Ordinary knowledge of the world is sufficient to suggest that his association with a village girl eight years older than himself could not satisfy him or fill his life. The study of his works confirms this conjecture. It would, of course, be unreasonable to attribute conscious and deliberate autobiographical import to speeches torn from their context in different plays; but there are none the less several passages in his dramas which may fairly be taken as indicating that he regarded his marriage in the light of a youthful folly. Take, for example, this passage in _Twelfth Night_ (ii. 4):-- "_Duke_. What kind of woman is't? _Vio_. Of your complexion. _Duke_. She is not worth thee then. What years, i' faith? _Vio_. About your years, my lord. _Duke_. Too old, by Heaven. Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women's are. _Vio_. think it well, my lord. _Duke_. Then, let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; For women are as roses, whose fair flower, Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour." And this is in the introduction to the Fool's exquisite song about the power of love, that song which "The spinsters and the knitters in the sun And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant"--Shakespeare's loveliest lyric. There are passages in other plays which seem to show traces of personal regret at the memory of this early marriage and the circumstances under which it came about. In the _Tempest_, for instance, we have Prospero's warning to Ferdinand (iv. I):-- "If thou dost break her virgin-knot before All sanctimonious ceremonies may, With full and holy rite, be minister'd, No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow, but barren hate, Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew The union of your bed with weeds so loathly, That you shall hate it both." Two of the comedies of Shakespeare's first period are, as we might expect, imitations, and even in part adaptations, of older plays. By comparing them, where it is possible, with these earlier works, we can discover, among other things, the thoughts to which Shakespeare, in these first years in London, was most intent on giving utterance. It thus appears that he held strong views as to the necessary subordination of the female to the male, and as to the trouble caused by headstrong, foolish, or jealous women.