pedant made his pathic bum[6]
For her sake suffer martyrdom?
Did not a certain lady whip, 885
Of late, her husband's own lordship?[7]
- ↑ Alluding to an ecclesiastical discipline for such faults as adultery and fornication.
- ↑ Meaning the penance which Don Quixote underwent on the mountain for the sake of Dulcinea, Part i. book iii. ch. 2.
- ↑ Ibrahim, the illustrious Bassa, in the romance of Monsieur Scudery. His mistress, Isabella, princess of Monaco, being conveyed away to the Sultan's seraglio, he got into the palace disguised as a slave, and, after a multitude of adventures, became grand vizier.
- ↑ To tawc, is a term used by leather-dressers, signifying to soften the leather and make it pliable, by rubbing it. See Wright's Glossary.
- ↑ Alluding to an Italian romance, entitled Florio and Biancafiore. The widow here cites some illustrious examples of the three nations, Spanish, French, and Italian, to induce the knight to give himself a scourging, according to the established laws of chivalry. The adventures of Florio and Biancafiore, which make the principal subject of Boccacio's Filocopo, were famous long before Boccacio, as he himself informs us. Florio and Blancaster are mentioned as illustrious lovers, by a Languedocian poet, in his Breviari d' Amor, dated in the year 1288: it is probable, however, that the story was enlarged by Boccacio. See Tyrwhitt on Chaucer, iv. 169.
- ↑ Alluding to the schoolmasters' passion for whipping.
- ↑ The person here meant is Lady Munson. Her husband, Lord Munson, of Bury St Edmund's, one of the king's judges, being suspected by his lady of changing his political principles, was by her, with the assistance of her maids, tied naked to the bed-post, and whipped till he promised to behave better. For which useful piece of political zeal she received thanks in open court. Sir William Waller's lady, Mrs May, and
