BEHOLD the woes of matrimonial life, | |
| And hear with rev’rence an experienced wife; | |
| To dear-bought wisdom give the credit due, | |
| And think for once a woman tells you true. | |
| In all these trials I have borne a part: | 5 |
| I was myself the scourge that caus’d the smart; | |
| For since fifteen in triumph have I led | |
| Five captive husbands from the church to bed. | |
| Christ saw a wedding once, the Scripture says, | |
| And saw but one, ’t was thought, in all his days; | 10 |
| Whence some infer, whose conscience is too nice, | |
| No pious Christian ought to marry twice. | |
| But let them read, and solve me if they can, | |
| The words address’d to the Samaritan: | |
| Five times in lawful wedlock she was join’d, | 15 |
| And sure the certain stint was ne’er defin’d. | |
| ‘Increase and multiply’ was Heav’n’s command, | |
| And that ’s a text I clearly understand: | |
| This too, ‘Let men their sires and mothers leave, | |
| And to their dearer wives for ever cleave.’ | 20 |
| More wives than one by Solomon were tried, | |
| Or else the wisest of mankind’s belied. | |
| I ’ve had myself full many a merry fit, | |
| And trust in Heav’n I may have many yet; | |
| For when my transitory spouse, unkind, | 25 |
| Shall die and leave his woful wife behind, | |
| I ’ll take the next good Christian I can find. | |
| Paul, knowing one could never serve our turn, | |
| Declared ’t was better far to wed than burn. | |
| There ’s danger in assembling fire and tow; | 30 |
| I grant ’em that; and what it means you know. | |
| The same apostle, too, has elsewhere own’d | |
| No precept for virginity he found: | |
| ’T is but a counsel—and we women still | |
| Take which we like, the counsel or our will. | 35 |
| I envy not their bliss, if he or she | |
| Think fit to live in perfect chastity: | |
| Pure let them be, and free from taint or vice; | |
| I for a few slight spots am not so nice. | |
| Heav’n calls us diff’rent ways; on these bestows | 40 |
| One proper gift, another grants to those; | |
| Not every man’s obliged to sell his store, | |
| And give up all his substance to the poor: | |
| Such as are perfect may, I can’t deny; | |
| But by your leaves, Divines! so am not I. | 45 |
| Full many a saint, since first the world began, | |
| Liv’d an unspotted maid in spite of man: | |
| Let such (a God’s name) with fine wheat be fed, | |
| And let us honest wives eat barley bread. | |
| For me, I ’ll keep the post assign’d by Heav’n, | 50 |
| And use the copious talent it has giv’n: | |
| Let my good spouse pay tribute, do me right, | |
| And keep an equal reck’ning every night; | |
| His proper body is not his, but mine; | |
| For so said Paul, and Paul’s a sound divine. | 55 |
| Know then, of those five husbands I have had, | |
| Three were just tolerable, two were bad. | |
| The three were old, but rich and fond beside, | |
| And toil’d most piteously to please their bride; | |
| But since their wealth (the best they had) was mine, | 60 |
| The rest without much loss I could resign: | |
| Sure to be lov’d, I took no pains to please, | |
| Yet had more pleasure far than they had ease. | |
| Presents flow’d in apace: with showers of gold | |
| They made their court, like Jupiter of old: | 65 |
| If I but smiled, a sudden youth they found, | |
| And a new palsy seiz’d them when I frown’d. | |
| Ye sov’reign Wives! give ear, and understand: | |
| Thus shall ye speak, and exercise command; | |
| For never was it giv’n to mortal man | 70 |
| To lie so boldly as we women can: | |
| Forswear the fact, tho’ seen with both his eyes, | |
| And call your maids to witness how he lies. | |
| Hark, old Sir Paul! (’t was thus I used to say) | |
| Whence is our neighbour’s wife so rich and gay? | 75 |
| Treated, caress’d, where’er she ’s pleas’d to roam— | |
| I sit in tatters, and immured at home. | |
| Why to her house dost thou so oft repair? | |
| Art thou so am’rous? and is she so fair? | |
| If I but see a cousin or a friend, | 80 |
| Lord! how you swell and rage like any fiend! | |
| But you reel home, a drunken beastly bear, | |
| Then preach till midnight in your easy chair; | |
| Cry, wives are false, and every woman evil, | |
| And give up all that ’s female to the devil. | 85 |
| If poor (you say), she drains her husband’s purse; | |
| If rich, she keeps her priest, or something worse; | |
| If highly born, intolerably vain, | |
| Vapours and pride by turns possess her brain; | |
| Now gaily mad, now sourly splenetic, | 90 |
