Dulness is "the safe Opiate of the Mind."
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Date
w. 1707, published 1728-9
Metaphor
Dulness is "the safe Opiate of the Mind."
Metaphor in Context
Thus Dulness, the safe Opiate of the Mind,
The last kind Refuge weary Wit can find,
Fit for all Stations, and in each content
Is satisfy'd, secure, and innocent:
No Pains it takes, and no Offence it gives,
Un-fear'd, un-hated, un-disturb'd it lives.
--And if each writing Author's best pretence,
Be but to teach the Ignorant more Sense;
Then Dulness was the Cause they wrote before;
As 'tis at last the Cause they write no more;
So Wit, which most scorn it does pretend,
With Dulness first began, in Dulness last must end.
(pp. 272-3, ll. 1-12)
The last kind Refuge weary Wit can find,
Fit for all Stations, and in each content
Is satisfy'd, secure, and innocent:
No Pains it takes, and no Offence it gives,
Un-fear'd, un-hated, un-disturb'd it lives.
--And if each writing Author's best pretence,
Be but to teach the Ignorant more Sense;
Then Dulness was the Cause they wrote before;
As 'tis at last the Cause they write no more;
So Wit, which most scorn it does pretend,
With Dulness first began, in Dulness last must end.
(pp. 272-3, ll. 1-12)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Rebecca Ferguson's The Unbalanced Mind (p. 163).
Citation
See Pope, Alexander. The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963), 272-3.
Date of Entry
07/14/2004
Date of Review
09/24/2008
