Talari Innamorati
[Page 183]
LINES OF MADAME D’HOUTETOT.
Jeune, j’aimai. Le temps de mon bel age,
Ce temps si court, l’amour seul le remplit:
Quand j’atteignis la saison d’être sage,
Toujours j’aimai: la raison me le dit.
Mais l’âge vient, et le plaisir s’envole;
Mais mon bonheur ne s’envole aujourd’hui,
Car j’aime encore, et l’amour me console;
Rien n’aurait pu me consoler de lui.
When young, I lov’d. At that delicious age,
So sweet, so short, love was my sole delight;
And when I reach’d the season to be sage,
Still I lov’d on, for reason gave me right.
Age comes at length, and livelier joys depart,
Yet gentle ones still kiss these eyelids dim;
For still I love, and love consoles my heart;
What could console me for the loss of him?
_________
DEAR Molly, who art the best comingest lass,
With a foot not so big as the slipper of brass,(2)
Or as her’s, whom a wag,(3) strangely gifting with wrong clo’es,
Calls, most unbecomingly, Ninon de Long-clo’es,(4)
(Of whom ’tis recorded, that in a ragoût
Some young men of fashion once toss’d up her shoe),(5)
Take a story that came in my head t’other day,
As writing a libel, all careless I lay,
So good-natur’d am I, and soon carried away.
[Page 184]
[Page 184]
You must know, that ’twas after a day of much flight,
The feather’d god Mercury(6) got home one night:
He took off his winged hat, flagging with dews,
And shook off as quickly his two winged shoes:
And ringing for Hebe,(7) said, “Starlights and nectar;
And go and tell Venus,(8) you rogue, I expect her.”
So saying, he threw his light legs up together,
And stretched, half-reclin’d, on his couch of dove’s feather,
And taking his lute up, and thumbing, and humming,
Was about to sing something to hasten her coming,
When lo! the two shoes that I spoke of, instead
Of departing, as usual, like pigeons, to bed,
Began flutt’ring and making genteel indications
Of delicate feelings and nice hesitations,
And then walking forward, stood still, rather wide,
When the one drew his heel to the other’s inside,
And suggesting a bow (for it well may be said,
You can’t make a bow without having a head)
Told the god with a sigh, which they meant to go through him,
That they had, if he pleas’d, a small prayer to make to him.
“How now!” said the God; “what, my shoes grown pa-
thetic!
This indeed’s a new turn of the peripatetic.(9)
What’s the matter, my friends? Why this bowing and
blushing?
Has Ganymede(10) giv’n you too careless a brushing?
Do you ache yet from Jupiter’s tread on your toes,
When I spoke, before Juno, of Chloris’s nose?(11)
Or does she keep charge of his pen and ink still,
And force him to borrow another new quill?”
“No: nothing of all this, dear master,” said they;
‘But the fact is,—the fact is—” “Well, what is it, pray?”
[Page 185]
[Page 185]
“Why, you know, Sir, our natures partake of the dove,
And in fact, Sir,—in short, Sir,—we’ve fallen in love.”
“In love! and with what, pray? With Rhodope’s shoes?
Or with Rhodope’s self?” cried the god at this news.*
“I have heard of shoes ‘doated on,’ during a fashion,
But never of any returning the passion.”
Who, or what could it be, but the feet of your Venus?
To see them, to touch them, and yet be heart-whole,
How could we, yet have understanding and soul?
When we heard, t’other day, that dog Momus object,(13)
For want of a fault in ’em, that her shoes creak’d,
We could fairly have jump’d at the rascal, and kick’d:
And so, Sir, we have to request, that whenever
We’re not upon duty, you’ll do us the favour
Of letting us wait on those charmers so little,
To which Thetis’s silver are surely queen’s-metal.(14)
The soft-going sandals of Rhetoric’s god(15)
Will make her move always as loveliness should;(16)
Will put a perfection, Sir, into her shoe-tye,
And give the last lift to her exquisite beauty.”
* Rhodope, or Rhodopis (Rosy-face) the most romantic of the courtezans
of antiquity. She began with falling in love with her fellow-servant Æsop;
and ended with consecrating a number of costly spits in the temple of Apollo
at Delphos, some say with erecting one of the pyramids of Egypt. She in-
spired a violent passion in Charaxes, the brother of Sappho, who takes upon
herself, in Ovid, to complain of it. There is a pretty legend of her, in which
those who are fond of tracing every thing to the ancient world, may find the
eagle carried away one of her sandals, and flying with it over Memphis, where
Psammetichus, king of Egypt, was sitting in judgment, dropped it in the
monarch’s lap. Struck with its extraordinary beauty, he had the owner
found out, and married her.
