To please herself, not all the female kind. One was for wealth, another was for place; Crones, old and ugly, wished a better face. The widow's wish was oftentimes to wed; The wanton maids were all for sport a-bed. Some said the sex were pleased with handsome lies, And some gross flattery loved without disguise. Truth is, says one, he seldom fails to win Who flatters well; for that's our darling sin. But long attendance, and a duteous mind, Will work even with the wisest of the kind. One thought the sex's prime felicity Was from the bonds of wedlock to be free; Their pleasures, hours, and actions, all their own, And, uncontrouled, to give account to none. Some wish a husband-fool; but such are cursed, For fools perverse of husbands are the worst. All women would be counted chaste and wise, Nor should our spouses see but with our eyes; For fools will prate; and though they want the wit To find close faults, yet open blots will hit; Though better for their ease to hold their tongue, For womankind was never in the wrong. So noise ensues, and quarrels last for life; The wife abhors the fool, the fool the wife. And some men say, that great delight have we To be for truth extolled, and secrecy; And constant in one purpose still to dwell, And not our husbands' counsels to reveal. But that's a fable; for our sex is frail, Inventing rather than not tell a tale. Like leaky sieves no secrets we can hold; Witness the famous tale that Ovid told.[208] Midas the king, as in his book appears, By Phoebus was endowed with asses ears, Which under his long locks he well concealed, (As monarchs' vices must not be revealed,) For fear the people have them in the wind, Who, long ago, were neither dumb nor blind; Nor apt to think from heaven their title springs, Since Jove and Mars left off begetting kings. This Midas knew; and durst communicate To none but to his wife his ears of state; One must be trusted, and he thought her fit, As passing prudent, and a parlous wit. To this sagacious confessor he went, And told her what a gift the gods had sent; But told it under matrimonial seal, With strict injunction never to reveal. The secret heard, she plighted him her troth, (And sacred sure is every woman's oath,) The royal malady should rest unknown, Both for her husband's honour and her own: But ne'ertheless she pined with discontent, The counsel rumbled till it found a vent. The thing she knew she was obliged to hide; } By interest and by oath the wife was tied, } But, if she told it not, the woman died. } Loth to betray a husband and a prince, } But she must burst or blab, and no pretence } Of honour tied her tongue from self-defence. } A marshy ground commodiously was near, Thither she ran, and held her breath for fear, Lest if a word she spoke of any thing, That word might be the secret of the king.