Yet women's wit will rival it:
How keep them in their place?
Behold the faults with woman born:
Impurity, and heartless scorn,
Untruth, and folly, reckless heat,
Excessive greediness, deceit.
Be not enslaved by women's charm,
Nor wish them growth in power to harm:
Their slaves, of manly feeling stripped,
Are tame, pet crows whose wings are clipped.
Honey in a woman's words,
Poison in her breast:
So, although you taste her lip,
Drub her on the chest.
This palace filled with vice, this field where sprouts
Suspicion's crop, this whirling pool of doubts,
This town of recklessness, sin's aggregate,
This house where frauds by hundreds lie in wait,
This basketful of riddling sham and quip
O'er guessing which our best and bravest trip,
This woman, this machine, this nectar-bane—
Who set it here, to make religion vain?
A bosom hard is praised, a forehead low,
A fickle glance, a mumbling speech and slow,
Thick hips, a heart that constant tremors move,
A natural twist in hair, and twists in love.
Their virtues are a pack of vices. Then
Let beasts adore the fawn-eyed things, not men.
For reasons good they laugh or weep;
They trust you not, your trust they keep:
These graveyard urns, oh, haunt them not!
Keep kin and conduct free from spot.
