Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow, and dart not scornful glances from those eyes to wound thy lord, thy kind, thy govener. It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads, confounds thy fame as whirlwinds do shake fair buds and in no sense is meet or amiable. A woman moved is as a fountain troubled: muddy, ill seeming, thick, bereft of beauty, and while it is so none so dry or thirsty will deign to sip or touch a drop of it. Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee and for thy maintenance commits his body to painful labour by both sea and land, to watch his nights in storms, his days in cold -- whilst thou liest at home, secure and safe -- and craves no other tribute at thy hands but love, fair looks, and true obediance...So little payment for so great a debt...Such duty as the subject owes the Prince, even such a woman oweth to her husband; and when she is forward, peevish, sullen, sour, and not obediant to his honest will, what is she but a foul contending rebel and graceless traitor to her loving lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple, to offer war where they should kneel for peace, to seek for rule, supremicy and sway when they are bound to serve, love, and obey. Why are our bodies smooth, weak and soft, unapt to toil and trouble in the world, but that our soft conditions and our hearts should well agree with our external parts? Come, come, you forward unable worms! My mind hath been as big as one of yours, my heart as great, my reason haply more, to bandy word for word and frown for frown. But now I see our lances are but straws, our strengths as weak, our weakness past compare, that seeming to be most which we indeed least are. So vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, and place your hand below your husbands foot, a token of which duty, is he please, my hand is ready. May it do him ease.

~

That, my friends, is the monologue I have to do today. Completely and utterly sexist, but wonderful monologue. Though I can never remember the line: That seeming to be most which we indeed least are. I had to cheat and look that one up on shakespeare.com. Bad me. But I'll get it by the time class starts, so it's all good. ;)

Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I would say good night 'til it be morrow!

.

Rosie.

Before&After