| Freakish when well, and fretful when she ’s sick. | |
| If fair, then chaste she-cannot long abide, | |
| By pressing youth attack’d on every side; | |
| If foul, her wealth the lusty lover lures, | |
| Or else her wit some fool-gallant procures, | 95 |
| Or else she dances with becoming grace, | |
| Or shape excuses the defects of face. | |
| There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late | |
| She finds some honest gander for her mate. | |
| Horses (thou say’st) and asses men may try, | 100 |
| And ring suspected vessels ere they buy; | |
| But wives, a random choice, untried they take, | |
| They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake; | |
| Then, not till then, the veil’s remov’d away, | |
| And all the woman glares in open day. | 105 |
| You tell me, to preserve your wife’s good grace, | |
| Your eyes must always languish on my face, | |
| Your tongue with constant flatt’ries feed my ear, | |
| And tag each sentence with ‘My life! my dear!’ | |
| If by strange chance a modest blush be rais’d, | 110 |
| Be sure my fine complexion must be prais’d. | |
| My garments always must be new and gay, | |
| And feasts still kept upon my wedding day. | |
| Then must my nurse be pleas’d, and fav’rite maid; | |
| And endless treats and endless visits paid | 115 |
| To a long train of kindred, friends, allies: | |
| All this thou say’st, and all thou say’st are lies. | |
| On Jenkin, too, you cast a squinting eye: | |
| What! can your ’prentice raise your jealousy? | |
| Fresh are his ruddy cheeks, his forehead fair, | 120 |
| And like the burnish’d gold his curling hair. | |
| But clear thy wrinkled brow, and quit thy sorrow; | |
| I ’d scorn your ’prentice should you die to-morrow. | |
| Why are thy chests all lock’d? on what design? | |
| Are not thy worldly goods and treasure mine? | 125 |
| Sir, I ’m no fool; nor shall you, by St. John, | |
| Have goods and body to yourself alone. | |
| One you shall quit, in spite of both your eyes— | |
| I heed not, I, the bolts, the locks, the spies. | |
| If you had wit, you ’d say, ‘Go where you will, | 130 |
| Dear spouse! I credit not the tales they tell: | |
| Take all the freedoms of a married life; | |
| I know thee for a virtuous, faithful wife.’ | |
| Lord! when you have enough, what need you care | |
| How merrily soever others fare? | 135 |
| Tho’ all the day I give and take delight, | |
| Doubt not sufficient will be left at night. | |
| ’T is but a just and rational desire | |
| To light a taper at a neighbour’s fire. | |
| There ’s danger too, you think, in rich array, | 140 |
| And none can long be modest that are gay. | |
| The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, | |
| The chimney keeps, and sits content within: | |
| But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, | |
| Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: | 145 |
| She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad | |
| To show her fur, and to be catterwaw’d. | |
| Lo thus, my friends, I wrought to my desires | |
| These three right ancient venerable sires. | |
| I told them, Thus you say, and thus you do; | 150 |
| And told them false, but Jenkin swore ’t was true. | |
| I, like a dog, could bite as well as whine, | |
| And first complain’d whene’er the guilt was mine. | |
| I tax’d them oft with wenching and amours, | |
| When their weak legs scarce dragg’d them out of doors; | 155 |
| And swore the rambles that I took by night | |
| Were all to spy what damsels they bedight: | |
| That colour brought me many hours of mirth; | |
| For all this wit is giv’n us from our birth. | |
| Heav’n gave to woman the peculiar grace | 160 |
| To spin, to weep, and cully human race. | |
| By this nice conduct and this prudent course, | |
| By murm’ring, wheedling, stratagem, and force, | |
| I still prevail’d, and would be in the right; | |
| Or curtain lectures made a restless night. | 165 |
| If once my husband’s arm was o’er my side, | |
| ‘What! so familiar with your spouse?’ I cried: | |
| I levied first a tax upon his need; | |
| Then let him—’t was a nicety indeed! | |
| Let all mankind this certain maxim hold; | 170 |
| Marry who will, our sex is to be sold. | |
| With empty hands no tassels you can lure, | |
| But fulsome love for gain we can endure; | |
| For gold we love the impotent and old, | |
| And heave, and pant, and kiss, and cling, for gold. | 175 |
| Yet with embraces curses oft I mixt, | |
| Then kiss’d again, and chid, and rail’d betwixt. | |
