Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TOAD AND SPIDER; A DUEL, by RICHARD LOVELACE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TOAD AND SPIDER; A DUEL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Upon a day when the dog-star
Last Line: Of his fair aid a monument.
Subject(s): Insects; Spiders; Toads; Bugs


UPON a day when the dog-star
Unto the world proclaim'd a war,
And poison bark'd from his black throat,
And from his jaws infection shot,
Under a deadly henbane shade
With slime infernal mists are made,
Met the two dreaded enemies,
Having their weapons in their eyes.

First from his den rolls forth that load
Of spite and hate, the speckl'd toad,
And from his chaps a foam doth spawn,
Such as the loathed three heads yawn;
Defies his foe, with a fell spit,
To wade through death to meet with it;
Then in his self the limbeck turns,
And his elixir'd poison urns.
Arachne, once the fear o' th' maid
Celestial, thus unto her pray'd:
"Heaven's blue-ey'd daughter, thine own mother!
The python-killing Sun 's thy brother;
O thou from gods that didst descend,
With a poor virgin to contend,
Shall seed of Earth and Hell e'er be
A rival in thy victory?"
Pallas assents: for now long time
And pity had clean rins'd her crime;
When straight she doth with active fire
Her many-legged foe inspire.
Have you not seen a carrack lie
A great cathedral in the sea,
Under whose Babylonian walls
A small thin frigate-almshouse stalls?
So in his slime the toad doth float,
And th' spider by but seems his boat.
And now the naumachy begins.
Close to the surface herself spins
Arachne, when her foe lets fly
A broadside of his breath too high,
That 's overshot, the wisely stout
Advised maid doth tack about,
And now her pitchy barque doth sweat,
Chaf'd in her own black fury wet;
Lazy and cold before, she brings
New fires to her contracted stings,
And with discolour'd spumes doth blast
The herbs that to their centre haste.
Now to the neighb'ring henbane top
Arachne hath herself wound up,
And thence, from its dilated leaves,
By her own cordage downwards weaves,
And doth her town of foe attack,

And storms the rampires of his back;
Which taken in, her colours spread
March to th' citadel of's head.
Now as in witty torturing Spain
The brain is vex'd, to vex the brain,
Where heretics' bare heads are arm'd
In a close helm, and in it charm'd
An overgrown and meagre rat,
That piecemeal nibbles himself fat:
So on the toad's blue-chequer'd skull
The spider gluttons herself full,
And vomiting her Stygian seeds,
Her poison, on his poison feeds.
Thus the envenom'd toad, now grown
Big with more poison than his own,
Doth gather all his pow'rs, and shakes
His stormer in's disgorged lakes;
And wounded now, apace crawls on
To his next plantain surgeon;
With whose rich balm no sooner dress'd,
But purged is his sick swoln breast;
And as a glorious combatant
That only rests a while to pant,
Then with repeated strength, and scars
That, smarting, fire him to new wars,
Deals blows that thick themselves prevent,
As they would gain the time he spent:
So the disdaining angry toad
That calls but a thin useless load;
His fatal feared self comes back
With unknown venom fill'd to crack.
Th'amazed spider, now untwin'd,
Hath crept up, and herself new lin'd
With fresh salt foams, and mists that blast
The ambient air as they pass'd.
And now methinks a sphinx's wing
I pluck, and do not write but sting;
With their black blood my pale ink's blent,
Gall's but a faint ingredient.
The pol'tic toad doth now withdraw,
Warn'd, higher in Campania.
There wisely doth, entrenched deep,
His body in a body keep,

And leaves a wide and open pass
T'invite the foe up to his jaws;
Which there within a foggy blind
With fourscore fire-arms were lin'd.
The gen'rous active spider doubts
More ambuscadoes than redoubts;
So within shot she doth pickeer,
Now galls the flank, and now the rear;
As that the toad in's own despite
Must change the manner of his fight,
Who, like a glorious general,
With one home charge lets fly at all.
Chaf'd with a fourfold ven'mous foam
Of scorn, revenge, his foe's and's own,
He seats him in his loathed chair,
New-made him by each morning's air;
With glowing eyes he doth survey
Th' undaunted host he calls his prey;
Then his dark spume he greed'ly laps,
And shows the foe his grave, his chaps.
Whilst the quick wary Amazon
Of'vantage takes occasion,
And with her troop of legs careers
In a full speed with all her spears;
Down, as some mountain on a mouse,
On her small cot he flings his house;
Without the poison of the elf,
The toad had like t' have burst himself,
For sage Arachne with good heed
Had stopp'd herself upon full speed;
And's body now disorder'd, on
She falls to execution.
The passive toad now only can
Contemn, and suffer. Here began
The wronged maid's ingenious rage,
Which his heart venom must assuage.
One eye she hath spit out---strange smother!
When one flame doth put out another;
And one eye wittily spar'd, that he
Might but behold his misery.
She on each spot a wound doth print,
And each speck hath a sting within't;
Till he but one new blister is,

And swells his own periphrasis;
Then fainting sick, and yellow-pale,
She baths him with her sulph'rous stale;
Thus slacked is her Stygian fire,
And she vouchsafes now to retire.
Anon the toad begins to pant,
Bethinks him of th' almighty plant,
And, lest he piecemeal should be sped,
Wisely doth finish himself dead.
Whilst the gay girl, as was her fate,
Doth wanton and luxuriate,
And crowns her conqu'ring head all o'er
With fatal leaves of hellebore,
Not guessing at the precious aid
Was lent her by the heavenly maid.
The near-expiring toad now rolls
Himself in lazy bloody scrolls,
To th'sov'reign salve of all his ills,
That only life and health distils.
But lo! a terror above all
That ever yet did him befal!
Pallas, still mindful of her foe,
(Whilst they did with each fires glow)
Had to the place the spiders' lar
Despatch'd before the ev'ning's star;
He learned was in Nature's laws,
Of all her foliage knew the cause,
And'mongst the rest in his choice want
Unplanted had this plantain plant.
The all-confounded toad doth see
His life fled with his remedy,
And in a glorious despair
First burst himself, and next the air;
Then with a dismal horrid yell,
Beats down his loathsome breath to hell.
But what inestimable bliss
This to the sated virgin is,
Who as before of her fiend foe,
Now full is of her goddess too;
She from her fertile womb hath spun
Her stateliest pavilion,
Whilst all her silken flags display,
And her triumphant banners play;

Where Pallas she i'th' midst doth praise,
And counterfeits her brother's rays;
Nor will she her dear lar forget,
Victorious by his benefit,
Whose roof enchanted she doth free
From haunting gnat and goblin bee,
Who, trapp'd in her prepared toil,
To their destruction keep a coil.
Then she unlocks the toad's dire head,
Within whose cell is treasured
That precious stone, which she doth call
A noble recompense for all,
And to her lar doth it present,
Of his fair aid a monument.





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