Fie, 'tis unmanly thus to sigh and groan :
What! would you have me to yourself alone?
Why take me, love! take all and every part!
Here's your revenge! you love it at your heart.
Would I vouchsafe to sell what nature gave,
You little think what custom I could have.
But see! I'm all your own-nay hold-for shame
What means my dear-indeed-you are to blame.
Thus with my first three lords I passed my life,
A very woman and a very wife.

What sums from these old spouses I could raise,
Procured young husbands in my riper days.
Though past my bloom, not yet decay'd was I,
Wanton and wild, and chatter'd like a pie.
In country dances still I bore the bell,
And sung as sweet as evening Philomel.
To clear my quailpipe, and refresh my soul,
Full oft I drain'd the spicy nut-brown bowl;
Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve,
And warm the swelling veins to feats of love:
For 'tis as sure, as cold engenders hail,
A liquorish mouth must have a lecherous tail:
Wine lets no lover unrewarded go,
As all true gamesters by experience know.
But oh, good gods! whene'er a thought I cast
On all the joys of youth and beauty pass'd,
To find in pleasures I have had my part,
Still warms me to the bottom of my heart.
This wicked world was once my dear delight;
Now, all my conquests, all my charms, good night!
The flour consumed, the best that now I can,
Is c'en to make my market of the bran.

My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding true;
He kept, 'twas thought, a private miss or two;
But all that score I paid-as how? you'll say,
Not with my body in a filthy way:

But I so dress'd, and danced, and drank, and dined,
And view'd a friend with eyes so very kind,
As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry
With burning rage, and frantic jealousy.
His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory,
For here on earth I was his purgatory.
Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung,
He put on careless airs, and sate and sung.
How sore I gall'd him, only Heaven could know,
And he that felt, and I that caused the woe.
He died, when last from pilgrimage I came,
With other gossips, from Jerusalem;
And now lies buried underneath a rood,
Fair to be seen, and rear'd of honest wood:
A tomb indeed, with fewer sculptures graced
Than that Mausolus' pious widow placed,
Or where inshrined the great Darius lay;
But cost on graves is merely thrown away.
The pit fill'd up, with turf we cover'd o'er ;
So bless the good man's soul, I'll say no more.
Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and best,
(Kind Heaven afford him everlasting rest!),
Full hearty was his love, and I can show
The tokens on my ribs in black and blue;
Yet, with a knack, my heart he could have won,
While yet the smart was shooting in the bone.
How quaint an appetite in women reigns!

Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains:
Let men avoid us, and on them we leap;
A glutted market makes provision cheap.

In pure good-will I took this jovial spark,
Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk.

He boarded with a widow in the town,
A trusty gossip, one dame Alison.
Full well the secrets of my soul she knew,
Better than e'er our parish priest could do.
To her I told whatever could befall:
Had but my husband piss'd against the wall,
Or done a thing that might have cost his life,
She-and my niece-and one more worthy wife,
Had known it all: what most he would conceal,
To these I made no scruple to reveal.
Oft has he blush'd from ear to ear for shame,
That e'er he told a secret to his dame.
It so befell, in holy time of Lent,
That oft a day I to this gossip went.

(My husband, thank my stars, was out of town ;)
From house to house we rambled up and down,
This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse,
To see,
be seen, to tell and gather tales.
Visits to every church we daily paid,
And march'd in every holy masquerade,
The stations duly and the vigils kept;
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my best array;
The cause was this, I wore it every day.
'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields,
This clerk and I were walking in the fields,
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,

I pawn'd my honour, and engaged my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed; '
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul.

I vow'd I scarce could sleep since first I knew him,
And durst be sworn he had bewitch'd me to him;
If e'er I slept, I dream'd of him alone,

And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown;
All this I said; but dreams, sirs, I had none:
I follow'd but my crafty crony's lore,
Who bid me tell this lie-and twenty more.

