O hard to be borne,
Often hard to be borne is woman's beauty!--
And well I guess it does but cover up
Enmity, hanging falseness between our souls,
And buy at a dishonest price the mouth
True nature hath for thee, to speak thee fair.
Were not man's thought so gilded with thy beauty,
Woman, and caught in the desire of thee,
O, there'ld be hatred in his use of thee.
You should be thankful for your pleasantness!
_Vashti_.
Yes, I am thankful. For I hope, my lord,
We women know our style. Ay, we are fooled
Sometimes with heady tampering thoughts, that come
To bother our submission, I confess.
We to ourselves have said, that when God took
The fierce beginning of the unwrought world
From out his fiery passion, and, breathing cool,
Tamed the wild molten being, with his hands
Fashion'd and workt the hot clay into world,
Then with green mercy quieted the land
And claspt it with the summer of blue seas,
With brooches of white spray along the shores,--
It was to be an equal dwelling-place
For humans that he did it, into sex
Unknowably dividing human kind.
But wickedly we say this. God made man
For his delight and praise, and then made woman
For man's delight and praise, submiss to man.
Else wherefore sex? And it is better thus,
To be man's pleasure.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27