Page 2313 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

One justly weeps, the other takes in hand [1235]
No cause, but company, of her drops’ spilling;
Their gentle sex to weep are often willing,
Grieving themselves to guess at others’ smarts,

And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.

For men have marble, women waxen, minds, [1240]
And therefore are they form’d as marble will;
The weak oppress’d, th’impression of strange kinds

Is form’d in them by force, by fraud, or skill.
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
No more than wax shall be accounted evil, [1245]
Wherein is stamp’d the semblance of a devil.

Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,

Lays open all the little worms that creep;
In men as in a rough-grown grove remain
Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep; [1250]
Through crystal walls each little mote will peep;
Though men can cover them with bold stern looks,

Poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.

No man inveigh against the withered flower,
But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill’d; [1255]
Not that devour’d, but that which doth devour

Is worthy blame; O let it not be hild
Poor women’s faults, that they are so fulfill’d
With men’s abuses! those proud lords to blame
Make weak-made women tenants to their shame. [1260]

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,

Assail’d by night with circumstances strong
Of present death, and shame that might ensue
By that her death, to do her husband wrong;
Such danger to resistance did belong, [1265]

That dying fear through all her body spread;
And who cannot abuse a body dead?