Thus day by day, and month by month we pass'd,
It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last.
I tore my gown, I soil'd my locks with dust,
And beat my breast as wretched widows-must.
Before my face my handkerchief I spread,
To hide the flood of tears I did not shed.
The good man's coffin to the church was borne:
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn.
But as he march'd, good gods! he show'd a pair
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters' age he seem'd to be,
I (to say truth) was twenty more than he:
But vigorous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wondrous gift to quench a flame.
A conjuror once, that deeply could divine,
Assured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign.
As the stars order'd, such my life has been:
Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!
Fair Venus gave me fire and sprightly grace,
And Mars assurance and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this powerful constellation,

I follow'd always my own inclination.
But to my tale: A month scarce pass'd away,
With dance and song we kept the nuptial day;
All I possess'd I gave to his command,

My goods and chattels, money, house, and land:

STATIUS HIS THEBAIS.

FRATERNAL rage
the guilty Thebes alarms,
The alternate reign destroy'd by impious arms,
Demand our song; a sacred fury fires

My ravish'd breast, and all the muse inspires.
O goddess! say, shall I deduce my rhymes
From the dire nation in its early times,
Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree,
And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea?
How with the serpent's teeth he sowed the soil,
And reap'd an iron harvest of his toil?
Or how from joining stones the city sprung,
While to his harp divine Amphion sung?
Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound,
Whose fatal rage the unhappy monarch found?
The sire against the son his arrows drew,
O'er the wide fields the furious mother flew,
And while her arms a second hope contain,
Sprung from the rocks, and plunged into the main.

But wave whate'er to Cadmus may belong,
And fix, O Muse! the barrier of thy song
At Edipus-from his disasters trace

The long confusions of his guilty race:
Nor yet attempt to stretch thy older wing,
And mighty Cæsar's conquering eagles sing:
How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood,
While Dacian mountains stream'd with barbarous
blood:

Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,
And stretch'd his empire to the frozen pole:
Or long before, with early valour, strove
In youthful arms to assert the cause of Jove.
And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame,
Increase of glory to the Latian name,
O bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,
Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain!
What though the stars contract their heavenly space,
And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee place;
Though all the skies, ambitious of thy sway,
Conspire to court thee from our world away;
Though Phoebus longs to mix his rays with thine,
And in thy glories more serenely shine;
Though Jove himself no less content would be
To part his throne, and share his heaven with thee;
Yet stay, great Cæsar! and vouchsafe to reign
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the watery main; /
Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,
And people heaven with Roman deities.

1

The time will come, when a diviner flame Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar's fame: Meanwhile permit, that my preluding muse In Theban wars a humbler theme may chuse : Of furious hate, surviving death, she sings, A fatal throne to two contending kings, And funeral flames, that parting wide in air, Express the discord of the souls they bear:

With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep,
In heaps, her slaughter'd sons into the deep.
What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate?
The rage of Tydeus, or the prophet's fate?
Or how, with hills of slain on every side,
Hippomedon repell'd the hostile tide?
Or how the youth, with every grace adorn'd,
Untimely fell, to be for ever mourn'd?
Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,
And sing with horror his prodigious end.

Now wretched Edipus, deprived of sight,
Led a long death in everlasting night;
But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray
Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day;
The clear reflecting mind presents his sin
In frightful views, and makes it day within;
Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,
And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul;
The wretch then lifted to the unpitying skies,
Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes,
Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hand he

strook,

While from his breast these dreadful accents broke: 'Ye gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign, Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain;

Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are roll'd
Through dreary coasts, which I, though blind, behold.
Tissiphone, that oft hast heard my prayer,
Assist, if Edipus deserve thy care!

If you received me from Jocasta's womb,

And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come:
If, leaving Polybus, I took my way

To Cyrrha's temple, on that fatal day,
When by the son the trembling father died,
Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide:
If I the Sphinx's riddles durst explain,
Taught by thyself to win the promised reign;
If wretched I, by baleful Furies led,
With monstrous mixture stain'd my mother's bed,
For hell and thee begot an impious brood,
And with full lust those horrid joys renew'd;
Then self-condemn'd to shades of endless night,
Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight;
O hear, and aid the vengeance I require,
If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire!
My sons their old unhappy sire despise,
Spoil'd of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes;
Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn,
While these exalt their sceptres o'er my urn;
These sons, ye gods! who, with flagitious pride,
Insult my darkness, and my groans deride.
Art thou a father, unregarding Jove!
And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above?
Thou Fury, then, some lasting curse entail,
Which o'er their children's children shall prevail:
Place on their heads that crown distain'd with gore,
Which these dire hands from my slain father tore;
Go, and a parent's heavy curses bear;

