Thou shouldst be always thus, resigned and
Of Job's great patience since so oft you preach, Well should you practise, who so well can teach. 'Tis difficult to do, I must allow,
But I, my dearest, will instruct you how.
Great is the blessing of a prudent wife,
Who puts a period to domestic strife.
One of us two must rule, and one obey;
And since in man right reason bears the sway,
Let that frail thing, weak woman, have her way.
The wives of all my family have ruled
Their tender husbands, and their passions cooled.
Fie, 'tis unmanly thus to sigh and groan;
What! would you have me to yourself alone?
Why take me, love! take all and every part!
Here's your revenge! you love it at your
Would I vouchsafe to sell what nature gave,
You little think what custom I could have.
But see! I'm all your own-nay hold-for shame!
What means my dear-indeed-you are to
blame."
Thus with my first three lords I passed my
A very woman, and a very wife.
What sums from these old spouses I could raise,
Procured young husbands in my riper days.
Though past my bloom, not yet decayed was I,
Wanton and wild, and chattered like a pye. 210
In country dances still I bore the bell,
And sung as sweet as evening Philomel.
To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul,
Full oft I drained the spicy nut-brown bowl;
Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood
improve,
And warm the swelling veins to feats of love:
For 'tis as sure as cold engenders hail,
A liquorish mouth must have a lecherous tail;
Wine lets no lover unrewarded go,
As all true gamesters by experience know.
But oh, good gods! whene'er a thought I
On all the joys of youth and beauty past,
To find in pleasures I have had my part,
Still warms me to the bottom of my heart. 224
This wicked world was once my dear delight;
Now all my conquests, all my charms, good
night!
The flour consumed, the best that now I can,
Is e'en to make my market of the bran.
My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding
true; He kept, 'twas thought, a private miss or two: But all that score I paid-as how? you'll say, Not with my body, in a filthy way:
But I so dressed, and danced, and drank, and dined;
And viewed a friend, with eyes so very kind,
As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry,
With burning rage, and frantic jealousy.
His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory,
For here on earth I was his purgatory.
Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung,
He put on careless airs, and sat and sung.
How sore I galled him, only Heaven could know,
And he that felt, and I that caused the woe.
He died, when last from pilgrimage I came,
With other gossips, from Jerusalem;
And now lies buried underneath a rood,
Fair to be seen, and reared of honest wood.
A tomb indeed, with fewer sculptures graced,
Than that Mausolus' pious widow placed,
Or where inshrined the great Darius lay;
But cost on graves is merely thrown away. 250
The pit filled up, with turf we covered o'er ;
So bless the good man's soul, I say no more.
Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and best;
(Kind Heaven afford him everlasting rest)
Full hearty was his love, and I can shew
The token 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 woman reigns!
Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us
pains :
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 most egregious clerk.
He boarded with a widow in the town,
A trusty gossip, one dame Alison.
Full well the secrets of my soul she knew,
Better than e'er our parish priest could do.
To her I told whatever could befall:
Had but my husband pissed against a wall, 270
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 scruple to reveal.
Oft has he blushed from ear to ear with shame,
That e'er he told a secret to his dame.
It so befel, in holy time of Lent,
That oft a day I to this gossip went:
(My husband, thank my stars, was out of town) From house to house we rambled up and
This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse,
To see, be seen, to tell and gather tales.
Visits to every church we daily paid,
And marched in every holy masquerade,
The stations duly, and the vigils kept;
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoiled my best array; The cause was this, I wore it every day.
'Twas when fresh May her early blossom
yields,
This clerk and I were walking in the fields.
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawned my honour, and engaged my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, should serve my turn. 295 We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
I vowed, I scarce could sleep since first I
And durst be sworn he had bewitched me to
If e'er I slept I dreamed of him alone,
And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown:
All this I said: but dreams, sirs, I had none;
I followed but my crafty crony's lore,
Who bid me tell this lie, and twenty more.
Thus day by day, and month by month we
passed;
It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last.
I tore my gown, I soiled my locks with dust,
And beat my breasts, as wretched widows
Before my face, my handkerchief I spread,
To hide the flood of tears I did not shed.
The good man's coffin to the church was borne;
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too,
But as he marched, good gods! he showed a
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters' age he seemed to be;
I, to say truth, was twenty more than he;
But vigorous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wondrous gift to quench a flame. 320
A conjuror once, that deeply could divine,
Assured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign.
As the stars ordered, such my life has been :
Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!
Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace, 325
And Mars assurance, and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this powerful constellation,
I followed always my own inclination.
But to my tale: A month scarce passed away, With dance and song we kept the nuptial day. All I possessed I gave to his command, My goods and chattels, money, house, and land: But oft repented, and repent it still; He proved a rebel to my sovereign will: Nay once, by Heaven! he struck me on the
face; Hear but the fact, and judge yourself the case. Stubborn as any lioness was I;
And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,
And would be so, in spite of all he swore. 34
He against this right sagely would advise,
And old examples set before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother and Duilius' wife;
And chose the sermon, as beseemed his wit, 345
With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.
Oft would he say, who builds his house on
sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
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