EPITAPH ON GAY John Gay, the idlest, best-natured, and best-loved man of letters of his day, was the special friend of Pope. His early work, The Shepherd's Week, was planned as a parody on the Pastorals of Pope's rival, Ambrose Philips, and Pope assisted him in the composition of his luckless farce, Three Hours after Marriage. When Gay's opera Polly was forbidden by the licenser, and Gay's patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, were driven from court for soliciting subscriptions for him, Pope warmly espoused his cause. Gay died in 1732 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Pope's epitaph for his tomb was first published in the quarto edition of Pope's works in 1735. Johnson, in his discussion of Pope's epitaphs (Lives of the Poets), devotes a couple of pages of somewhat captious criticism to these lines; but they have at least the virtue of simplicity and sincerity, and are at once an admirable portrait of the man and a lasting tribute to the poet Gay. APPENDIX THE RAPE OF THE LOCK Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. - MART. FIRST EDITION THE RAPE OF THE LOCK CANTO I WHAT dire offence from am'rous causes springs, Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel Sol through white curtains did his beams display, And ope'd those eyes which brighter shine than they, On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those: 30 Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forgive 'em all. This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, 35 40 And beauty draws us with a single hair. Th' adventurous baron the bright locks admired; 45 He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired. For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implored With Flavia's busk that oft had wrapped his own: A fan, a garter, half a pair of gloves, And all the trophies of his former loves. 50 55 |