Break all the bonds of nature, and prepare
Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war.
Give them to dare, what I might wish to see,
Blind as I am, some glorious villany!
Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands,
Their ready guilt preventing thy commands:

And all the furrows in confusion lay;
Such was the discord of the royal pair,
Whom fury drove precipitate to war.
In vain the chiefs contrived a specious way,
To govern Thebes by their alternate sway :
Unjust decree! while this enjoys the state,
That mourns in exile his unequal fate,

Foresees with anguish his returning heir.
Thus did the league their impious arms restrain,
But scarce subsisted to the second reign.

Yet then no proud aspiring piles were raised,
No fretted roof with polish'd metals blazed;
No labour'd columns in long order placed,
No Grecian stone the pompous arches grac'd;
No nightly bands in glittering armour wait

high,

A fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky.

And the cold north receives a fainter day;
For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice,

came

Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame.
From every blast of her contagious breath,
Famine and drought proceed, and plagues and death.
A robe obscene was o'er her shoulders thrown,
A dress by Fates and Furies worn alone.
She toss'd her meagre arms: her better hand
In waving circles whirl'd a funeral brand:
A serpent from her left was seen to rear
His flaming crest, and lash the yielding air.

But when the Fury took her stand on high,
Where vast Citharon's top salutes the sky,
A hiss from all the snaky tire went round;
The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound,
And through the Achaian cities send the sound.
Ete, with high Parnassus, heard the voice;
Eurotus' banks remurmur'd to the noise;
Again Leucothoë shook at these alarms,
And press'd Palæmon closer in her arms.
Headlong from thence the glowing Fury springs,
And o'er the Theban palace spreads her wings,
Once more invades the guilty dome, and shrouds
Its bright pavilions in a veil of clouds.
Straight with the rage of all their race possess'd,
Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest,
And all their furies wake within their breast.
Their tortured minds repining envy tears,
And hate engender'd by suspicious fears;
And sacred thirst of sway; and all the ties
Of nature broke; and royal perjuries;
And impotent desire to reign alone,
That scorns the dull reversion of a throne;
Each would the sweets of sovereign rule devour,
While discord waits upon divided power.

As stubborn steers by brawny plowmen broke,
And join'd reluctant to the galling yoke,
Alike disdain with servile necks to bear
The unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share,

But Fortune now (the lots of empire thrown) Decrees to proud Eteocles the crown : What joys, oh tyrant! swell'd thy soul that day, When all were slaves thou couldst around survey, Pleased to behold unbounded power thy own, And singly fill a fear'd and envied throne!

But the vile vulgar, ever discontent,
Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent;
Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state,
And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate:
New lords they madly make, then tamely bear,
And softly curse the tyrants whom they fear.
And one of those who groan beneath the sway
Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey,
(Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spite
With scandal arm'd, the ignoble mind's delight,)
Exclaim'd-'O Thebes! for thee what fates remain !
What woes attend this inauspicious reign!
Must we,
alas! our doubtful necks prepare,
Each haughty master's yoke by turns to bear,
And still to change whom changed we still must
fear?

These now control a wretched people's fate,
These can divide, and these reverse the state:
E'en fortune rules no more:-O servile land,
Where exil'd tyrants still by turns command.
Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove!
Is this the eternal doom decreed above?
On thy own offspring hast thou fix'd this fate,
From the first birth of our unhappy state;
When banish'd Cadmus, wandering o'er the main,
For lost Europa search'd the world in vain,
And, fated in Baotian fields to found
A rising empire on a foreign ground,
First raised our walls on that ill-omen'd plain,
Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain?
What lofty looks the unrivall'd monarch bears!
How all the tyrant in his face appears;