Afi’s wife sat plying her rock With outspread arms, busked to weave. A hood on her head, a sark over her breast, A kerchief round her neck, and studs on her shoulders. He next enters the hall of Mother. The housewife looked on her arms, Smoothed her veil, and fastened her sleeves, Her headgear adjusted. A clasp was on her bosom, Her robe was ample, her sark blue; Brighter her brow, fairer her breast, Whiter her neck than purest snowdrift. She took, did Mother, a figured cloth Of white linen, and the table decked. She then took cakes of snow-white wheat, On the table them she laid. She set forth salvers, silver adorned, Full of game, and pork, and roasted birds. In a can was wine, the cups were costly. Not a word of disparagement of woman is found in those old cosmic lays. The sturdy Northerner knew her value, and he respected her, whilst the frivolous Greek despised her as a toy. The Provençal troubadours caught the classic misappreciation of woman. Massillia was a Greek colony, and Greek manners, tastes, and habits of thought prevailed for long in the south-east of France. The troubadours idolised her, as an idol-puppet, but they knew not how to commend, and by commending develop in her those qualities which lie ready to germinate when called for by man--devotion, self-sacrifice, patience, gentleness, and all those homely yet inestimable treasures, the domestic virtues. Pierre de Saint Cloud, in the opening of his poem on Renard, has his fling at poor Eve. He says that Adam was possessed of a magic rod, with which he could create animals at pleasure, by striking the earth with it. One day he smote the ground, and there sprang forth the lamb. Eve caught the rod from his hand, and did as he had done; forthwith there bounded forth the wolf, which rent the creation of Adam. He struck, and the domestic fowls came forth. Eve did likewise, and gave being to the fox. He made the cattle, she the tiger; he the dog, she the jackal. Turning to America, we encounter a host of myths relative to the first mother. The sacred book of the Quiches tells of the gods Gucumatz, Tepu, and Cuz-cah making man of earth, but when the rain came on he dissolved into mud. Then they made man and woman of wood, but the beings so made were too thick-headed to praise and sacrifice, wherefore they destroyed them with a flood; those who escaped up tall trees remain to this day, and are commonly called monkeys. The three gods having thus failed, consulted the Great White Boar and the Great White Porcupine, and with their assistance made man and woman of white and red maize. And men show by their headstrong character that the mighty boar had a finger in their creation, and women by their fretfulness indicate the great porcupine as having had the making of them.