But to my tale: A month scarce pass'd away, With dance and song we kept the nuptial day. 330 All I possess'd I gave to his command, My goods and chattels, money, house, and land; But oft repented, and repent it still; He proved a rebel to my sovereign will; Nay, once, by heaven! he struck me on the face; Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the case. Stubborn as any lioness was I, And knew full well to raise my voice on high; As true a rambler as I was before, And would be so in spite of all he swore. 340 He against this right sagely would advise, And old examples set before my eyes; Tell how the Roman matrons led their life, Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife; And close the sermon, as beseem'd his wit, With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ. Oft would he say, 'Who builds his house on sands, Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands; Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam, Deserves a fool's cap and long ears at home.' 350 All this avail'd not, for whoe'er he be That tells my faults, I hate him mortally! And so do numbers more, I'll boldly say, Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay. My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred) A certain treatise oft at evening read, Where divers authors (whom the devil confound For all their lies) were in one volume bound: Valerius whole, and of St Jerome part; Chrysippus and Tertullian, Ovid's Art, 360 Solomon's Proverbs, Eloisa's Loves, And many more than, sure, the Church approves. More legends were there here of wicked wives Than good in all the Bible and saints' lives. Who drew the lion vanquish'd? 'Twas a man: But could we women write as scholars can, Men should stand mark'd with far more wickedness Than all the sons of Adam could redress. Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise. 370 Those play the scholars who can't play the men, And use that weapon which they have, their pen: When old, and past the relish of delight, Then down they sit, and in their dotage write, That not one woman keeps her marriage-vow. (This by the way, but to my purpose now:) It chanced my husband, on a winter's night, Read in this book aloud with strange delight, How the first female (as the Scriptures show) Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe; 380 How Samson fell; and he whom Dejanire Wrapp'd in th' envenom'd shirt, and set on fire; How cursed Eriphyle her lord betray'd, And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid; But what most pleased him was the Cretan dame And husband-bull--Oh, monstrous! fye, for shame! He had by heart the whole detail of woe Xantippe made her good man undergo; How oft she scolded in a day he knew, How many pisspots on the sage she threw; 390 Who took it patiently, and wiped his head: 'Rain follows thunder,' that was all he said.