Pity the man who overleaps his horse;
Let him that likes, my meaning understand,
That from myself my means have taken flight;
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
May my curse ’mongst women rest,
Although for a time I mixed with them;
As for men who still are single,
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
That man who early is on foot,
Cannot but many evils find;
Were I to tell what I have seen,
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
The man who has got a useless wife,
Cannot do much before the foe,
The first milch cows that bellow loud;
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
The wife who listens to my speech,
Who listens to my voice and cry,
Just as if wax were in her ears;
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
Her husband she to wrath provokes,
Different her manner with all else,
For them she lightly steps about;
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
Were she to see a weeping eye,
With any youth of handsome form,
To him she would not run but leap;
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
Where is the young and sprightly maid,
Who would not quietly give her kiss,
To any lips that she might meet?
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
Though married from th’ altar and the church,
From the good priest’s worthy hand,
Still are her way and temper bad;
’Tis best to have nought to do with women.
’Tis best to have nought to do with women,
Wrath and annoyance they provoke;
He who does not this proclaim
Is sure to find a woe himself.
Pity.
[172] The following is the composition of Gerald Fitzgerald, the fourth
Earl of Desmond. He is known in Ireland as Earl Gerald, the poet. There
are several of his compositions scattered over the MS.; but as they
are mostly of the same character--satires on the female sex--it has
been thought that one specimen is sufficient. The Editor thought it
desirable to give one of those, with a view to a fair representation of
the contents of the MS., although there is not much in the composition
itself to render it worthy of being rescued from oblivion.
The author of this is Andrew M’Intosh.
The coquetry of Duncan from Taid’s daughter,
The most impudent coquetry men have seen,
The coquetry of the wife of David,
Coquetting like the wind in her red-tailed skirts,
Men had thought that I was dumb,
Whilst I’d three reasons not to speak.