by Coleridge · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
A lampoon on a music critic with protruding ears, invoking the myth of King Midas’s ass’s ears to ridicule his bad judgment; personal satire drawing on Greek myth.
Connections
Motifs: Animals Themes & Concepts: Satire of Society, Artist and Society Forms & Genres: Epigram Historical References: Greek Mythology
Testo integrale / Full text
O —— ! O —— ! of you we complain
For exposing those ears to the wind and the rain.
Thy face, a huge whitlow just come to a head,
Ill agrees with those ears so raw and so red.
A Musical Critic of old fell a-pouting
When he saw how his asinine honours were sprouting;
But he hid ‘em quite snug, in a full friz of hair,
And the Barber alone smoked his donkeys [so] rare.
Thy judgment much worse, and thy perkers as ample,
O give heed to King Midas, and take his example.
Thus to publish your fate is as useless as wrong —
You but prove by your ears, what we guessed from your tongue.
LABERIUS.
First published in the Morning Post, January 4, 1798. First collected
P. and D. W., 1877-80, ii. 370.