Into the fair, with women mix'd, he went,
Arm'd with a huge two-handed inftrument;
A grateful prefent to thofe holy choirs,
Where the mouse, guilty of his fex, retires;
And ev'n male-pictures modeftly are vail'd;
Yet no profanenefs on that age prevail'd;
No fcoffers at religious rites are found;
Tho' now, at ev'ry altar they abound.
I hear your cautious counsel, you would fay,
Keep close your women under lock and key:
But, who fhall keep thofe keepers? Women, nurft
In craft: begin with those, and bribe them first.
The fex is turn'd all whore; they love the game:
And miftreffes and maids are both the fame.
The poor Ogulnia, on the poet's day,
Will borrow clothes, and chair, to see the play:
She, who before had mortgag'd her eftate,
And pawn'd the last remaining piece of plate.
Some are reduc'd their utmost shifts to try:
But women have no fhame of poverty.
They live beyond their stint; as if their store
The more exhaufted, would encrease the more :
Some men, inftructed by the lab'ring ant,
Provide against th' extremities of want;
But womankind, that never knows a mean,
Down to the dregs their finking fortune drain:
Hourly they give, and fpend, and wafte, and wear:
And think no pleasure can be bought too dear.
There are who in foft eunuchs place their bliss
To fhun the scrubbing of a bearded kifs;
And 'scape abortion; but their solid joy
Is 5 when the page, already paft a boy,
Is capon'd late; and to the guelder shown,
With his two pounders to perfection grown.
5 He taxes women with their loving eunuchs, who can get no children; but adds, that they only love fuch eunuchs as are gelded when they are already at the age of manhood.
When all the navel-string could give, appears;
All but the beard, and that's the barber's lofs, not theirs,
Seen from afar, and famous for his ware,
He ftruts into the bath, among the fair:
Th' admiring crew to their devotions fall;
And, kneeling, on their new 6 Priapus call.
Kerv'd for his lady's use, and with her lies ;
And let him drudge for her, if thou art wise,
Rather than truft him with thy fav'rite boy;
He proffers death, in proffering to enjoy.
If fongs they love, the finger's voice they force.
Beyond his compass 'till his quail-pipe's hoarfe
His lute and lyre, with their embrace is worn;
With knots they trim it, and with gems adorn:
Run over all the ftrings, and kifs the case;
And make love to it, in the mafter's place.
A certain lady once of high degree,
To Janus vow'd, and Vefta's deity,
That 7 Pollio might, in finging, win the prize;
Pollio the dear, the darling of her eyes:
She pray'd, and brib'd; what could the more have done
For a fick husband, or an only fon?
With her face veil'd, and heaving up her hands,
The shameless fuppliant at the altar ftands
The forms of pray'r fhe folemnly pursues ;
And, pale with fear, the offer'd entrails views.
Anfwer, ye Pow'rs: for, if you heard her vow,
Your Godships, fure, had little elfe to do.
This is not all; for 8 actors, they implore:
An impudence not known to heav'n before.
Th' 9 Arufpex, tir'd with this religious rout,
Is forc'd to stand fo long, he
gets the
gout,
6 The god of luft.
7 A famous finging boy.
8 That fuch an actor whom they love might win the prize.
9 He who infpects the entrails of the facrifice, and from thence foretels the fuccefs.
But fuffer not thy wife abroad to roam,
If the loves finging, let her fing at home;
Not ftrut in ftreets, with Amazonian pace;
For that's to cuckold thee before thy face.
Their endless itch of news comes next in play;
They vent their own, and hear what others fay.
Know what in Thrace, or what in France is done;
Th' intrigues betwixt the ftepdam, and the fon.
Tell who loves who, what favours some partake:
And who is jilted for another's fake.
What pregnant widow in what month was made;
How oft fhe did, and doing, what she said.
She, firft, beholds the raging comet rife:
Knows whom it threatens, and what land deftroys,
Still for the fresheft news fhe lies in wait;
And takes reports juft ent'ring at the gate.
Wrecks, floods, and fires; whatever she can meet,
She fpreads; and is the fame of ev'ry street.
