Book VIII: The Horoscope

On death we mortals often run,Just by the roads we take to shun.

A father's only heir, a son,Was over-loved, and doted onSo greatly, that astrologyWas question'd what his fate might be.The man of stars this caution gave--That, until twenty years of age,No lion, even in a cage,The boy should see,--his life to save.The sire, to silence every fearAbout a life so very dear,Forbade that any one should letHis son beyond his threshold get.Within his palace walls, the boyMight all that heart could wish enjoy--Might with his mates walk, leap, and run,And frolic in the wildest fun.When come of age to love the chase,That exercise was oft depictedTo him as one that brought disgrace,To which but blackguards were addicted.But neither warning nor derisionCould change his ardent disposition.The youth, fierce, restless, full of blood,Was prompted by the boiling floodTo love the dangers of the wood.The more opposed, the stronger grewHis mad desire. The cause he knew,For which he was so closely pent;And as, where'er he went,In that magnificent abode,Both tapestry and canvas show'dThe feats he did so much admire,A painted lion roused his ire.'Ah, monster!' cried he, in his rage,'Tis you that keep me in my cage.'With that, he clinch'd his fist,To strike the harmless beast--And did his hand impaleUpon a hidden nail!And thus this cherish'd head,For which the healing artBut vainly did its part,Was hurried to the dead,By caution blindly meantTo shun that sad event.

The poet Aeschylus, 'tis said,By much the same precaution bled.A conjuror foretoldA house would crush him in its fall;--Forth sallied he, though old,From town and roof-protected hall,And took his lodgings, wet or dry,Abroad, beneath the open sky.An eagle, bearing through the airA tortoise for her household fare,Which first she wish'd to break,The creature dropp'd, by sad mistake,Plump on the poet's forehead bare,As if it were a naked rock--To Aeschylus a fatal shock!

From these examples, it appears,This art, if true in any wise,Makes men fulfil the very fearsEngender'd by its prophecies.But from this charge I justify,By branding it a total lie.I don't believe that Nature's powersHave tied her hands or pinion'd ours,By marking on the heavenly vaultOur fate without mistake or fault.That fate depends upon conjunctionsOf places, persons, times, and tracks,And not upon the functionsOf more or less of quacks.A king and clown beneath one planet's nodAre born; one wields a sceptre, one a hod.But it is Jupiter that wills it so!And who is he? A soulless clod.How can he cause such different powers to flowUpon the aforesaid mortals here below?And how, indeed, to this far distant ballCan he impart his energy at all?--How pierce the ether deeps profound,The sun and globes that whirl around?A mote might turn his potent rayFor ever from its earthward way.Will find, it, then, in starry cope,The makers of the horoscope?The war with which all Europe's now afflicted--Deserves it not by them to've been predicted?Yet heard we not a whisper of it,Before it came, from any prophet.The suddenness of passion's gush,Of wayward life the headlong rush,--Permit they that the feeble rayOf twinkling planet, far away,Should trace our winding, zigzag course?And yet this planetary force,As steady as it is unknown,These fools would make our guide alone--Of all our varied life the source!Such doubtful facts as I relate--The petted child's and poet's fate--Our argument may well admit.The blindest man that lives in France,The smallest mark would doubtless hit--Once in a thousand times--by chance.