Full hearty was his love, and I can fhew
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 fcorn, 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 moft egregious clerk.
He boarded with a widow in the town,
A trufty goffip, one dame Alifon.
Full well the fecrets of my foul fhe 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,
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 fcruple to reveal.
Oft' has he blush'd from ear to ear for fhame,
That e'er he told a fecret to his dame.
It fo befel, in holy time of Lent,
That oft' a day I to this goffip went;
(My husband, thank my ftars, was out of town) From house to house we rambled up and down, This clerk, my felf, and my good neighbour Alce,
To fee, be feen, to tell, and gather tales.
Vifits to ev'ry Church we daily paid,
And march'd in ev'ry holy Mafquerade,
The Stations duly, and the Vigils kept;
Not much we fafted, but scarce ever slept.
At Sermons too I fhone in fcarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my best array,
The cause was this, I wore it ev'ry day.
'Twas when fresh May her early bloffoms yields, 290
This Clerk and I were walking in the fields.
We grew fo intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawn'd my honour, and engag'd my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, fhould ferve my turn.
We strait ftruck hands, the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against á time of need:
The mouse that always trufts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any foul.
I vow'd, I fcarce could fleep fince first I knew him, 300
And durft be fworn he had bewitch'd me to him;
If e'er I flept, I dream'd of him alone,
And dreams foretel, as learned men have shown;
All this I faid; but dream, firs, I had none:
I follow'd but my crafty Crony's lore,
Who bid me tell this lye—and twenty more.
Thus day by day, and month by month we past;
It pleas'd the Lord to take my spouse at laft.
I tore my gown, I foil'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
The good man's coffin to the Church was born;
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, fo clean, fo ftrong, so fair!
Of twenty winters age he seem'd to be;
I (to fay truth) was twenty more than he;
But vig'rous ftill, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame.
A Conj'rer once, that deeply could divine,
Affur'd me, Mars in Taurus was my fign.
As the stars order'd, fuch my life has been :
Alas, alas, that ever love was fin!
Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace,
And Mars affurance, and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this pow'rful conftellation,
I follow'd always my own inclination.
But to my tale: A month scarce pafs'd away,
With dance and fong we kept the nuptial day.
All I poffefs'd I gave to his command,
My goods and chattels, mony, house, and land:
But oft' repented, and repent it ftill;
He prov'd a rebel to my fov'reign will:
Nay once by heav'n he ftruck me on the face;
Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the cafe.
Stubborn as any Lionéfs was I;
And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,
And would be fo, in spite of all he swore.
He, against this right fagely would advise,
And old examples fet before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And chose the sermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With fome grave sentence out of holy writ.
Oft' would he fay, Who builds his house on fands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deferves a fool's-cap and long ears at home.
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And fo do numbers more, I'll boldly fay,
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 dev'l confound
For all their lyes) were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;
Chryfippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,
And many more than fure the Church approves.
Solomon's proverbs, Eloïfa's loves;
More legends were there here, of wicked wives,
Than good, in all the Bible and Saints-lives.
Who drew the Lion vanquish'd? 'Twas a Man.
But cou'd we women write as fcholars can,
Men should stand mark'd with far more wickedness,
Than all the fons of Adam could redress.
Love feldom haunts the breast where Learning lies,
And Venus fets e'er Mercury can rise.
Those play the scholars who can't play the men,
And ufe that weapon which they have, their pen;
When old, and past the relish of delight,
Then down they fit, and in their dotage write,
That not one woman keeps her marriage-vow.
(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 ftrange delight,
How the first female (as the fcriptures fhow)
Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe.
How Sampson fell; and he whom Dejanire
Wrap'd in th' envenom'd shirt, and fet on fire.
How curs'd Eryphile her Lord betray'd,
And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid.
But what most pleas'd him was the Cretan dame,
And husband-bull-oh monftrous! fie for fhame!
He had by heart, the whole detail of woe
Xantippe made her good man undergo;
How oft' fhe fcolded in a day, he knew,
How many pifs-pots on the sage she threw ;
Who took it patiently, and wipe'd 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 fucceffively had twin'd
A fliding noofe, and waver'd in the wind.
Where grows this plant (reply'd the friend) oh where?
For better fruit did never orchard bear.
Give me some flip of this most blissful tree,
And in my garden planted shall it be,
Then how two wives their lord's deftruction prove,
Thro' hatred one, and one thro' too much love;
That for her husband mix'd a pois'nous draught,
And this for luft an am'rous philtre bought,
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