Alexander Pope

Against Barbarity to Animals

Th' essay of bloody feasts on brutes began,

Slippery slope logic

The poem's opening thesis: animal slaughter leads to human murder. Pope sees violence as progressive—you start with beasts, end with men.

And after forg'd the sword to murder man.
—————That lies beneath the knife,
Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life.'
'Quid meruistis, oves, placidum pecus, inque tegendos

Ovid's Metamorphoses

Pope quotes Ovid Book 15 in Latin—Pythagoras's speech against eating meat. The Latin gives classical authority to what might otherwise seem sentimental.

Natum homines, pleno quæ fertis in ubere nečtar?
Mollia quæ nobis vestras velamina lanas
Præbetis; vitâque magis quàm morte juvatis.
Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque,
Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores?
Immemor est demum, nec frugum munere dignus,
Qui potuit, curvi dempto modo pondere aratri,
Ruricolam mactare suum————
Met. xv. 116.
' Quàm malè consuevit, quàm se parat ille cruori
Impius humano, vituli qui guttura cultro
Rumpit, & immotas præbet mugitibus aures!
Aut qui vagitus similes puerilibus hædum
Edentem jugulare potest!————'
Ib. ver, 463.
'The Sheep was sacrific'd on no pretence,
But meek and unresisting innocence.
A patient, useful creature, born to bear
The warm and woolly fleece, that cloth'd her murderer;
And daily to give down the milk she bred,
A tribute for the grass, on which she fed,

Economic argument

Notice the shift: not just 'sheep are innocent' but 'sheep are more valuable alive.' Pope uses utility, not just ethics, to argue against slaughter.

Living, both food and raiment she supplies,
And is of least advantage when she dies.
How did the toiling ox his death deserve;
A downright simple drudge, and born to serve?
O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope
The promise of the year, a plenteous crop;
When thou destroy'st thy lab'ring steer, who till'd,
And plough'd with pains, thy else ungrateful field!
From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,
That neck, with which the surly clods he broke:
And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd autumn, and the spring began?

Agricultural betrayal

The ox plowed your field in autumn and spring—a full year of labor. Then you kill it. Pope frames this as breach of contract, not just cruelty.

What more advance can mortals make in sin
So near perfection, who with blood begin?
Deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife,
Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life:
Deaf to the harmless kid, that ere he dies,
All methods to secure thy mercy tries,

Children's cries

The kid (baby goat) sounds like a human child. Pope ends on this disturbing image—if you can ignore that sound, what won't you ignore?

And imitates in vain the children's cries.'
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Pope's Vegetarian Argument

This poem makes a Pythagorean case against eating meat—the same argument Ovid puts in Pythagoras's mouth in *Metamorphoses* Book 15. Pope quotes Ovid extensively in Latin, then translates and expands the passages. The classical source matters: in 18th-century England, vegetarianism was eccentric, but Pythagoras and Ovid gave it philosophical weight.

Pope's argument has three layers. First, moral: animals are innocent, trusting, defenseless. Second, economic: sheep give wool and milk while alive, oxen plow fields—killing them is wasteful. Third, psychological: if you can kill a calf that 'begs her life' or a kid that sounds like a human child, you're training yourself for greater cruelty. The poem's opening couplet states this clearly: meat-eating comes first, human murder follows.

Notice how Pope personalizes the animals. The sheep is 'meek,' the ox is a 'husbandman' (farm worker), the calf 'looks up' at the butcher. He's not describing livestock—he's describing individuals with relationships to humans. The ox who 'finish'd autumn, and the spring began' has a work history. The sheep who gives milk is paying rent ('a tribute for the grass'). These aren't abstractions; they're beings with roles and expectations.

The poem's rhetoric builds to the final image: the kid that 'imitates in vain the children's cries.' This is Pope's most disturbing move—making the reader hear animal suffering as human suffering. If you can be 'deaf' to that sound, what does that make you? The poem ends not with an answer but with the reader forced to confront their own capacity for selective hearing.

Pope and Ovid

Pope includes two long Latin quotations from Ovid's *Metamorphoses* Book 15, then translates them loosely. This isn't just showing off—it's a structural choice. The Latin passages give the argument ancient authority, while Pope's English expansions make it immediate and emotional.

In Ovid's version, Pythagoras asks 'What have sheep deserved?' (*Quid meruistis, oves*). Pope translates this but adds economic detail: sheep give 'warm and woolly fleece' and 'daily' milk. Where Ovid is philosophical, Pope is practical. The same pattern appears with the ox: Ovid mentions the plow, Pope adds 'surly clods' and the timing ('autumn... spring'). Pope makes you see the actual labor.

The calf and kid images come from Ovid's second quotation (lines 463+). Ovid writes that the person who can kill a calf despite its cries (*mugitibus*) or a kid that sounds like a child (*vagitus similes puerilibus*) is preparing for human bloodshed. Pope takes this and makes it more direct: 'Deaf to the calf... Deaf to the harmless kid.' The repetition of 'deaf' is Pope's addition—he's diagnosing a moral deafness.

Why translate Ovid at all instead of just writing an original poem? Because classical precedent mattered in 18th-century debate. Vegetarianism was associated with religious cranks and eccentrics. By anchoring his argument in Ovid and Pythagoras, Pope makes it intellectually respectable. The Latin says: this isn't sentiment, it's philosophy.