Socrates invited his friend Euthymedus to supper. Xantippe, in great rage, went in to them, and overset the table. Euthymedus, rising in a passion to go off, My dear friend, stay, said Socrates, did not a hen do the same thing at your house the other day, and did I show any resentment?--_Plat. de ira cohibenda._ I could give many more instances of her termagancy, and his philosophy, if such a proceeding might not look as if I were glad of an opportunity to expose the fair sex; but, to show that I have no such design, I declare solemnly, that I had much worse stories to tell of her behaviour to her husband, which I rather passed over, on account of the great esteem which I bear the ladies, especially those in the honourable station of matrimony.] [Footnote 8: Ramble.] [Footnote 9: Not vomiting.] [Footnote 10: Thrusting out the lip.] [Footnote 11: This is to be understood not in the sense of wort, when brewers put yeast or harm in it; but its true meaning is, deceived or cheated.] [Footnote 12: Hit your fancy.] [Footnote 13: Sullen fits. We have a merry jig, called Dumpty-Deary, invented to rouse ladies from the dumps.] [Footnote 14: Reflection of the sun.] [Footnote 15: Motherly woman.] [Footnote 16: Not grace before and after meat, nor their graces the duchesses, but the Graces which attended on Venus.] [Footnote 17: Not Flanders-lace, but gold and silver lace. By borrowed, I mean such as run into honest tradesmen's debts, for which they were not able to pay, as many of them did for French silver lace, against the last birth-day.--Vid. the shopkeepers' books.] [Footnote 18: Girls who love to hear themselves prate, and put on a number of monkey-airs to catch men.] [Footnote 19: I hope none will be so uncomplaisant to the ladies as to think these comparisons are odious.] [Footnote 20: Tell the whole world; not to proclaim them as robbers and rapparees.] AN ANSWER TO A SCANDALOUS POEM Wherein the Author most audaciously presumes to cast an indignity upon their highnesses the Clouds, by comparing them to a woman. Written by DERMOT O'NEPHELY, Chief Cape of Howth.[1] BY DR. SWIFT ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE CLOUDS N.B. The following answer to that scurrilous libel against us, should have been published long ago in our own justification: But it was advised, that, considering the high importance of the subject, it should be deferred until the meeting of the General Assembly of the Nation. [Two passages within crotchets are added to this poem, from a copy found amongst Swift's papers. It is indorsed, "Quære, should it go." And a little lower, "More, but of no use."]