Classic Poem

" " THE king who first gave laws unto the Greeks,
Phoroneus, unto his brother said,
While lying on his deathbed: " If I knew
You'd never wed, I could most happy die. "
Leontius asked the reason. He replied:
" All husbands prove by sad experience
The truth of my opinion, which you'll know
Right well if e'er you dare to take a wife. "
" " In turn confesses Peter Abelard,
Who loved the abbess of the Paraclete,
That Heloise wished never to agree
That he should take her for his wedded wife.
She was a wise, well-educated maid,
Well loved and loving, yet with arguments
She taught her lover wedlock to avoid.
Her letters pointed out how hard are found
The circumstances of a wedded life,
No matter how discreet the wife may be.
Not only had she read and studied books
But learned of woman's nature in herself.
That he should love her she made her demand
But also that he'd claim no other right
Than what was granted freely, of good grace,
Without supremacy or mastership;
That he might study freely, without tie
Though hers, while she, in science not unversed,
Pursued her studies, too. She said at least
Their joys would be more pleasing when they met,
Their solace would by absence be increased.
But he, as he has writ for us to read,
Loved her so much that he must marry her
Against her good advice; whence came mischance.
No sooner had they joined in this accord
Than she was, as a nun, at Argenteuil
Immured; and he, at Paris caught one night
Abed, was made emasculate by foes,
Living thenceforth in shame and impotence.
A monk of Saint Denis he then became,
And later abbot of another house;
And then, we're told in his biography,
He built the famous abbey, Paraclete,
Of which the former nun, his Heloise,
Was abbess made. And she herself recounts
In writing, unashamed, that she so loved
Him that she called him master and her lord.
Some say her letters show insanity,
But marvelous are many things she wrote,
Which one who reads attentively may find,
And which she sent especially to him
E'en after she had donned the abbess' robe.
She writes, " If e'en the Emperor of Rome,
In whose subjection everyone should be,
Should ever wish to take me as his wife
And make me foremost lady in the world
(I call on God to witness what I say),
I'd rather be your mistress than crowned queen. "
But, by my soul, I scarcely can believe
That such another woman ever lived.
It was her education, I suppose,
That taught her how she best could hold in curb
Her woman's nature; and, if Abelard
Had trusted her, he had not come to grief.
" " Marriage is but an evil bond. Help me,
Saint Julian, who aids all wanderers,
Saint Leonard, who the prisoners unchains
When they, repentant, make appeal to him!
'Twere better on my wedding day I'd hanged
Than married one who shows such coquetry
That her deceit will bring me to my grave.
By Virgin Mary's son, what good to me
Is all this bravery, this costly dress,
All the expense that makes you vain and proud
But only vexes me and gives me grief?
The more your long and sweeping train you swing,
In which you take such pride, the more I rave.
What profit have I in such luxury?
However much you others please with them,
You give me but annoyance with your clothes.
If I desire with you to take delight,
The things you wear are always in the way;
You're so dressed up in your encumberments
That, thanks to them, I never gain my end.
I never can succeed to hold you close;
Such turnings and such twistings you perform
That always you escape from my embrace.
You ward me off with arms and hips and legs.
I don't know why it is, but plainly see
That all my amorousness and offered bliss
Are most distasteful — please you not at all.
At night when I'm abed and share my couch
With you, as every man does with his wife,
Then you, indeed, must needs undress yourself;
And what good then are all your clothes to me?
In bed you nothing wear upon your head,
Upon your naked body and your limbs,
Except, perhaps, a linen nightcap white,
Bedecked with ribbon bows of green or blue
To give protection to your coiffured hair.
Then all your dresses and your costly furs
Wave in the air all night upon a rail.
Except to sell or pawn, they're naught to me.
No wonder that you see me so enraged,
Dying of ire that I can't rid myself
Of trumpery that bothers me all day
And adds not to my pleasure in the night.
How profit I from it unpawned, unsold?
As for yourself, if I must tell the truth,
You're not worth one whit more because of it
Either in sense or good companionship,
Or even in attractiveness, by God!
If someone to confound me should respond,
" Fine feathers make fine birds, and ornaments
Women's and maidens' beauty oft improve! "
I'd answer him most shortly that he lied.
The beauty of whatever thing is fair —
Be it a violet, be it a rose,
Be it a fleur-de-lis or silken gown —
As I in Scripture read, stays in itself
And to the one who wears it ne'er transfers.
You women should perceive that all your lives
You'll have no beauty but that given at birth.
Of goodness I will make the same remark.
Exemplification makes my meaning plain:
A dungheap covered o'er with silk or flowers,
No matter how made neat or how disguised,
Remains a dunghill still, and smells the same.
And should you say, " Though it be foul within,
Without it looks much better than before;
So, too, the ladies dress that they may seem
More fair, or that their foulness may be hid, "
My faith, the only answer I could give
Is that one so deceived is surely blind
To all but outward show, ignores the heart,
Alone upon a fair impression trusts
That from his fooled imagination comes,
Unable to discern 'twixt lie and truth,
And, ignorant, succumbs to sophistry.
If men had lynx's eyes and were more wise,
To them no woman would appear more fair
Because of sable mantle or rich cloak
Or panniers or guimpes or headdresses
Or pelisses or finest linen gowns
Or jewelry or other ornaments
Or bonnets trimmed with floral novelties
Or simpering expression on her face
Or any superficial brilliancy
Which makes her seem most like a work of art.
Than Alcibiades no one more fair
Could be in figure or in coloring,
So well had Nature formed him; but within
That wise and worthy man, Boethius,
Says one would find that he was far too foul.
He Aristotle cites, and quotes his words
That one would see this had he eye of lynx,
Whose vision is so piercing and so clear
That he sees plainly everything, inside and out." "