A fort of error, to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance,
That renders all the avenues

To truth impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art perplext and intricate:
For nothing goes for Sense or Light,
That will not with old rules jump right;
As if rules were not in the schools
Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
This, Pagan, Heathenish, invention
Is good for nothing but contention :
For as in sword and buckler fight
All blows do on the target light,
So, when men argue, the great'st part
O' th' contest falls on terms of art,
Until the fustian stuff be spent,
And then they fall to th' argument.

Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last:

For thou art fallen on a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue,
But to the former opposite,
And contrary as black to white:
Mere disparata; that concerning
Presbytery, this human learning;
Two things s' averse, they never yet
But in thy rambling fancy met.
But I shall take a fit occasion
T' evince thee by ratiocination,

Some other time in place more proper
Than this we're in; therefore let's stop herr

And rest our weary'd bones a while,

Already tir'd with other toil.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Knight by damnable magician,
Being cast illegally in prison,
Love brings his action on the case,

And lays it upon Hudibras.

How he receives the Lady's visit,

And cunningly solicits his suit,

Which she defers; yet, on parole,

Redeems him from th' enchanted hole.

But now, t' observe Romantique method,
Let bloody steel awhile be sheathed,
And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to love's more gentle style,
To let our reader breathe awhile.

In which, that we may be as brief as
Is possible, by way of preface:

Is't not enough to make one strange,

That some men's fancies should ne'er change
But make all people do and say

The same things still the self-same way?
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd,
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind.
Others make all their knights, in fits
Of jealousy, to lose their wits;

Till drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches,
They're forthwith cur'd of their capriches.
Some always thrive in their amours,

By pulling plasters off their sores
As cripples do to get an alms,

Just so do they, and win their dames.
Some force whole regions, in despite
O' geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
But those that write in rhyme still make

The one verse for the other's sake;

For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think's sufficient at one time.

But we forget in what sad plight
We whilolm left the captiv'd Knight
And pensive Squire, both bruis'd in body,
And conjur'd into safe custody.

Tir'd with dispute, and speaking Latin,
As well as basting and Bear-baiting,

And desperate of any course
To free himself by wit or force,
His only solace was, that now
His dog-bolt fortune was so low,
That either it must quickly end,
Or turn about again, and mend;

In which he found th' event, no less
Than other times, beside his guess.
There is a tall long-sided dame,
(But wond'rous light) ycleped Fame,
That like a thin cameleon boards
Herself on air, and eats her words;
Upon her shoulders wings she wears
Like hanging sleeves, lin'd through with ears,
And eyes, and tongues, as poets list,
Made good by deep mythologist:

With these she through the welkin flies,
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies;
With letters hung, like eastern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furthest regions;
Diurnals writ for regulation

Of lying, to inform the nation,
And by their public use to bring down
The rate of whetstones in the kingdom.
About her neck a packet-mail,

Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale;
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hailstones big as pullets' eggs,
And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;"
A blazing star seen in the west,
By six or seven men at least.

Two trumpets she does sound at once,
But both of clean contrary tones:

But whether both with the same wind,
Or one before and one behind,

We know not, only this can tell,

The one sounds vilely, th' other well;

The beauty of this consists in the double meaning The first alludes to Fame's living on report: the second is an insinuation, that if a report is narrowly inquired into, and traced up to the original author, it is made to contradict itself

And therefore vulgar authors name
Th' one Good, the other evil Fame.

This tattling gossip knew too well
What mischief Hudibras befel;
And straight the spiteful tidings bears
Of all, to th' unkind Widow's ears.
Democritus ne'er laugh'd sc loud

To see bawds carted through the crowd
Or funerals, with stately pomp,
March slowly on in solemn dump,
As she laugh'd out, until her back,
As well as sides, was like to crack.
She vow'd she would go see the sight,
And visit the distressed Knight;
To do the office of a neighbour,
And be a gossip at his labour;
And from his wooden jail the stocks
To set at large his fetter-locks;
And by exchange, parole, or ransom,
To free him from th' enchanted mansion.
This b'ing resolv'd, she call'd for hood
And usher, implements abroad
Which ladies wear, beside a slender
Young waiting damsel to attend her.
All which appearing, on she went
To find the Knight, in limbo pent;
And 'twas not long before she found
Him and his stout Squire in the pound,
Both coupled in enchanted tether
By further leg behind together.
For as he sat upon his rump,

His head, like one in doleful dump,
Between his knees, his hands apply'd

Unto his ears on either side,

And by him in another hole

Afflicted Ralpho, cheek by jowl;