T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Cuckold’s Haven
Roxburghe Ballads(Anonymous. Vol. I. 1871) COME, neighbors, follow me, that cuckolized be, | |
| That all the town may see our slavish misery: | |
| Let every man who keeps a bride | |
| Take heed he be not hornified. | |
| Though narrowly I do watch, | 5 |
| And use lock, bolt and latch, | |
| My wife will me o’er match, | |
| My forehead I may scratch: | |
| For though I wait both time and tide, | |
| I oftentimes am hornified. | 10 |
| For now the time’s so grown, | |
| Men cannot keep their own, | |
| But every slave, unknown, | |
| Will reap what we have sown: | |
| Yea, though we keep them by our side, | 15 |
| We now and then are hornified. | |
| They have so many ways | |
| By nights or else by days, | |
| That though our wealth decays, | |
| Yet they our horns will raise: | 20 |
| And many of them take a pride | |
| To keep their husbands hornified. | |
| Oh what a case is this! oh, what a grief it is! | |
| My wife hath learned to kiss | |
| And thinks it not amiss: | 25 |
| She oftentimes doth me deride, | |
| And tells me, I am hornified. | |
| What ever I do say, | |
| She will have her own way; | |
| She scorneth to obey; | 30 |
| She’ll take time while she may; | |
| And if I beat her back and side | |
| In spite, I shall be hornified. | |
| Now you would little think | |
| How they will friendly link, | 35 |
| And how’ll they sit and drink | |
| Till they begin to wink: | |
| And then, if Vulcan will but ride, | |
| Some cuckold shall be hornified. | |
| A woman that will be drunk | 40 |
| Will easily play the punk; | |
| For when her wits are sunk | |
| All keys will fit her trunk: | |
| Then by experience oft is tried, | |
| Poor men that may be hornified. | 45 |
| Thus honest men must bear | |
| And ’tis in vain to fear, | |
| For we are ne’re the near | |
| Our hearts with grief to tear: | |
| For, while we mourn, it is their pride | 50 |
| The more to keep us hornified. | |
| And be we great or small, | |
| He must be at their call; | |
| How e’er the cards do fall, | |
| We men must suffer all: | 55 |
| Do what we can, we must abide | |
| The Pain of being hornified. | |
THE SECOND PART If once they bid us go, | |
| We dare not twice say “no,” | |
| Although too well we know | 60 |
| ’Tis to our grief and woe: | |
| Nay, we are glad their faults to hide, | |
| Though often we are hornified. | |
| If I my wife provoke | |
| With words in anger spoke, | 65 |
| She swears she’ll make all smoke, | |
| And I must be her cloak: | |
| Her baseness and my wrongs I hide, | |
| And patiently am hornified. | |
| When these good gossips meet | 70 |
| In alley, lane or street, | |
| (Poor man, we do not see it!) | |
| With wine and sugar sweet | |
| They arm themselves, and then, beside, | |
| Their husbands must be hornified. | 75 |
| Not your Italian locks | |
| (Which seems a paradox) | |
| Can keep these hens from cocks, | |
| Till they are paid with a pox: | |
| So long as they can go or ride, | 80 |
| They’ll have their husbands hornified. * * * * * | |
| For if we them do blame | |
| Or tell them of their shame,— | |
| Although the men we name | |
| With whom they did the same,— | 85 |
| They’ll swear whoever spoke it lied: | |
| Thus still poor men are hornified. * * * * * | |