| Well, I may make my will in peace, and die, | |
| For not one word in man’s arrears am I. | |
| To drop a dear dispute I was unable, | 180 |
| Ev’n though the Pope himself had sat at table; | |
| But when my point was gain’d, then thus I spoke: | |
| ‘Billy, my dear, how sheepishly you look! | |
| Approach, my spouse, and let me kiss thy cheek; | |
| Thou shouldst be always thus resign’d and meek! | 185 |
| Of Job’s great patience since so oft you preach, | |
| Well should you practise who so well can teach. | |
| ’T is difficult to do, I must allow, | |
| But I, my dearest! will instruct you how. | |
| Great is the blessing of a prudent wife, | 190 |
| Who puts a period to domestic strife. | |
| One of us two must rule, and one obey; | |
| And since in man right Reason bears the sway, | |
| Let that frail thing, weak woman, have her way. | |
| The wives of all my family have ruled | 195 |
| Their tender husbands, and their passions cool’d. | |
| Fie! ’t is unmanly thus to sigh and groan: | |
| What! would you have me to yourself alone? | |
| Why, take me, love! take all and every part! | |
| Here ’s your revenge! you love it at your heart. | 200 |
| Would I vouchsafe to sell what Nature gave, | |
| You little think what custom I could have. | |
| But see! I ’m all your own—nay hold—for shame! | |
| What means my dear?—indeed—you are to blame.’ | |
| Thus with my first three lords I pass’d my life, | 205 |
| A very woman and a very wife. | |
| What sums from these old spouses I could raise | |
| Procur’d young husbands in my riper days. | |
| Tho’ past my bloom, not yet decay’d was I, | |
| Wanton and wild, and chatter’d like a pie. | 210 |
| In country dances still I bore the bell, | |
| And sung as sweet as ev’ning Philomel. | |
| To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul, | |
| Full oft I drain’d the spicy nut-brown bowl; | |
| Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve, | 215 |
| And warm the swelling veins to feats of love: | |
| For ’t is as sure as cold engenders hail, | |
| A liquorish mouth must have a lech’rous tail: | |
| Wine lets no lover unrewarded go, | |
| As all true gamesters by experience know. | 220 |
| But oh, good Gods! whene’er a thought I cast | |
| On all the joys of youth and beauty past, | |
| To find in pleasures I have had my part | |
| Still warms me to the bottom of my heart. | |
| This wicked world was once my dear delight; | 225 |
| Now all my conquests, all my charms, good night! | |
| The flour consumed, the best that now I can | |
| Is ev’n to make my market of the bran. | |
| My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding true; | |
| He kept, ’t was thought, a private miss or two; | 230 |
| But all that score I paid—As how? you ’ll say: | |
| Not with my body, in a filthy way; | |
| But I so dress’d, and danc’d, and drank, and din’d | |
| And view’d a friend with eyes so very kind, | |
| As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry, | 235 |
| With burning rage and frantic jealousy. | |
| His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory, | |
| For here on earth I was his purgatory. | |
| Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung, | |
| He put on careless airs, and sat and sung. | 240 |
| How sore I gall’d him only Heav’n could know, | |
| And he that felt, and I that caus’d the woe. | |
| He died when last from pilgrimage I came, | |
| With other gossips, from Jerusalem; | |
| And now lies buried underneath a rood, | 245 |
| Fair to be seen, and rear’d of honest wood: | |
| A tomb, indeed, with fewer sculptures graced | |
| Than that Mausolus’ pious widow placed, | |
| Or where enshrin’d the great Darius lay; | |
| But cost on graves is merely thrown away. | 250 |
| The pit fill’d up, with turf we cover’d o’er; | |
| So bless the good man’s soul! I say no more. | |
| Now for my fifth lov’d lord, the last and best; | |
| (Kind Heav’n afford him everlasting rest!) | |
| Full hearty was his love, and I can show | 255 |
| The tokens on my ribs in black and blue; | |
| Yet with a knack my heart he could have won, | |
| While yet the smart was shooting in the bone. | |
| How quaint an appetite in women reigns! | |
| Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains. | 260 |
| Let men avoid us, and on them we leap; | |
| A glutted market makes provision cheap. | |
| In pure good will I took this jovial spark, | |
| Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk. | |
| He boarded with a widow in the town, | 265 |
