Classic Poem

Griselda's dead, and so's her patience,
And both lie buried in a Lombard dale;
And thus I cry in open audience--
No wedded man should recklessly assail
His wife's patience in hope to find
Griselda's, for certainly he will fail.

O noble wives, full of high prudence,
Let not humility your sharp tongues nail,
Nor let a clerk misread your diffidence
And write of you so marvelous a tale
As of Griselda, patient, meek, and kind,
Lest a monster swallow you in its entrail.

Follow Echo, that tolerates no silence,
But ever answers with a counter hail;
Be not befuddled by your innocence,
But firmly make your tyranny prevail.
Imprint full well this lesson in your mind
For common profit, since it may avail.

You super-wives, stand up to your defence,
Since you're as strong as a camel or a whale;
Nor suffer men to do the least offence.
And punny wives, in struggle weak and frail,
Be fierce as Indian tiger toward mankind,
And clatter like a windmill at every male;

Nor dread them not, nor do them reverence,
For though your husband armed be in mail,
The arrows of your crabbed eloquence
Shall pierce his breast and headpiece, without fail.
Take this advice: use jealousy to bind,
And you shall make him cower as does a quail.

If you are fair, wherever crowds are dense
Show off your clothes and boldy your charms unveil;
If you are homely, be lavish of expense;
To win admiration spare no travail;
And light as linden leaf be unconfined--
And let him mope, and wring his hands, and wail.