The Works of Alexander Pope Part 30

He boarded with a widow in the town,[20] 265 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 p.i.s.sed against a wall, 270 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 blushed from ear to ear for shame, 275 That e'er he told a secret to his dame.

It so befel, 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, 280 This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse, To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.[21]

Visits to ev'ry church we daily paid, And marched in every holy masquerade, The stations duly,[22] and the vigils kept; 285 Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.

At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay, } The wasting moth ne'er spoiled my best array; } The cause was this, I wore it ev'ry day. }

'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields, 290 This clerk and I were walking in the fields.

We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,[23]

I p.a.w.ned my honour, and engaged my vow, If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,[24]

That he, and only he, should serve my turn. 295 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 vowed, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, 300 And durst be sworn he had bewitched me to him; If e'er I slept, I dreamed of him alone, } And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown: } All this I said; but dreams, sirs, I had none: } I followed but my crafty crony's lore, 305 Who bid me tell this lie, and twenty more.[25]

Thus day by day, and month by month we pa.s.sed; It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last.

I tore my gown, I soiled my locks with dust, And beat my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as wretched widows must.[26] 310 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 marched, good G.o.ds! he showed a pair 315 Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!

Of twenty winters' age he seemed to be; I, to say truth, was twenty more than he; But vig'rous still, a lively buxom dame; And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame. 320 A conj'ror once, that deeply could divine, a.s.sured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign.

As the stars ordered, such my life has been: Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!

Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace, 325 And Mars a.s.surance, and a dauntless face.

By virtue of this pow'rful constellation, I followed, always, my own inclination.

But to my tale: A month scarce pa.s.sed away, With dance and song, we kept the nuptial day. 330 All I possessed I gave to his command, My goods and chattels, money, house, and land: But oft repented, and repent it still;[27]

He proved a rebel to my sov'reign will: Nay, once, by heav'n! he struck me on the face; 335 Hear but the fact, and judge, yourselves, the case.

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, p.r.i.c.ks 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, Elosa'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 p.i.s.s-pots on the sage she threw; 390 Who took it patiently, and wiped his head; "Rain follows thunder," that was all he said.

He read how Arius to his friend complained, A fatal tree was growing in his land, On which three wives successively had twined 395 A sliding noose, and wavered in the wind.

Where grows this plant, replied the friend, oh! where?

For better fruit did never orchard bear; Give me some slip of this most blissful tree, And, in my garden, planted shall it be. 400 Then, how two wives their lords' destruction prove, Through hatred one, and one through too much love; That for her husband mixed a pois'nous draught, And this, for l.u.s.t, an am'rous philtre bought: The nimble juice soon seized his giddy head, 405 Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.[38]

How some, with swords, their sleeping lords have slain, And some have hammered nails into their brain, And some have drenched them with a deadly potion; All this he read, and read with great devotion. 410 Long time I heard, and swelled, and blushed,[39] and frowned; But when no end of these vile tales I found, When still he read, and laughed, and read again, And half the night was thus consumed in vain; Provoked to vengeance, three large leaves I tore, 415 And, with one buffet, felled him on the floor.

With that, my husband in a fury rose, And down he settled me, with hearty blows.

I groaned, and lay extended on my side; Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth, I cried,[40] 420 Yet I forgive thee--take my last embrace-- He wept, kind soul! and stooped to kiss my face; I took him such a box as turned him blue, Then sighed and cried, Adieu, my dear, adieu![41]

But, after many a hearty struggle past, 425 I condescended to be pleased at last.