| A trusty gossip, one dame Alison; | |
| Full well the secrets of my soul she knew, | |
| Better than e’er our parish priest could do. | |
| To her I told whatever could befall: | |
| Had but my husband piss’d against a wall, | 270 |
| Or done a thing that might have cost his life, | |
| She—and my niece—and one more worthy wife, | |
| Had known it all: what most he would conceal, | |
| To these I made no scruple to reveal. | |
| Oft has he blush’d from ear to ear for shame | 275 |
| That e’er he told a secret to his dame. | |
| It so befell, in holy time of Lent, | |
| That oft a day I to this gossip went; | |
| (My husband, thank my stars, was out of town) | |
| From house to house we rambled up and down, | 280 |
| This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse, | |
| To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales. | |
| Visits to every church we daily paid, | |
| And march’d in every holy masquerade; | |
| The stations duly and the vigils kept; | 285 |
| Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept. | |
| At sermons, too, I shone in scarlet gay: | |
| The wasting moth ne’er spoil’d my best array; | |
| The cause was this, I wore it every day. | |
| ’T was when fresh May her early blossoms yields, | 290 |
| This clerk and I were walking in the fields. | |
| We grew so intimate, I can’t tell how, | |
| I pawn’d my honour, and engaged my vow, | |
| If e’er I laid my husband in his urn, | |
| That he, and only he, should serve my turn. | 295 |
| We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed; | |
| I still have shifts against a time of need. | |
| The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole | |
| Can never be a mouse of any soul. | |
| I vow’d I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, | 300 |
| And durst be sworn he had bewitch’d me to him; | |
| If e’er I slept I dream’d of him alone, | |
| And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown. | |
| All this I said; but dreams, Sirs, I had none: | |
| I follow’d but my crafty crony’s lore, | 305 |
| Who bid me tell this lie—and twenty more. | |
| Thus day by day, and month by month we past; | |
| It pleas’d the Lord to take my spouse at last. | |
| I tore my gown, I soil’d my locks with dust, | |
| And beat my breasts, as wretched widows—must. | 310 |
| Before my face my handkerchief I spread, | |
| To hide the flood of tears I—did not shed. | |
| The good man’s coffin to the church was borne; | |
| Around the neighbours and my clerk too mourn. | |
| But as he march’d, good Gods! he show’d a pair | 315 |
| Of legs and feet so clean, so strong, so fair! | |
| Of twenty winters’ age he seem’d to be; | |
| I (to say truth) was twenty more than he; | |
| But vig’rous still, a lively buxom dame, | |
| And had a wondrous gift to quench a flame. | 320 |
| A conjurer once, that deeply could divine, | |
| Assur’d me Mars in Taurus was my sign. | |
| As the stars order’d, such my life has been: | |
| Alas, alas! that ever love was sin! | |
| Fair Venus gave me fire and sprightly grace, | 325 |
| And Mars assurance and a dauntless face. | |
| By virtue of this powerful constellation, | |
| I follow’d always my own inclination. | |
| But to my tale:—A month scarce pass’d away, | |
| With dance and song we kept the nuptial day. | 330 |
| All I possess’d I gave to his command, | |
| My goods and chattels, money, house, and land; | |
| But oft repented, and repent it still; | |
| He prov’d a rebel to my sov’reign will; | |
| Nay, once, by Heav’n! he struck me on the face: | 335 |
| Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the case. | |
| Stubborn as any lioness was I, | |
| And knew full well to raise my voice on high; | |
| As true a rambler as I was before, | |
| And would be so in spite of all he swore. | 340 |
| He against this right sagely would advise, | |
| And old examples set before my eyes; | |
| Tell how the Roman matrons led their life, | |
| Of Gracchus’ mother, and Duilius’ wife; | |
| And close the sermon, as beseem’d his wit, | 345 |
| With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ. | |
| Oft would he say, ‘Who builds his house on sands, | |
| Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands, | |
| Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam, | |
| Deserves a fool’s-cap and long ears at home.’ | 350 |
| All this avail’d not, for whoe’er he be | |
| That tells my faults, I hate him mortally! | |
| And so do numbers more, I ’ll boldly say, | |
