Cassinus And Peter: A Tragical Elegy · Apollo: Or, A Problem Solved: Written In · The Beasts Confession To The Priest, On Observing How Most Men. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, Vol. editors: Paul. Another exploration of Swift’s anal retentive psychology in which a distraught Cassinus confesses to friend Peter that his beloved Celia has.
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Hyppsa contraction of “hypochondria.
Dear Cassythough to ask I dread, Yet, ask I must. Commentary With a last couplet like that, it casssinus no wonder that this poem has a certain infamy.
Cassinus and Peter: A Tragical Elegy
But that is to forget the rest of the poem easy to do, given the startling couplet. Not a Word come from thy lips? Why, Cassythou wilt doze thy Pate: The discovery of this imperfection, this failing, this humanity, however mundane, can be quite a shock.
Miscellaneous Originally published or The shocking expletive is quite easily interpreted as a misanthropic, or even misogynistic, revulsion with the body. Why, Plague confound her sandy Locks: Cerberus, the watchdog of Hades, had three heads.
Heaven send thou hast not got the Hypps. These Eyes, these Eyes beheld the Fact. We need not be entirely unsympathetic to Cassinus: I come, I come, — Medusasee, [85] Her Serpents hiss direct at me.
Beauty’s but a Varnish, Which Time and Accidents will tarnish: Peter wonders if Celia has died; if she has cheated on Cassinus; if she has been struck down by some disfiguring disease; or, ultimately, if there is something terribly wrong with Cassinus.
He finds Cassinus filthy and miserable in his dorm room and asks his friend why he is such a mess.
Cassinus and Peter
Nor wonder how I lost my Wits; Oh! Cassinus replies that he is in this state because of Celia.
But I was fated to be curs’d. Nor blab it on the lonely Rocks, Where Echo sits, and list’ning mocks.
Zephyr”The west wind; and poetically any calm soft wind” Johnson. No, replies Cassinus, to each of these in turn. Why, hang her, though she seem’d so coy, I know she loves the Barber’s Boy. The Oxford Anthology of English Literature: Summary Published inthis poem of 7-syllable couplets describes how Peter goes to visit his college friend Cassinus.
The next few lines refer to other figures in Hades. Sunk down her nose: Now, bend thine Ear; since out it must: Cassinus’s own physical degradation has been jarringly contrasted with the pastoral tropes he employs, and already there is a wide gap between ideals and corporeality.
But, if you fail, my Spectre dread Attending nightly round your Bed; And yet, I dare confide in you; [] So, take my Secret, and adieu. Come, tell us, has she play’d the Whore?
The Restoration and Eighteenth Century. Nor whisper to the tattling Reeds, [] The blackest of all Female Deeds. But hark, The loud Cerberian triple Bark. For all his knowledge about the world as a young scholar, and despite his facility with the literary trappings of nature, it comes as a terrible shock ccassinus Cassinus that Celia has a human body.
His antient Pipe in Sable dy’d, And half unsmoakt, lay by his Side. Purge”A cathartick medicine; a medicine that evacuates the body by stool” Johnson ; bleeding was a common treatment for many medical conditions. Be easy, ’tis a common Case.
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How happy I, were that the worst? Both Cassinus and Peter can describe and imagine decaying or sick bodies, as well as deceit and ane, but only in a hypothetical way, imbued with the mystery and distance of mythic conceits about nature.
He makes Peter promise not to divulge the terrible secret he has discovered about his once beloved Celia, and then tells him: Celia, Cassijus, Celia shits. Begone; unhand me, hellish Fry; Avaunt — ye cannot say ’twas I.