Z.Monkey’s Blog

I little while ago the Scientist and I rented The Libertine with Johnny Depp. The story follows the extraordinarily debased life of the Earl of Rochchester (John Wilmot) 1647-80. I really wont go into it much (the poem below pretty much outlines the character). The only reason I bring it up is that I read through 3 or 4 of his poems for my Brit Lit course. I had thought the movie was a little over the top but after reading the poems I think it was pretty accurate. Here is one of the shorter ones entitled “Song”:

Love a woman? You’re an ass!
‘Tis a most insipid passion
To choose out for your happiness
The silliest part of God’s creation.

Let the porter and the groom,
Things designed for dirty slaves,
drudge in fair Aurelia’s womb
To get supplies for age and graves.

Farewell, woman! I intend
Henceforth every night to sit
With my lewd, well-natured friends,
Drinking to engender wit.

The give me health, wealth, mirth, and wine,
And, if busy love entrenches,
There’s a sweet, soft page of mine
Does the trick worth forty wenches.

The other poems were much more lewd, but this one shows his selfishness, his disdain for women and marriage, and his love for drink and young boys (I thought the page reference was fitting).  At the end of movie (his life), when he is dying of the French Pox Rochester “finds” God.  Which, I suppose, is supposed to be a moral lesson.  Perhaps, ‘A life without God (religion) is a life of sin’.  I have not found it so…

For more poetry of this sort click here.