| Men, women, clergy, regular and lay. | |
| My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred) | 355 |
| A certain treatise oft at evening read, | |
| Where divers authors (whom the devil confound | |
| For all their lies) were in one volume bound: | |
| Valerius whole, and of St. Jerome part; | |
| Chrysippus and Tertullian, Ovid’s Art, | 360 |
| Solomon’s Proverbs, Eloisa’s loves, | |
| And many more than sure the church approves. | |
| More legends were there here of wicked wives | |
| Than good in all the Bible and saints’ lives. | |
| Who drew the lion vanquish’d? ’T was a man: | 365 |
| But could we women write as scholars can, | |
| Men should stand mark’d with far more wickedness | |
| Than all the sons of Adam could redress. | |
| Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, | |
| And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise. | 370 |
| Those play the scholars who can’t play the men, | |
| And use that weapon which they have, their pen; | |
| When old, and past the relish of delight, | |
| Then down they sit, and in their dotage write | |
| That not one woman keeps her marriage-vow. | 375 |
| (This by the way, but to my purpose now.) | |
| It chanc’d my husband, on a winter’s night, | |
| Read in this book aloud with strange delight, | |
| How the first female (as the Scriptures show) | |
| Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe; | 380 |
| How Samson fell; and he whom Dejanire | |
| Wrapp’d in th’ envenom’d shirt, and set on fire; | |
| How curs’d Eriphyle her lord betray’d, | |
| And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid; | |
| But what most pleas’d him was the Cretan dame | 385 |
| And husband-bull—Oh, monstrous! fie, for shame! | |
| He had by heart the whole detail of woe | |
| Xantippe made her good man undergo; | |
| How oft she scolded in a day he knew, | |
| How many pisspots on the sage she threw— | 390 |
| Who took it patiently, and wiped his head: | |
| ‘Rain follows thunder,’ that was all he said. | |
| He read how Arius to his friend complain’d | |
| A fatal tree was growing in his land, | |
| On which three wives successively had twin’d | 395 |
| A sliding noose, and waver’d in the wind. | |
| ‘Where grows this plant,’ replied the friend, ‘oh where? | |
| For better fruit did never orchard bear: | |
| Give me some slip of this most blissful tree, | |
| And in my garden planted it shall be.’ | 400 |
| Then how two wives their lords’ destruction prove, | |
| Thro’ hatred one, and one thro’ too much love; | |
| That for her husband mix’d a pois’nous draught, | |
| And this for lust an am’rous philtre bought; | |
| The nimble juice soon seiz’d his giddy head, | 405 |
| Frantic at night, and in the morning dead. | |
| How some with swords their sleeping lords have slain, | |
| And some have hammer’d nails into their brain, | |
| And some have drench’d them with a deadly potion: | |
| All this he read, and read with great devotion. | 410 |
| Long time I heard, and swell’d, and blush’d, and frown’d; | |
| But when no end of these vile tales I found, | |
| When still he read, and laugh’d, and read again, | |
| And half the night was thus consumed in vain, | |
| Provoked to vengeance, three large leaves I tore, | 415 |
| And with one buffet fell’d him on the floor. | |
| With that my husband in a fury rose, | |
| And down he settled me with hearty blows. | |
| I groan’d, and lay extended on my side; | |
| ‘Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth,’ I cried! | 420 |
| ‘Yet I forgive thee—take my last embrace’— | |
| He wept, kind soul! and stoop’d to kiss my face: | |
| I took him such a box as turn’d him blue, | |
| Then sigh’d and cried, ‘Adieu, my dear, adieu!’ | |
| But after many a hearty struggle past, | 425 |
| I condescended to be pleas’d at last. | |
| Soon as he said, ‘My mistress and my wife! | |
| Do what you list the term of all your life;’ | |
| I took to heart the merits of the cause, | |
| And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; | 430 |
| Receiv’d the reins of absolute command, | |
| With all the government of house and land, | |
| And empire o’er his tongue and o’er his hand. | |
| As for the volume that revil’d the dames, | |
| ’T was torn to fragments, and condemn’d to flames. | 435 |
| Now Heav’n on all my husbands gone bestow | |
| Pleasures above for tortures felt below: | |
| That rest they wish’d for grant them in the grave, | |
| And bless those souls my conduct help’d to save! | |
| |
