T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From Prologue to The Wife of Bath
By Alexander Pope (16881744)YE sov’reign Wives! give ear, and understand: | |
Thus shall ye speak, and exercise command; | |
For never was it given to mortal man | |
To lie so boldly as we women can: | |
Forswear the fact, tho’ seen with both his eyes, | 5 |
And call your maids to witness how he lies. | |
Hark, old Sir Paul! (it was thus I used to say) | |
Whence is our neighbour’s wife so rich and gay? | |
Treated, caress’d, where’er she’s pleased to roam— | |
I sit in tatters, and immured at home. | 10 |
Why to her house dost thou so oft repair? | |
Art thou so am’rous? and is she so fair? | |
If I but see a cousin or a friend, | |
Lord! how you swell and rage like any fiend! | |
But you reel home, a drunken beastly bear, | 15 |
Then preach till midnight in your easy chair; | |
Cry, wives are false, and every woman evil, | |
And give up all that’s female to the devil. | |
If poor (you say), she drains her husband’s purse; | |
If rich, she keeps her priest, or something worse; | 20 |
If highly born, intolerably vain, | |
Vapours and pride by turns possess her brain; | |
Now gaily mad, now sourly splenetic, | |
Freakish when well, and fretful when she’s sick. | |
If fair, then chaste she cannot long abide, | 25 |
By pressing youth attack’d on every side; | |
If foul, her wealth the lusty lover lures, | |
Or else her wit some fool-gallant procures, | |
Or else she dances with becoming grace, | |
Or shape excuses the defects of face. * * * * * | 30 |
Take all the freedoms of a married life; | |
I know thee for a virtuous, faithful wife. | |
Lord! when you have enough, what need you care | |
How merrily soever others fare? | |
Tho’ all the day I give and take delight, | 35 |
Doubt not sufficient will be left at night. | |
’Tis but a just and rational desire | |
To light a taper at a neighbour’s fire. | |
There’s danger too, you think, in rich array, | |
And none can long be modest that are gay. | 40 |
The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, | |
The chimney keeps, and sits content within: | |
But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, | |
Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: | |
She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad | 45 |
To show her fur, and to be catterwaw’d. * * * * * | |
If once my husband’s arm was o’er my side, | |
“What! so familiar with your spouse?” I cried: | |
I levied first a tax upon his need; | |
Then let him—’t was a nicety indeed! | 50 |
Let all mankind this certain maxim hold; | |
Marry who will, our sex is to be sold. | |
With empty hands no tassels you can lure, | |
But fulsome love for gain we can endure; | |
For gold we love the impotent and old, | 55 |
And heave, and pant, and kiss, and cling, for gold. | |
Yet with embraces curses oft I mixt, | |
Then kiss’d again, and chid, and rail’d betwixt. | |
Well, I may make my will in peace, and die, | |
For not one word in man’s arrears am I. | 60 |
To drop a dear dispute I was unable, | |
Ev’n though the Pope himself had sat at table; | |
But when my point was gain’d, then thus I spoke: | |
“Billy, my dear, how sheepishly you look! | |
Approach, my spouse, and let me kiss thy cheek; | 65 |
Thou shouldst be always thus resign’d and meek!” * * * * * | |
The wives of all my family have ruled | |
Their tender husbands, and their passions cool’d. | |
Fie! ’t is unmanly thus to sigh and groan: | |
What! would you have me to yourself alone? | 70 |
Why, take me, love! take all and every part! | |
Here’s your revenge! you love it at your heart. | |
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! | 75 |
What means my dear?—indeed—you are to blame. | |
Thus with my first three lords I pass’d my life, | |
A very woman and a very wife. | |
What sums from these old spouses I could raise | |
Procur’d young husbands in my riper days. | 80 |
Tho’ past my bloom, not yet decay’d was I, | |
Wanton and wild, and chatter’d like a pie. | |
In country dances still I bore the bell, | |
And sung as sweet as evening Philomel. | |
To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul, | 85 |
Full oft I drain’d the spicy nut-brown bowl; | |
Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve, | |
And warm the swelling veins to feats of love: | |
For ’t is as sure as cold engenders hail, | |
A liquorish mouth must have a lech’rous tail: | 90 |
Wine lets no lover unrewarded go, | |
As all true gamesters by experience know. * * * * * | |
My fourth spouse was not exceeding true; | |
He kept, ’t was thought, a private miss or two; | |
But all that score I paid—As how? you’ll say: | 95 |
Not with my body, in a filthy way; | |
But I so dress’d, and danc’d, and drank, and din’d | |
And view’d a friend with eyes so very kind, | |
As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry, | |
With burning rage and frantic jealousy. | 100 |
His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory, | |
For here on earth I was his purgatory. * * * * * | |
Now for my fifth lov’d lord, the last and best; | |
(Kind Heav’n afford him everlasting rest!) | |
Full hearty was his love, and I can show | 105 |
The tokens 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 women reigns! | |
Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains. | 110 |
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, | 115 |
A trusty gossip, one dame Alison; | |
Full well the secrets of my soul she knew, | |
Better than e’er our parish priest could do. * * * * * | |
This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse, | |
To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales. | 120 |
Visits to every church we daily paid, | |
And march’d 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: | 125 |
The wasting moth ne’er spoil’d my best array; | |
The cause was this, I wore it every 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, | 130 |
I pawn’d 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. | |
We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed; | |
I still have shifts against a time of need. | 135 |
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole | |
Can never be a mouse of any soul. | |
I vow’d I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, | |
And durst be sworn he had bewitch’d me to him; | |
If e’er I slept I dream’d of him alone, | 140 |
And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown. | |
All this I said; but dreams, Sirs, I had none: | |
I follow’d but my crafty crony’s lore, | |
Who bid me tell this lie—and twenty more. * * * * * | |