T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From Prologue to “The Wife of Bath”
By Alexander Pope (1688–1744)YE sov’reign Wives! give ear, and understand: | |
| Thus shall ye speak, and exercise command; | |
| For never was it given to mortal man | |
| To lie so boldly as we women can: | |
| Forswear the fact, tho’ seen with both his eyes, | 5 |
| And call your maids to witness how he lies. | |
| Hark, old Sir Paul! (it was thus I used to say) | |
| Whence is our neighbour’s wife so rich and gay? | |
| Treated, caress’d, where’er she’s pleased to roam— | |
| I sit in tatters, and immured at home. | 10 |
| 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, | |
| Lord! how you swell and rage like any fiend! | |
| But you reel home, a drunken beastly bear, | 15 |
| 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. | |
| If poor (you say), she drains her husband’s purse; | |
| If rich, she keeps her priest, or something worse; | 20 |
| If highly born, intolerably vain, | |
| Vapours and pride by turns possess her brain; | |
| Now gaily mad, now sourly splenetic, | |
| Freakish when well, and fretful when she’s sick. | |
| If fair, then chaste she cannot long abide, | 25 |
| By pressing youth attack’d on every side; | |
| If foul, her wealth the lusty lover lures, | |
| Or else her wit some fool-gallant procures, | |
| Or else she dances with becoming grace, | |
| Or shape excuses the defects of face. * * * * * | 30 |
| 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? | |
| Tho’ all the day I give and take delight, | 35 |
| Doubt not sufficient will be left at night. | |
| ’Tis but a just and rational desire | |
| To light a taper at a neighbour’s fire. | |
| There’s danger too, you think, in rich array, | |
| And none can long be modest that are gay. | 40 |
| 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: | |
| She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad | 45 |
| To show her fur, and to be catterwaw’d. * * * * * | |
| 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! | 50 |
| Let all mankind this certain maxim hold; | |
| 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, | 55 |
| And heave, and pant, and kiss, and cling, for gold. | |
| 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. | 60 |
| To drop a dear dispute I was unable, | |
| 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; | 65 |
| Thou shouldst be always thus resign’d and meek!” * * * * * | |
| The wives of all my family have ruled | |
| 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? | 70 |
| Why, take me, love! take all and every part! | |
| Here’s your revenge! you love it at your heart. | |
| 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! | 75 |
| What means my dear?—indeed—you are to blame. | |
| Thus with my first three lords I pass’d my life, | |
| A very woman and a very wife. | |
| What sums from these old spouses I could raise | |
| Procur’d young husbands in my riper days. | 80 |
| Tho’ past my bloom, not yet decay’d was I, | |
| Wanton and wild, and chatter’d like a pie. | |
| In country dances still I bore the bell, | |
| And sung as sweet as evening Philomel. | |
| To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul, | 85 |
| Full oft I drain’d the spicy nut-brown bowl; | |
| Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve, | |
| 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: | 90 |
| Wine lets no lover unrewarded go, | |
| As all true gamesters by experience know. * * * * * | |
| My fourth spouse was not exceeding true; | |
| He kept, ’t was thought, a private miss or two; | |
| But all that score I paid—As how? you’ll say: | 95 |
| 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, | |
| With burning rage and frantic jealousy. | 100 |
| His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory, | |
| For here on earth I was his purgatory. * * * * * | |
| 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 | 105 |
| 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. | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| A trusty gossip, one dame Alison; | |
| Full well the secrets of my soul she knew, | |
| Better than e’er our parish priest could do. * * * * * | |
| This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse, | |
| To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales. | 120 |
| Visits to every church we daily paid, | |
| And march’d in every holy masquerade; | |
| The stations duly and the vigils kept; | |
| Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept. | |
| At sermons, too, I shone in scarlet gay: | 125 |
| The wasting moth ne’er spoil’d my best array; | |
| The cause was this, I wore it every day. | |
| ’Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields, | |
| This clerk and I were walking in the fields. | |
| We grew so intimate, I can’t tell how, | 130 |
| 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. | |
| We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed; | |
| I still have shifts against a time of need. | 135 |
| 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, | |
| And durst be sworn he had bewitch’d me to him; | |
| If e’er I slept I dream’d of him alone, | 140 |
| 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, | |
| Who bid me tell this lie—and twenty more. * * * * * | |