A most compendious way, and civil,
At once to cheat the world, the devil,
And heaven and hell, yourselves, and those
On whom you vainly think t’ impose.
Why then (quoth he) may hell surprise—
That trick (said she) will not pass twice:
I’ve learn’d how far I’m to believe
Your pinning oaths upon your sleeve.
But there’s a better way of clearing
What you would prove than downright swearing:
For if you have perform’d the feat,
The blows are visible as yet,
Enough to serve for satisfaction
Of nicest scruples in the action:
And if you can produce those knobs,
Although they’re but the witch’s drubs,
I’ll pass them all upon account,
As if your natural self had done ’t;
Provided that they pass th’ opinion
Of able juries of old women,
Who, us’d to judge all matter of facts
For bellies, may do so for backs.
Madam, (quoth he) your love’s a million;
To do is less than to be willing,
As I am, were it in my power,
T’ obey, what you command, and more:
But for performing what you bid,
I thank you ’s much as if I did.
You know I ought to have a care
To keep my wounds from taking air:
For wounds in those that are all heart,
Are dangerous in any part.
I find (quoth she) my goods and chattels
Are like to prove but mere drawn battels;
For still the longer we contend,
We are but farther off the end.
But granting now we should agree,
What is it you expect from me?
Your plighted faith (quoth he) and word
You past in heaven on record,
Where all contracts, to have and t’ hold,
Are everlastingly enroll’d:
And if ’tis counted treason here
To raze records, ’tis much more there.
Quoth she, There are no bargains driv’n,
Or marriages clapp’d up in heav’n,
And that’s the reason, as some guess,
There is no heav’n in marriages;
Two things that naturally press
Too narrowly to be at ease.
Their bus’ness there is only love,
Which marriage is not like t’ improve:
Love, that’s too generous to abide
To be against its nature ty’d;
Or where ’tis of itself inclin’d,
It breaks loose when it is confin’d;
And like the soul, its harbourer,
Debarr’d the freedom of the air,
Disdains against its will to stay,
But struggles out, and flies away;
And therefore never can comply
T’ endure the matrimonial tie,
That binds the female and the male,
Where th’ one is but the other’s bail;
Like Roman gaolers, when they slept,
Chain’d to the prisoners they kept;
Of which the true and faithfull’st lover
Gives best security to suffer.
Marriage is but a beast, some say,
That carries double in foul way;
And therefore ’tis not to b’ admir’d,
It should so suddenly be tir’d;
A bargain at a venture made,
Between two partners in a trade;
(For what’s inferr’d by t’ have and t’ hold,
But something past away, and sold?)
That as it makes but one of two,
Reduces all things else as low,
And, at the best, is but a mart
Between the one and th’ other part,
That on the marriage-day is paid,
Or hour of death, the bet is laid;
And all the rest of better or worse,
Both are but losers out of purse;
For when upon their ungot heirs
Th’ entail themselves, and all that’s theirs,
What blinder bargain e’er was driv’n,
Or wager laid at six and seven?
To pass themselves away, and turn
Their children’s tenants e’re they’re born?
Beg one another idiot
To guardians, ere they are begot;
Or ever shall, perhaps, by th’ one
Who’s bound to vouch ’em for his own,
Though got b’ implicit generation,
And gen’ral club of all the nation;
For which she’s fortify’d no less
Than all the island, with four seas;
Exacts the tribute of her dower,
In ready insolence and power;
And makes him pass away, to have
And hold, to her, himself, her slave,
More wretched than an ancient villain,145
Condemn’d to drudgery and tilling;
While all he does upon the by,
She is not bound to justify,
Nor at her proper cost and charge
Maintain the feats he does at large.
Such hideous sots were those obedient
Old vassals to their ladies regent,
To give the cheats the eldest hand
In foul play by the laws o’ th’ land;
For which so many a legal cuckold
Has been run down in courts and truckled;
A law that most unjustly yokes
All Johns of Stiles to Joans of Noakes,
Without distinction of degree,
Condition, age, or quality:
Admits no power of revocation,
Nor valuable consideration,
Nor writ of error, nor reverse
Of judgment past, for better or worse:
Will not allow the privileges
That beggars challenge under hedges,
Who, when they’re griev’d, can make dead horses
Their spiritual judges of divorces;
While nothing else but Rem in Re
Can set the proudest wretches free;
A slavery beyond enduring,
But that ’tis of their own procuring.
As spiders never seek the fly,
But leave him, of himself, t’ apply
So men are by themselves employ’d,
To quit the freedom they enjoy’d,
And run their necks into a noose,
They’d break ’em after to break loose;
As some, whom death would not depart,
Have done the feat themselves by art;
Like Indian widows, gone to bed
In flaming curtains to the dead;146
And men as often dangled for’t,
And yet will never leave the sport.
Nor do the ladies want excuse
For all the stratagems they use
To gain th’ advantage of the set,
And lurch the amorous rook and cheat:
For as the Pythagorean soul
Runs through all beasts, and fish, and fowl,147
And has a smack of ev’ry one,
So love does, and has ever done;
And therefore, though ’tis ne’er so fond,
Takes strangely to the vagabond.
’Tis but an ague that’s reverst,
Whose hot fit takes the patient first,
That after burns with cold as much
As ir’n in Greenland does the touch;
Melts in the furnace of desire
Like glass, that’s but the ice of fire;
And when his heat of fancy’s over,
Becomes as hard and frail a lover:
For when he’s with love-powder laden,
And prim’d and cock’d by Miss or Madam,
The smallest sparkle of an eye
Gives fire to his artillery,
And off the loud oaths go; but, while
They’re in the very act, recoil.
Hence ’tis so few dare take their chance
Without a sep’rate maintenance;
And widows, who have try’d one lover,
Trust none again, ’till th’ have made over;
Or if they do, before they marry,
The foxes weigh the geese they carry;
And ere they venture o’er a stream,
Know how to size themselves and them;
Whence wittiest ladies always choose
To undertake the heaviest goose:
For now the world is grown so wary,
That few of either sex dare marry,
But rather trust on tick t’ amours,
The
