Of such importance in the dark, With erring haste, but rather stay, And do't in th' open face of day; And in the mean time go in quest Of next retreat to take his rest.
The end of the fourth Canto.
De différer au lendemain
A faire la chose promise,
Jugeant que, pour telle entreprise
Qui dût couronner son amour,
Il fallait attendre le jour,
Et chercher cependant un gîte,
Pour se reposer au plus vîte.
The Knight and Squire, in hot dispute,
Within an ace of falling out,
Are parted with a sudden fright
Of strange alarm, and stranger sight;
With which adventuring to stickle,
They're sent away in nasty pickle.
'Tis strange how some men's tempers suit
(Like bawd and brandy ) with dispute ,
That for their own opinions stand fast
Only to have them claw'd and canvass'd;
That keep their consciences in cases,
As fiddlers do their crowds and bases,
Ne'er to be us'd but when they're bent
To play a fit for argument;
Make true and false, unjust and just,
Of no use but to be discuss'd;
Le chevalier et l'écuyer
Disputant, préts à se brouiller,
Sont séparés par une alarme
Que leur donne étrange vacarme;
veulent mettre le nez,
Ils s'en retournent embernés.
Il est étrange que des
gens A disputer passent leur temps, Plus enclins à cette manie, Que maquerelle à l'eau-de-vie. Ils n'ont aucune opinion, Sinon pour
la discussion; Leurs consciences sont en caisse , (50) Comme violons, qu'on y laisse, Et qu'on en tire seulement Pour en jouer un argument. Le faux, le vrai, dans leur systéme,
Dispute and set a paradox,
Like a straight boot upon the stocks,
And stretch it more unmercifully
Than Helmont, Montaign, White, or Tully.
So th' ancient Stoics, in their porch,
With fierce dispute maintain'd their church;
Beat our their brains in fight and study,
To prove that virtue is a body;
That bonum is an animal,
Made good with stout polemic brawl;
In which some hundreds on the place
Were slain outright; and many a face
Retrench'd of nose, and eyes, and beard,
To maintain what their sect averr'd:
All which the Knight and Squire, in wrath,
Had like t have suffered for their faith,
Each striving to make good his own,
As by the sequel shall be shown.
The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn;
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