"For a shrewd intellect, the best employ / Is to detect a soul of base alloy;"
— Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Malta
Date
1842
Metaphor
"For a shrewd intellect, the best employ / Is to detect a soul of base alloy;"
Metaphor in Context
For a shrewd intellect, the best employ
Is to detect a soul of base alloy;
No task is harder nor imports so much;
Silver or gold, you prove it by the touch;
You separate the pure, discard the dross,
And disregard the labour and the loss:
But a friend's heart, base and adulterate,--
A friendly surface with a core of hate!
Of all the frauds with which the Fates have curst
Our simple easy nature--is the worst:
Beyond the rest ruinous in effect;
And of all others hardest to detect:
For men's and women's hearts you cannot try
Beforehand, like the cattle that you buy.
Nor human wit nor reason, when you treat
For such a purpose, can escape deceit:
Fancy betrays us, and assists the ch
Is to detect a soul of base alloy;
No task is harder nor imports so much;
Silver or gold, you prove it by the touch;
You separate the pure, discard the dross,
And disregard the labour and the loss:
But a friend's heart, base and adulterate,--
A friendly surface with a core of hate!
Of all the frauds with which the Fates have curst
Our simple easy nature--is the worst:
Beyond the rest ruinous in effect;
And of all others hardest to detect:
For men's and women's hearts you cannot try
Beforehand, like the cattle that you buy.
Nor human wit nor reason, when you treat
For such a purpose, can escape deceit:
Fancy betrays us, and assists the ch
Categories
Provenance
Searching "soul" and "alloy" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Theognis, and John Hookham Frere. Theognis Restitutus. The Personal History of the Poet Theognis. Malta: 1842; Frere, John Hookham, Aristophanes, Theognis, Bartle Frere, and William Edward Frere. The Works: In Verse and Prose. Vol. II. London: Pickering, 1872.
Date of Entry
04/14/2005