Soon as he said, My mistress and my wife, Do what you list, the term of all your life, I took to heart the merits of the cause, And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; 430 Received the reins of absolute command, } With all the government of house and land, } And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand. } As for the volume that reviled the dames, 'Twas torn to fragments, and condemned to flames. 435 Now heav'n, on all my husbands gone, bestow Pleasures above, for tortures felt below: That rest they wished for, grant them in the grave, And bless those souls my conduct helped to save!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope has departed at the outset from the conception of Chaucer. The purpose of the tale which the wife of Bath tells is to show that women love, above all things, to govern; and her personal history, which she relates in the prologue, is an account of the means by which she reduced her husbands to submission. It was not her own matrimonial woes, which had been slight enough, that she was about to set forth, but the miseries of those whom it is her boast to have worried into obedience to her will. As Pope correctly renders the original, she states that the pains referred to the smart she had inflicted on her husbands; and, far from alleging that "dear-bought wisdom" had taught her that matrimony to a woman was a life of suffering, she thanks G.o.d that she has been married five times already, and declares that directly her fifth mate is dead, she will marry a sixth.

When my husband is from the world i-gone, Some Christian man shall wedde me anon.]

[Footnote 2: "Twelve" in the original.]

[Footnote 3:

Beside a welle Jesus, G.o.d and man, Spake in reproof of the Samaritan: "Thou hast i-had five husbandes," quoth he, "And that ilk-man, which that now hath thee Is not thine husband." Thus he said certain; What that he meant thereby I cannot sayn, But that I axe why the fithe man Was not husband to the Samaritan?

The question is addressed to those who deny the validity of second marriages, and she asks them to explain upon their theory why the fifth man was not properly the husband of the Samaritan woman, when there is the authoritative declaration of Scripture that he was.]

[Footnote 4: Pope alone is responsible for the second half of this line, which in its present application has an unbecoming levity. There was a pardoner in the company, a person who got his living by selling indulgences, and by displaying the pretended relics of saints, who says that he was about to marry, but that he shall abandon his intention now that he learns what despotic authority wives exercise over husbands. The wife of Bath, unabashed, informs him that what she has told is nothing in comparison with that which is to follow:

Abide, quoth she, my tale is not begun.

Nay, thou shalt drinke of another tun Ere that I go, shall savour worse than ale.

And when that I have told thee forth my tale Of tribulation in marriage, Of which I am expert in all my age, That is to say, myself hath been the whip, Then might thou choose whether thou wilt sip Of thilke tunne that I shall abroach: Beware of it ere thou too nigh approach.

These dramatic touches omitted by Pope give life to the piece, and individuality to the characters.]

[Footnote 5: In the original,

I shall say sooth of husbands that I had, As three of them were good, and two were bad.

She meant that the two were rebellious in comparison with the three who were her slaves; for in speaking of the entire five, at the commencement of the prologue, she added,

And all were worthy men in their degree.

Pope has fallen into an inconsistency. He states that the three old husbands were those who "were just tolerable." Yet when he comes to describe the youngest of the two, whom he here calls "bad," he makes the wife of Bath exclaim,

Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and _best_,

In Chaucer she distinctly denies that he was the best, but says she _loved_ him best, and proceeds to explain the reason, which is that women always value those most who treat them with harshness or indifference.]

[Footnote 6: This trait in the wife of Bath's character is brought out more distinctly by Chaucer:

Me needeth not no longer doon diligence To win their love, or do them reverence.

They loved me so well, high G.o.d above!

That I tolde no deynte of their love.

A wise woman will busy her ever in one To gete her love, there she hath none.

But synnes I had them wholly in my hand And synnes they had me given all their land, What should I take keep them for to please But it were for my profit or mine ease?

"I tolde no deynte of their love," means I set no store by it; "ever in one" is always; and "take keep" is take care.]

[Footnote 7: The wife of Bath's first lesson in the art of domestic government is a panegyric upon the advantages of st.u.r.dy lying, in which Pope has not gone beyond the original:

Ye wise wives that can understand Thus should ye speak, and bear them wrong in hand; For half so boldely can there no man Swere and lie as a woman can.

"To bear them wrong in hand" is to affirm wrongfully or falsely. The phrase "to bear in hand" for "to a.s.severate," was still frequently used in the reign of Charles II.]