conclusion, if we will take the word of our malicious author, bad women are the general standing rule; and the good, but some few exceptions to it.
IN Saturn's reign, at Nature's early birth,
There was that thing called chastity on earth;
When in a narrow cave, their common shade,
The sheep, the shepherds, and their gods were laid;
When reeds, and leaves, and hides of beasts, were
By mountain-housewives, for their homely bed, And mossy pillows raised, for the rude husband's head.
Unlike the niceness of our modern dames,
(Affected nymphs, with new affected names,)
The Cynthias, and the Lesbias of our years,
Who for a sparrow's death dissolve in tears,
Those first unpolish'd matrons, big and bold,
Gave suck to infants of gigantic mould;
Rough as their savage lords, who ranged the wood,
And, fat with acorns, belch'd their windy food.
For when the world was buxom, fresh, and young,
Her sons were undebauch'd, and therefore strong;
And whether born in kindly beds of earth,
Or struggling from the teeming oaks to birth,
Or from what other atoms they begun,
No sires they had, or, if a sire, the sun.
Some thin remains of chastity appear'd
Even under Jove, but Jove without a beard;
Before the servile Greeks had learnt to swear
By heads of kings; while yet the bounteous year
Her common fruits in open plains exposed:
Ere thieves were fear'd, or gardens were enclosed.
* When Jove had driven his father into banishment, the Silver Age began, according to the poets.
At length uneasy Justice upwards flew,
And both the sisters to the stars withdrew v;
From that old era whoring did begin,
So venerably ancient is the sin.
Adulterers next invade the nuptial state,
And marriage-beds creak'd with a foreign weight;
All other ills did iron times adorn,
But whores and silver in one age were born.
Yet thou, they say, for marriage dost provide
Is this an age to buckle with a bride?
They say thy hair the curling art is taught,
The wedding-ring perhaps already bought;
A sober man like thee to change his life!
What fury would possess thee with a wife?
Art thou of every other death bereft,
No knife, no ratsbane, no kind halter left?
(For every noose compared to her's is cheap.)
Is there no city-bridge from whence to leap?
Would'st thou become her drudge, who dost enjoy
A better sort of bed-fellow, thy boy?
He keeps thee not awake with nightly brawls,
Nor, with a begg'd reward, thy pleasure palls;
Nor, with insatiate heavings, calls for more,
When all thy spirits were drain'd out before.
But still Ursidius courts the marriage bait,
Longs for a son to settle his estate,
And takes no gifts, though every gaping heir
Would gladly grease the rich old bachelor.
What revolution can appear so strange,
As such a lecher such a life to change?
A rank, notorious whoremaster, to choose
To thrust his neck into the marriage noose?
The poet makes Justice and Chastity sisters; and says, they fled to heaven together, and left earth for ever.
He who so often, in a dreadful fright,
Had, in a coffer, 'scaped the jealous cuckold's sight; That he, to wedlock dotingly betray'd,
Should hope, in this lewd town, to find a maid!—
The man's grown mad! To ease his frantic pain,
Run for the surgeon, breathe the middle vein;
But let a heifer, with gilt horns, be led
To Juno, regent of the marriage bed;
And let him every deity adore,
If his new bride prove not an arrant whore,
In head, and tail, and every other pore.
On Ceres' feast,* restrain'd from their delight,
Few matrons there, but curse the tedious night;
Few whom their fathers dare salute, such lust
Their kisses have, and come with such a gust.
With ivy now adorn thy doors, and wed;
Such is thy bride, and such thy genial bed.
Think'st thou one man is for one woman meant?
She sooner with one eye would be content.
And yet, 'tis noised, a maid did once appear In some small village, though fame says not where. 'Tis possible; but sure no man she found; 'Twas desert all about her father's ground. And yet some lustful God might there make bold Are Jove and Mars grown impotent and old? Many a fair nymph has in a cave been spread, And much good love without a feather-bed. Whether would'st thou, to chuse a wife, resort, The park, the mall, the play-house, or the court? Which way soever thy adventures fall, Secure alike of chastity in all.
One sees a dancing-master capering high, And raves, and pisses, with pure ecstasy;
* When the Roman women were forbidden to bed with their husbands.
Another does with all his motions move,
And gapes, and grins, as in the feat of love;
A third is charm'd with the new opera notes,
Admires the song, but on the singer dotes.
The country lady in the box appears,
Softly she warbles over all she hears,
And sucks in passion both at eyes and ears.
The rest (when now the long vacation's come,
The noisy hall and theatres grown dumb)
Their memories to refresh, and cheer their hearts,
In borrow'd breeches, act the players' parts.
The poor, that scarce have wherewithal to eat,
Will pinch, to make the singing-boy a treat;
The rich, to buy him, will refuse no price,
And stretch his quail-pipe, till they crack his voice.
Tragedians, acting love, for lust are sought,
Though but the parrots of a poet's thought.
The pleading lawyer, though for counsel used,
In chamber practice often is refused.
Still thou wilt have a wife, and father heirs,
The product of concurring theatres.
Perhaps a fencer did thy brows adorn,
And a young swordsman to thy lands is born.
Thus Hippia loath'd her old patrician lord,
And left him for a brother of the sword.
To wondering Pharos* with her love she fled,
To show one monster more than Afric bred
;
Forgetting house and husband left behind,
Even children too, she sails before the wind;
False to them all, but constant to her kind.
But, stranger yet, and harder to conceive,
She could the play-house and the players leave.
She fled to Egypt, which wondered at the enormity of her crime.
Born of rich parentage, and nicely bred,
She lodged on down, and in a damask bed;
Yet daring now the dangers of the deep,
On a hard mattress is content to sleep.
Ere this, 'tis true, she did her fame expose;
But that great ladies with great ease can lose.
The tender nymph could the rude ocean bear,
So much her lust was stronger than her fear.
But had some honest cause her passage prest,
The smallest hardship had disturb'd her breast.
Each inconvenience makes their virtue cold;
But womankind in ills is ever bold.
Were she to follow her own lord to sea,
What doubts and scruples would she raise to stay?
Her stomach sick, and her head giddy grows,
The tar and pitch are nauseous to her nose;
But in love's voyage nothing can offend,
Women are never sea-sick with a friend.
Amidst the crew she walks upon the board,
She eats, she drinks, she handles every cord;
And if she spews, 'tis thinking of her lord.
Now ask, for whom her friends and fame she lost?
What youth, what beauty, could the adulterer boast?
What was the face, for which she could sustain
To be call'd mistress to so base a man?
The gallant of his days had known the best;
Deep scars were seen indented on his breast,
And all his batter'd limbs required their needful
rest;
A promontory wen, with grisly grace,
Stood high upon the handle of his face:
His blear-eyes ran in gutters to his chin;
His beard was stubble, and his cheeks were thin.
But 'twas his fencing did her fancy move;
'Tis arms, and blood, and cruelty, they love.
But should he quit his trade, and sheath his sword,
Her lover would begin to be her lord.
|