In this, less clear than clouded, mortal life,
Beset with snares, and full of envious strife.
If after painful proof we scarcely findBeset with snares, and full of envious strife.
A real friend, through various chances sought,
To whom we may communicate our mind,
The women turned to teeming wives, began,
Lest they in time so many males should bear
As might invade the sovereignty they plan,
And that the government they hold so dear
Might finally from them revert to man.
And so, while these are children yet, take measure,
They never shall rebel against their pleasure.
“That the male sex may not usurp the sway,
It is enacted by the statute fell,
‘Each mother should one boy preserve, and slay
The others, or abroad exchange or sell.
For this, they these to various parts convey,
And to the bearers of the children tell,
To truck the girls for boys in foreign lands,
Or not, at least, return with empty hands.’
“Nor by the women one preserved would be,
If they without them could the race maintain.
Such all their mercy, all the clemency
The law accords for theirs, not others’ gain.
Since Nature is herself a female hight.
“Yet be not therefore proud and full of scorn
Women, because man issues from your seed;
For roses also blossom on the thorn,
And the fair lily springs from loathsome weed.
Despiteous, proud, importunate, and lorn
Of love, of faith, of counsel, rash in deed,
With that, ungrateful, cruel and perverse,
And born to be the world’s eternal curse!”