His Niobe and all his boys he lost;

Even her, who did her numerous offspring boast,
As fair and fruitful as the sow that carried
The thirty pigs, at one large litter farrowed.
What beauty, or what chastity, can bear
So great a price, if, stately and severe,
She still insults, and you must still adore?
Grant that the honey's much, the gall is more.
Upbraided with the virtues she displays,
Seven hours in twelve you loath the wife you praise.
Some faults, though small, intolerable grow;
For what so nauseous and affected too,

As those that think they due perfection want,
Who have not learnt to lisp the Grecian cant? †
In Greece, their whole accomplishments they seek:
Their fashion, breeding, language, must be Greek;
But, raw in all that does to Rome belong,
They scorn to cultivate their mother-tongue.
In Greek they flatter, all their fears they speak;
Tell all their secrets; nay, they scold in Greek:
Even in the feat of love, they use that tongue.
Such affectations may become the young;
But thou, old hag, of three score years and three,
Is showing of thy parts in Greek for thee?
Ζωὴ καὶ ψυχή! All those tender words
The momentary trembling bliss affords;
The kind soft murmurs of the private sheets
Are bawdy, while thou speak'st in public streets.
Those words have fingers; and their force is such,
They raise the dead, and mount him with a touch.
But all provocatives from thee are vain;

No blandishment the slackened nerve can strain.

* He alludes to the white sow in Virgil, who farrowed thirty pigs.

+ Women then learned Greek, as ours speak French.

If then thy lawful spouse thou canst not love, What reason should thy mind to marriage move? Why all the charges of the nuptial feast,

Wine and deserts, and sweet-meats to digest?
The endowing gold that buys the dear delight,
Given for thy first and only happy night?
If thou art thus uxoriously inclined,
To bear thy bondage with a willing mind,
Prepare thy neck, and put it in the yoke;
But for no mercy from thy woman look.
For though, perhaps, she loves with equal fires,
To absolute dominion she aspires,

Joys in the spoils, and triumphs o'er thy purse;
The better husband makes the wife the worse.
Nothing is thine to give, or sell, or buy,
All offices of ancient friendship die,
Nor hast thou leave to make a legacy.*
By thy imperious wife thou art bereft
A privilege, to pimps and panders left ;
Thy testament's her will; where she prefers
Her ruffians, drudges, and adulterers,
Adopting all thy rivals for thy heirs.

}

Go drag that slave to death!-Your reason? why Should the poor innocent be doomed to die? What proofs? For, when man's life is in debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.— Call'st thou that slave a man? the wife replies; Proved, or unproved, the crime, the villain dies. I have the sovereign power to save, or kill, And give no other reason but my will.Thus the she-tyrant reigns, till, pleased withchange, Her wild affections to new empires range;

*All the Romans, even the most inferior, and most infamous sort of them, had the power of making wills.

}

Another subject-husband she desires;
Divorced from him, she to the first retires,
While the last wedding-feast is scarcely o'er,
And garlands hang yet green upon the door.
So still the reckoning rises; and appears
In total sum, eight husbands in five years.
The title for a tomb-stone might be fit,
But that it would too commonly be writ.
Her mother living, hope no quiet day;
She sharpens her, instructs her how to flay
Her husband bare, and then divides the prey.
She takes love-letters, with a crafty smile,
And, in her daughter's answer, mends the style.
In vain the husband sets his watchful spies;
She cheats their cunning, or she bribes their eyes.
The doctor's called; the daughter, taught the trick,
Pretends to faint, and in full health is sick.
The panting stallion, at the closet-door,
Hears the consult, and wishes it were o'er.
Canst thou, in reason, hope, a bawd so known,
Should teach her other manners than her own?
Her interest is in all the advice she gives;
'Tis on the daughter's rents the mother lives.
No cause is tried at the litigious bar,
But women plaintiffs or defendants are;
They form the process, all the briefs they write,
The topics furnish, and the pleas indict,
And teach the toothless lawyer how to bite.
They turn viragos too; the wrestler's toil
They try, and smear the naked limbs with oil;
Against the post their wicker shields they crush,
Flourish the sword, and at the flastron push.
Of every exercise the mannish crew
Fulfils the parts, and oft excels us too;
Prepared not only in feigned fights to engage,
But rout the gladiators on the stage.

}

}

What sense of shame in such a breast can lie,
Inured to arms, and her own sex to fly?
Yet to be wholly man she would disclaim;
To quit her tenfold pleasure at the game,
For frothy praises and an empty name.
Oh what a decent sight 'tis to behold
All thy wife's magazine by auction sold!
The belt, the crested plume, the several suits
Of armour, and the Spanish leather boots!
Yet these are they, that cannot bear the heat
Of figured silks, and under sarcenet sweat.
Behold the strutting Amazonian whore,
She stands in guard with her right foot before;
Her coats tucked up, and all her motions just,
She stamps, and then cries,-Hah! at every thrust;
But laugh to see her, tired with many a bout,
Call for the pot, and like a man piss out.
The ghosts of ancient Romans, should they rise,
Would grin to see their daughters play a prize.

Besides, what endless brawls by wives are bred?
The curtain-lecture makes a mournful bed.
Then, when she has thee sure within the sheets,
Her cry begins, and the whole day repeats.
Conscious of crimes herself, she teazes first;
Thy servants are accused; thy whore is curst;
She acts the jealous, and at will she cries;
For womens' tears are but the sweat of eyes.
Poor cuckold fool! thou think'st that love sincere,
And sucks between her lips the falling tear;
But search her cabinet, and thou shalt find
Each tiller there with love-epistles lined.
Suppose her taken in a close embrace,
This you would think so manifest a case,
No rhetoric could defend, no impudence outface;
And yet even then she cries,-The marriage-vow
A mental reservation must allow;

And there's a silent bargain still implied,
The parties should be pleased on either side,
And both may for their private needs provide.
Though men yourselves, and women us you call,
Yet homo is a common name for all.-

There's nothing bolder than a woman caught;
Guilt gives them courage to maintain their fault.
You ask, from whence proceed these monstrous
crimes?

Once poor, and therefore chaste, in former times
Our matrons were; no luxury found room,
In low-roofed houses, and bare walls of loam;
Their bands with labour hardened while 'twas light,
And frugal sleep supplied the quiet night;

While pinched with want, their hunger held them straight,

When Hannibal was hovering at the gate:
But wanton now, and lolling at our ease,
We suffer all the inveterate ills of peace,
And wasteful riot; whose destructive charms,
Revenge the vanquished world of our victorious

arms.

No crime, no lustful postures are unknown,
Since Poverty, our guardian god, is gone;
Pride, laziness, and all luxurious arts,
Pour, like a deluge, in from foreign parts:
Since gold obscene, and silver found the way,
Strange fashions, with strange bullion, to convey,
And our plain simple manners to betray.

What care our drunken dames to whom they spread?

Wine no distinction makes of tail or head.
Who lewdly dancing at a midnight ball,
For hot eringoes and fat oysters call:
Full brimmers to their fuddled noses thrust,
Brimmers, the last provocatives of lust;