THE ARGUMENT

This Poem demonstrates the Connection of Oroonoko, who in his valiant Battel did strive for his “Glorious Liberty” against the “Faithless Christians, whose Gods instructed ’em in Principles so false”, to, Satan, the debated Hero in Paradise Lost through presenting Similarities in Speech, Idea, and Composition via a Sample that combines both Pieces in One.

Professor, who with all thy knowledge rich
Instructs me of the art of reading and
Writing, say how do I in Language foreign
Speak of what I desire, convey what I
Believe, and credibility make in
A difficult form which I’m yet to master?
Or hear’st thou rather Teacher, who appears
Promptly upon the hours to teach me of
Ideas well worthy of expanding on,
When Muse is stifled and perplexed and when
The Holy Spirit is not to be found?
Thee I present now with an article
Bold in conjecture, yet worse in its form,
After the fateful loss of Oroonoko,
Who fought most gallantly for Freedom, to
Perfidious[1] men that enslaved his people:

Thus the white men laid hands on Caesar and
Tuscan, faint with heat and toyl, and bound them
To stakes, and whipt them most deplorably.
O how unlike the contract they proposed!
There the companions of their loss, o'rewhelm'd
With toyl and whips, succumbed to the oppressors
And gave their once respected King and Lord
Most vicious lashes, in hope to excuse
Themselves of their own disobedience and
By whipping Caesar the Revolter to
Revolt against their natural tendency
To be whipped as slaves by white men in reign. [2]

In his faint from such inhumane inflictions
Caesar regained his consciousness; though in
Doubt of the truth in his blood-smeared perceptions
He soon discerns, and weltring by his side
One next himself in Honour, next in Will,
Tuscan. To whom the Captain thus began:

If thou beest he; But O how beat’n! how chang'd
From him, who in the dauntless fight for freedom
didst show his strength: If he Whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the Glorious Enterprize,
Joynd with me once, now misery hath joynd
In equal ruin: onto what stakes tyed and
With what spite whipped, so worthless prov'd again
The Christians with thir promises. Though they
Whip me with force, dethrone me in my right,
Confine my wife and child, yet not for those,
Nor what thir faithless, false God in His rage
Can else inflict, do I submit or change.
Asham’d yet I am in endeavoring [3]
To make those free, who were by Nature Slaves,
Poor wretched Rogues, fit to be us’d as Christians'
Tools; And dogs, treacherous and cowardly,
Fit for such Masters; and they wanted but
To be whipt into th’ knowledge of the Christian
Gods to be th’ vilest of all creeping thing;
That though they fled like dogs abandoning,
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome? [4]


  1. Broken meter.

    PREVIOUS LINE I FEAR WON’T SCAN AT ALL
    “PERFIDIOUS MEN THAT MADE HIS PEOPLE SLAVES” - Prof. Turner

  2. EXCELLENT POINT, EXCEPT FOR “NATURAL” –
    BUT HERE THE METRICS GET ALL JUMBLED UP
    AND THERE IS NO SUCH IDIOM AS “IN REIGN” - Prof. Turner

  3. MOVE “yet” TO AFTER “in” AND THIS WILL SCAN - Prof. Turner

  4. HOW DOES IT END? HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR MAN,
    THE HERO OROONOKO, MIGHT COMPARE
    TO SATAN IN HIS FINAL MINUTES, THEN? - Prof. Turner