He boarded with a widow in the town,
A trusty gossip, one dame Alison,
Full well the fecrets of my foul she knew,
Better than e'er our parish Priest could do.
To her I told whatever could befall :
Had but my husband piss'd against a wall,
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 fcruple to reveal.
Oft has he blush'd from ear to ear for shame,
That e'er he told a fecret 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 down, 280 This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alfe, To fee, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.
Visits to ev'ry Church we daily paid,
And march'd in ev'ry 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 spoil'd my best array;
The cause was this, I wore it ev'ry day.
"Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields,
This Clerk and I were walking in the fields.
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawn'd my honour, and engag'd my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
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 foul.
I vow'd, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, And durst be sworn he had bewitch'd me to him, 301 If e'er I slept, I dream'd of him alone,
And dreams foretel, as learned men have shown:
All this I faid; but dreams, Sirs, I had none:
I follow'd but my crafty Crony's lore,
Who bid me tell this lye-and twenty more.
Thus day by day, and month by month we past;
It pleas'd the Lord to take my fspouse at last.
I tore my gown, I foil'd my locks with dust,
And beat my breasts, as wretched widows-muft.
Before my face my handkerchief I fpread,
To hide the flood of tears I did not shed.
The good man's coffin to the Church was born;
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk, to mourn. But as he march'd, good Gods! he show'd a pair Of legs and feet, fo clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters age he seem'd to be;
I (to say truth) was twenty more than he;
But vig'rous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame.
A Conj'ror once, that deeply could divine,
Afsur'd me, Mars in Taurus was my fign.
As the stars order'd, such my life has been :
Alas, alas, that ever love was fin!
Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace,
And Mars afsurance, and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this pow'rful constellation,
I follow'd always my own inclination.
But to my tale: A month scarce pass'd away, With dance and fong we kept the nuptial day. 330
All I possess'd I gave to his command,
My goods and chattels, money, house, and land:
But oft repented, and repent it still;
He prov'd a rebel to my fov'reign will:
Nay once by Heav'n he struck me on the face; 335 Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the cafe.
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 fpite of all he fwore.
He, against this right fagely would advise,
And old examples set before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And close the fermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With fome grave fentence out of Holy Writ.
Oft would he say, who builds his house on fands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deferves a fool's-cap and long ears at home.
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And fo do numbers more, I'll boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay.
My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred)
A certain treatise oft at ev'ning read,
Where divers Authors (whom the dev'l confound
For all their lies) were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;
Chryfippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art,
Solomon's Proverbs, Eloisa's loves;
And many more than fure the Church approves.
More legends were there here, of wicked wives,
Than good, in all the Bible and Saints-lives.
Who drew the Lion vanquish'd? 'Twas a Man.
But could we women write as scholars can,
Men should stand mark'd with far more wickedness
Than all the fons of Adam could redress.
Love feldom haunts the breast where Learning lies,
And Venus fets ere Mercury can rife.
Those play the scholars who can't play the men,
And use that weapon which they have, their pen;
When old, and past the relish of delight,
Then down they fit, and in their dotage write,
That not one woman keeps her marriage-vow. 375
(This by the way, but to my purpose now.)
It chanc'd my husband, on a winter's night,
Read in this book, aloud, with strange delight,
How the first female (as the Scriptures show)
Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe.
How Samfon fell; and he whom Dejanire
Wrap'd in th' envenom'd shirt, and set on fire.
How curs'd Eryphile her lord betray'd,
And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid.
But what most pleas'd him was the Cretan dame, 385
And husband-bull-oh monstrous! fie for shame!
He had by heart, the whole detail of woe
Xantippe made her good man undergo;
How oft she scolded in a day, he knew,
How many piss-pots on the fage she threw;
Who took it patiently, and wip'd his head;
"Rain follows thunder:" that was all he faid.
He read, how Arius to his friend complain'd,
A fatal Tree was growing in his land,
On which three wives successively had twin'd
A fliding noofe, and waver'd in the wind.
Where grows this plant (reply'd the friend) oh where?
For better fruit did never orchard bear.
Give me fome flip of this most blissful tree,
And in my garden planted shall it be.
Then how two wives their lords' destruction prove, Through hatred one, and one through too much love; That for her husband mix'd a pois'nous draught, And this for luft an am'rous philtre bought: The nimble juice soon seiz'd his giddy head, Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.
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