"'If passion once invade the female mind, / '(Tenacious sex!) in vain would mortal art / 'Wrench the warm weapon from the bleeding heart."
— Thurston, Joseph (1704-1732)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for B. Motte, and C. Bathurst
Date
1737
Metaphor
"'If passion once invade the female mind, / '(Tenacious sex!) in vain would mortal art / 'Wrench the warm weapon from the bleeding heart."
Metaphor in Context
So spake the sire; when from the cirque below,
Soft rose the Goddess of the silver Bow:
"My sire, she said, if grateful to thy eyes
"O'er heav'ns pale arch my ev'ning beams arise;
"Or if I grace thy delegated sway,
"O'er realms impervious to the blaze of day;
"From her vain self, and man than her more vain,
"Save thou the first, the fairest of my train:
"Ev'n now soft dreams her balmy slumbers move,
"She sighs, one ceaseless sacrifice to love.
"Thou know'st, oh father, poison to our kind!
"If passion once invade the female mind,
"(Tenacious sex!) in vain would mortal art
"Wrench the warm weapon from the bleeding heart.
"Let now thy own remembrance rise my aid,
"What millions won, forsaken and betray'd!
"To mimic courts beneath our native sky
"(How sure to be convinc'd!) direct thine eye;
"There see what shoals obey your Cupid's call,
"What half-grown hecatombs successive fall!
"By thy own arts, (a blushful tale I tell)
"Thy proper prize, my much-lov'd Io fell;
"In my own shape didst thou Calisto bend,
"And doubly rob me of my form and friend;
"And now (vain gift!) unheeded from afar,
"She dimly shines a prostituted star.
Soft rose the Goddess of the silver Bow:
"My sire, she said, if grateful to thy eyes
"O'er heav'ns pale arch my ev'ning beams arise;
"Or if I grace thy delegated sway,
"O'er realms impervious to the blaze of day;
"From her vain self, and man than her more vain,
"Save thou the first, the fairest of my train:
"Ev'n now soft dreams her balmy slumbers move,
"She sighs, one ceaseless sacrifice to love.
"Thou know'st, oh father, poison to our kind!
"If passion once invade the female mind,
"(Tenacious sex!) in vain would mortal art
"Wrench the warm weapon from the bleeding heart.
"Let now thy own remembrance rise my aid,
"What millions won, forsaken and betray'd!
"To mimic courts beneath our native sky
"(How sure to be convinc'd!) direct thine eye;
"There see what shoals obey your Cupid's call,
"What half-grown hecatombs successive fall!
"By thy own arts, (a blushful tale I tell)
"Thy proper prize, my much-lov'd Io fell;
"In my own shape didst thou Calisto bend,
"And doubly rob me of my form and friend;
"And now (vain gift!) unheeded from afar,
"She dimly shines a prostituted star.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "invad" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Text from Poems on Several Occasions: In which are included, The Toilette and The Fall. By Joseph Thurston, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for B. Motte, and C. Bathurst, 1737).
Date of Entry
05/04/2005
