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Let mine, ye gods! (if such must be my fate,)
No logic learn, nor history translate,
But rather be a quiet, humble fool;

I hate a wife to whom I go to school,
Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows
Where noun, and verb, and participle grows;
Corrects her country-neighbour; and, a-bed,
For breaking Priscian's breaks her husband's head.
The gaudy gossip, when she's set agog,
In jewels drest, and at each ear a bob,
Goes flaunting out, and, in her trim of pride,
Thinks all she says or does is justified.
When poor, she's scarce a tolerable evil;
But rich, and fine, a wife's a very devil.

She duly, once a month, renews her face;
Meantime, it lies in daub, and hid in grease.
Those are the husband's nights; she craves her due,
He takes fat kisses, and is stuck in glue.
But to the loved adulterer when she steers,
Fresh from the bath, in brightness she appears:
For him the rich Arabia sweats her gum,
And precious oils from distant Indies come,
How haggardly soe'er she looks at home.
The eclipse then vanishes, and all her face
Is opened, and restored to every grace;
The crust removed, her cheeks, as smooth as silk,
Are polished with a wash of asses milk;
And should she to the farthest north be sent,
A train of these † attend her banishment.
But hadst thou seen her plaistered up before,
"Twas so unlike a face, it seemed a sore.

* A woman-grammarian, who corrects her husband for speak ing false Latin, which is called breaking Priscian's head. ti. c. of the milk asses.

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'Tis worth our while, to know what all the day They do, and how they pass their time away; For, if o'er-night the husband has been slack, Or counterfeited sleep, and turned his back, Next day, be sure, the servants go to wrack. The chamber-maid and dresser are called whores, The page is stript, and beaten out of doors; The whole house suffers for the master's crime, And he himself is warned to wake another time. She hires tormentors by the year; she treats Her visitors, and talks, but still she beats; Beats while she paints her face, surveys her gown, Casts up the day's account, and still beats on: Tired out, at length, with an outrageous tone, She bids them in the devil's name be gone. Compared with such a proud, insulting dame, Sicilian tyrants* may renounce their name. For, if she hastes abroad to take the air,

Or

goes to Isis' church, (the bawdy house of prayer,) She hurries all her handmaids to the task; Her head, alone, will twenty dressers ask. Psecas, the chief, with breast and shoulders bare, Trembling, considers every sacred hair; If any straggler from his rank be found, A pinch must for the mortal sin compound. Psecas is not in fault; but in the glass, The dame's offended at her own ill face. That maid is banished; and another girl, More dexterous, manages the comb and curl. The rest are summoned on a point so nice, And, first, the grave old woman gives advice; The next is called, and so the turn goes round, As each for age, or wisdom, is renowned:

+ Sicilian tyrants were grown to a proverb, in Latin, for their cruelty.

Such counsel, such deliberate care they take,
As if her life and honour lay at stake :

With curls on curls, they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tower.

A giantess she seems; but look behind,
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.
Duck-legged, short-waisted, such a dwarf she is,
That she must rise on tip-toes for a kiss.
Meanwhile, her husband's whole estate is spent!
He may go bare, while she receives his rent.
She minds him not; she lives not as a wife,
But, like a bawling neighbour, full of strife:
Near him in this alone, that she extends
Her hate to all his servants and his friends.
Bellona's priests,* an eunuch at their head,
About the streets a mad procession lead;
The venerable gelding, large, and high,
O'erlooks the herd of his inferior fry.
His aukward clergymen about him prance,
And beat the timbrels to their mystic dance;
Guiltless of testicles, they tear their throats,
And squeak, in treble, their unmanly notes.
Meanwhile, his cheeks the mitred prophet swells,
And dire presages of the year foretels;
Unless with eggs (his priestly hire) they haste
To expiate, and avert the autumnal blast;
And add beside a murrey-coloured vest, †
Which, in their places, may receive the pest,
And, thrown into the flood, their crimes may bear,
To
purge the unlucky omens of the year.

* Bellona's priests were a sort of fortune-tellers; and their high priest an eunuch.

A garment was given to the priest, which he threw, or was supposed to throw, into the river; and that, they thought, bore all the sins of the people, which were drowned with it.

The astonished matrons pay, before the rest;
That sex is still obnoxious to the priest.

Through ye they beat, and plunge into the stream, If so the God has warned them in a dreain. Weak in their limbs, but in devotion strong, On their bare hands and feet they crawl along A whole field's length, the laughter of the throng. Should Io (Io's priest, I mean) command A pilgrimage to Meroe's burning sand,

Through deserts they would seek the secret spring,
And holy water for lustration bring.

How can they pay their priests too much respect,
Who trade with heaven, and earthly gains neglect!
With him domestic gods discourse by night;
By day, attended by his choir in white,

The bald pate tribe runs madding through the street,
And smile to see with how much ease they cheat.
The ghostly sire forgives the wife's delights,
Who sins, through frailty, on forbidden nights,
And tempts her husband in the holy time,
When carnal pleasure is a mortal crime.
The sweating image shakes his head, but he,
With mumbled prayers, atones the deity.
The pious priesthood the fat goose receive,
And, they once bribed, the godhead must forgive.
No sooner these remove, but full of fear,
A gipsey Jewess whispers in your ear,
And begs an alms; an high-priest's daughter she,
Versed in their Talmud, and divinity,
And prophesies beneath a shady tree.
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed,
She strolls, and, telling fortunes, gains her bread:
Farthings, and some small monies, are her fees;
Yet she interprets all your dreams for these,
Foretels the estate, when the rich uncle dies,
And sees a sweetheart in the sacrifice.

Such toys, a pigeon's entrails can disclose,
Which yet the Armenian augur far outgoes;
In dogs, a victim more obscene, he rakes;
And murdered infants for inspection takes:
For gain his impious practice he pursues;
For gain will his accomplices accuse.

More credit yet is to Chaldeans* given;
What they foretel, is deemed the voice of heaven.
Their answers, as from Hammon's altar, come;
Since now the Delphian oracles are dumb,
And mankind, ignorant of future fate,
Believes what fond astrologers relate.

Of these the most in vogue is he, who, sent
Beyond seas, is returned from banishment;
His art who to aspiring Otho † sold,
And sure succession to the crown foretold;
For his esteem is in his exile placed;

The more believed, the more he was disgraced.
No astrologic wizard honour gains,

Who has not oft been banished, or in chains.
He gets renown, who, to the halter near,
But narrowly escapes, and buys it dear.

From him your wife enquires the planets' will,
When the black jaundice shall her mother kill;
Her sister's and her uncle's end would know,
But, first, consults his art, when
you shall
go;
And,-what's the greatest gift that heaven can give,—
If after her the adulterer shall live.

She neither knows, nor cares to know, the rest,
If Mars and Saturn shall the world infest;

Chaldeans are thought to have been the first astrologers.

+ Otho succeeded Galba in the empire, which was foretold him by an astrologer.

Mars and Saturn are the two unfortunate planets; Jupiter and Venus the two fortunate.

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