This is a grievance; but the next is worfe;
A very judgment, and her neighbours curfe:
For, if their barking dog difturb her ease,
No pray'r can bind her, no excuse appease.
Th' unmanner'd malefactor is arraign'd;
But firft the mafter, who the curr maintain'd,
Muft feel the scourge: by night fhe leaves her bed.
By night her bathing equipage is led,
That marching armies a less noise create ;
She moves in tumult, and fhe sweats in ftate.
Mean while, her guefts their appetites must keep;
Some gape for hunger, and fome gasp for fleep.
At length fhe comes, all flush'd; but ere she sup,
Swallows a fwinging preparation-cup;
And then to clear her ftomach, fpews it up.
The deluge-vomit all the floor o'erflows,
And the four favour nauseates ev'ry nose.
She drinks again; again fhe fpews a lake;
Her wretched husband fees, and dares not speak:
But mutters many a curse against his wife
And damns himself for choofing fuch a life.
But of all plagues, the greateft is untold;
The book-learn'd wife in Greek and Latin bold.
The critic-dame, who at her table fits:
Homer and Virgil quotes, and weighs their wits;
And pities Dido's agonizing fits.
She has fo far th' ascendant of the board,
The prating pedant puts not in one word:
The man of law is non-pluft, in his fute;
Nay, every other female tongue is mute.
Hammers, and beating anvils, you would fwear,
And i Vulcan with his whole militia there.
Tabors 2 and trumpets ceafe; for the alone
Is able to redeem the lab'ring moon.
Ev'n wit's a burden, when it talks too long:
But the who has no continence of tongue,
Should walk in breeches, and fhould wear a beard; And mix among the philofophic herd.
O what a midnight curfe has he, whose fide
Is pester'd with a 3 mood and figure bride!
Let mine, ye Gods! (if fuch must be my fate)
No logic learn, nor hiftory tranflate;
But rather be a quiet, humble fool:
I hate a wife to whom I go to school,
Who climbs the grammar-tree, diftin&tly knows
Where noun, and verb, and participle grows;
Corrects her country-neighbour; and, a-bed,
For breaking 4 Prifcian's, breaks her husband's head.
The gawdy goffip, when fhe's fet agog,
In jewels dreft, and at each ear a bob,
2 The ancients thought that with fuch founds they could bring the moon out of her eclipfe.
3 A woman who has learned logick.
4 A woman grammarian, who corrects her husband for speaking falfe Latin, which is called breaking Prifcian's head,
Goes flaunting out, and in her trim of pride,
Thinks all the fays or does, is juftify'd.
When poor, fhe's scarce a tolerable evil;
But rich, and fine, a wife's a very devil.
She duely, once a month, renews her face;
Mean time, it lies in dawb, and hid in grease;
Those are the husband's nights; she craves her due,
He takes fat kiffes, and is ftuck with glue.
But to the lov'd adult'rer when the fteers,
Fresh from the bath, in brightnefs fhe appears:
For him the rich Arabia fweats her gum;
And precious oils from diftant Indies come:
How haggardly foeler the looks at home.
Th' eclipfe then vanishes; and all her face
Is open'd, and reftor'd to ev'ry grace,
The cruft remov'd, her cheeks as fmooth as filk,
Are polish'd with a wash of affes milk;
And fhould fhe to the fartheft North be fent,
A train 5 of these attend her banishment.
But hadft thou feen her plaister'd up before,
'Twas fo unlike a face, it feem'd a fore.
'Tis worth our while, to know what all the day
They do, and how they pafs their time away,
For, if o'er-night the husband has been flack,
Or counterfeited fleep, and turn'd his back,
Next day, be fure, the fervants go to wrack.
The chamber-maid and dreffer, are call'd whores ;
The page is ftript, and beaten out of doors.
The whole houfe fuffers for the mafter's crime:
And he himself is warn'd, to wake another time.
She hires tormentors by the year; she treats
Her vifitors, and talks; but ftill fhe beats.
Beats while fhe paints her face, furveys her gown,
Cafts up the day's account, and ftill beats on:
Tir'd out, at length, with an outrageous tone,
She bids 'em in the devil's name be gone.
5 A train of these. That is, of the-afles.
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