[Page 186]
[Page 186]
“Be it so,” replied Hermes; “but take care, you rogues;
Don’t you keep her from me, or I’ll turn you to clogs.”(19)
“We cannot, we cannot,” cried they, “dearest master;
And to prove it at once, she shall come to you faster.”
So saying, they rose, and skimm’d out of the door,
Like a pair of white doves, when beginning to soar:
They met her half-way, and they flew to her feet,
Which they clasp’d in a flutter, the touch was so sweet;
And they bore her in silence, and kiss’d all the while
The feet of the queen of the beautiful smile;
And lo! in an instant, redoubled in charms,
The soft coming creature was pitch’d in his arms.
_________
RHYMES TO THE EYE,
BY A DEAF GENTLEMAN.
I LONG'D for Dublin, thinking there to laugh
With jolly tipplers o’er their usquebaugh;
For I’ve a merry heart, and love that juice,
Which London hath not good at any price.
Thither I went; but once (’twas at the Plough)
Some time uncounted after I’d enough,
I sallied forth, and in the street, alas!
I plunged into a horrible fracas,—
So horrible, that all my bones did ach,
And I was forced to ride home in a couch,
Entreating Dora to achieve a pot
Of salve from the Chirurgical Depot.*
* I am aware this rhyme may be carped at. However, Pope rhymed “way”
and “away” together, and that is good authority. For my part, I think
“pot” and “pot” rhyme very well together.—Note by the Deaf Gentleman.
EDITORIAL NOTES
[1] The author of this piece is Leigh Hunt, as proved by epistolary evidence (see William H. Marshall, Byron, Shelley, Hunt, and The Liberal, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960, 172).
[2] In a traditional tale, a slipper of brass that turns into a boat: “placing it on the water, whirled it thrice round, and the infernal slipper dilated at every turn, till it became a bonnie barge with its sails bent” (Allan Cunningham, “The Haunted Ships”, in Traditional tales of the English and Scottish peasantry, vol. 2, London: Taylor and Hessey, 1822, 281).
[3] “Any one ludicrously mischievous”, OED, “wag (n.2)”.
[4] A distortion of the name Ninon de l’Enclos (1620-1705), French author, courtesan, and patron.
[5] “The cook set himself seriously to work upon it: He pulled the upper part (which was of damask) into the shreds, and tossed it up in a ragout; minced the sole; cut the wooden heel into very thin slices, fried them in butter, and placed them round the dish for garnish” (The Connoisseur 19 (1754), 112, a letter signed T. Savoury).
[6] In Roman mythology, the god of rhetoric, commerce, communication and trickery. In traditional iconography he wears winged shoes or sandals.
[7] In Greek mythology, the goddess of youth. She is also the cupbearer of Mount Olympus, serving nectar to the gods.
[8] In Roman mythology, goddess of love, beauty, and desire.
[9] A peripatetic is someone who walks about, a traveller, an itinerant trader; also, historically, a student or follower of Aristotle, named after the walkways (peripatoi in Greek) where they would meet. In Mercury’s dialogue with his own shoes, Hunt puns on “pathetic” and “peripatetic”.
[10] In Greek mythology, Trojan prince abducted to serve as Zeus’s cupbearer.
[11] In Greek mythology, a nymph associated with spring.
[12] I.e., mortify.
[13] In Greek mythology, the personification of satire and mockery.
[14] In Greek mythology, Thetis is a sea nymph or goddess of water. One of her epithets is “silver-footed”. Hunt’s turns it into “queen’s metal”, i.e., “any of several alloys of tin and antimony with other metals, resembling Britannia metal and formerly used for tableware, teapots, etc.”, OED, “queen’s metal (n.)”.
[15] Mercury.
[16] Possibly the bottom line of the piece: loveliness should always move in silence, as the lines “The soft-going [i.e., quiet] sandals of Rhetoric’s god” and the ensuing “they bore her in silence” suggest.
[17] The tale of “Cinderella”, by Charles Perrault (1628-1703).
[18] Varia historia (XIII.xxxiii) by Claudius Aelianus (Aelian, 175- c.235 AD).
[19] “A wooden-soled overshoe or sandal worn to protect the shoes from wet and dirt”, OED, “clog (n.)”.
Ultimo aggiornamento
22.09.2025