Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 3.pdf/81

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Great must your grief be, as I trow,

For noble hearts will ne’er allow

Slight woes to wear them, vile must be

The wretch who works you misery.

But oft a woman’s heart will fire

For smallest cause with bitterest ire.

To Virgil I the case refer,

Who well knew woman’s character.

A woman’s heart is nowise stable,

Saith he, but ever variable.

Capricious, and by anger led.

And Solomon declares her head

Is than an angry serpent’s worse,

Which merited God’s primal curse.

Nought else, saith he, is so with spite

Possessed, and ne’er hath man aright

Described in rathe, or later time

Her evil ways in prose or rhyme.

And Titus Livius, (who well knew

The modes and manners through and through

Of women, and their minds perverse,)

In language vigorous and terse

Declares, he best succeeds who tries

To warp their minds with japes and lies;

So foolish are they and unstable,

That truth they hate, but cling to fable.

And in the Holy Scripture we

This judgment plainly writ may see:

That at the bottom of all vice

In women is foul avarice.