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 beseemed his wit, 345 With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.[28] 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 availed 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, 355 A certain treatise, oft, at evening,[29] read, Where divers authors, whom the devil confound For all their lies, were in one volume bound. Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;[30] Chrysippus and Tertullian; Ovid's Art, 360 Solomon's Proverbs, Eloïsa's loves,[31] And many more than sure the church approves.[32] More legends were there, here, of wicked wives, Than good,[33] in all the Bible and saints' lives. Who drew the lion vanquished? 'Twas a man.[34] 365 But could we women write as scholars can, Men should stand marked 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.[35] 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. 375 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:[36] 380 How Sampson fell; and he, whom Dejanire Wrapp'd in th' envenomed shirt, and set on fire: How cursed Eryphile her lord betrayed, And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid:[37] But what most pleased him was the Cretan dame, 385 And husband-bull--oh monstrous! fie 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 piss-pots on the sage she threw; 390 Who took it patiently, and wiped his head;